2018 Save Texas History Symposium — Texas History Resources Workshop

Published in

Save Texas History

6 min readJul 5, 2018

Registration for the ninth annual Save Texas History Symposium includes the Texas History Resources Workshop being held at Alamo Hall on Friday, September 14 from 1:00–5:15. Speakers from the Alamo, Fort Sam Houston, the Portal to Texas History, the DRT Collection at Texas A&M-San Antonio, the Institute of Texan Culture, the Bexar Archives, and the San Antonio Museum of Art will provide information on studying Texas history. This workshop will benefit genealogists and those interested in studying and teaching Texas history.

Registration for this workshop is included for those who register for the symposium. Click here to register.

Speakers are listed below, along with a short description of what they will be discussing.

Machaia McClenny & Sherri Driscoll — The Diversity of Alamo Defenders

Machaia McClenny (left) and Sheri Driscoll (right)

The men who defended the Alamo represented the entire spectrum of age, country of origin, social status, military rank, ethnicity, etc. Furthermore, their motivations for being there varied wildly. Some hoped to earn land for fighting in the battle, others wanted glory, some were defending their home, and a few were there simply because they believed in the cause. Despite all of those disparate elements, they were all here — they all fought and died together.

Jackie Davis — 300 YEARS OF MILITARY SERVICE: The first 127 years

Although we all acknowledge the presence of the three predecessor military forces in Texas (Spanish, Mexican and Texian) before the arrival of the U.S. Army in 1845, we seldom consider them in the way we do our present Army. A look at how our predecessors were organized and commanded; uniformed, equipped and supplied, and what were their missions. And just what was a Presidial Soldier?

Jake Mangum — Portal to Texas History

The Portal to Texas History is a digital repository for historical and cultural heritage materials. The materials hosted on the Portal are the product of collaboration between the University of North Texas Libraries and Portal Partners, which include genealogical societies, museums, libraries, government agencies, and private collectors. The presentation will provide users with an overview of the Portal to Texas History, how one could use it for their own research interests, and highlights some of the various collections on the Portal.

Leslie Stapleton — An Overview of the Archives and Special Collections at Texas A&M University — San Antonio

Get a brief overview of the holdings of the Archives and Special Collections at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. You will learn about the University’s young and growing collection in addition to the already mature collection from the DRT Library, which is now on loan to the University. You will learn about the different types of material available for research, and see some of the highlights of the collection. Learn about our Presidio Gallery and how you can schedule field trips for guided tours of the exhibit. Housed downtown in the Bexar County Archives Building the collection is open to the public for research by appointment. Come see what we have to enhance your research and/or teaching experience.

Lynn Yakubik — Institute of Texas Cultures

The UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures offers many options for engaging learning! Discover how a TEKS based field trip to the museum with hands on exhibits about the many cultures that settled Texas or a tour of the Back 40 living history area highlighting the hard work and resourcefulness shown by the pioneers brings your textbooks to life! Can’t make it here? Find out about our online curriculum and our Tex Kit traveling trunks for your classroom (with tips for making your own!) And finally, learn about our certified professional development workshops throughout the year.

John Wheat — The Béxar Archives: The Story of Spanish and Mexican Texas

The Béxar Archives are the Spanish and Mexican records of Texas from 1717 to the end of the Mexican regime in 1836. The presentation will cover the size and scope of the archives — encompassing military, civilian, and missionary affairs, Indian relations, revolutions, and much more — as well as the different types of documentation they contain, from official correspondence, reports, and accounts, to detailed community censuses by household. Also featured will be the different tools that have been created over the years to provide access to the Béxar Archives, including a calendar, microfilm edition, a name guide, translations, and most recently, an online feature on the Briscoe Center website.

Robert Langston — San Antonio Museum of Art

The San Antonio Museum of Art is an encyclopedic museum with a collection broadly spanning many cultures and time periods. This presentation will introduce highlights from the Museum’s collection of American Art including objects from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art and previous past exhibitions following a brief history of the Lone Star Brewery, which houses the Museum. The goal of the presentation is to examine how art objects as time and site-specific examples of visual and material culture build and share context with historic maps and documents to better inform historical inquiry and interpretation.