Browse Exhibits (26 total)

From the rehabilitative labor prisons of the Jacksonian Era, to the modern day immigration detention facility, incarceration in its very definition separates people believed to pose a threat to society. In addition to a physical disconnect, there is also a societal divide attached to containment that strips the incarcerated of their voice in society, which limits their ability to speak up about their experiences and abuse they ecnounter within their confinement. Whether the incarceration is a result of xenophobia, racial discrimination, or actual justified cause, this schism creates negative stereotypes and misinformation at the expense of the incarcerated.  

This exhibit explores the effects of incarceration and internment from the 1940s to the 90s through the lens of these incarcerated peoples. Since incarcerated and detainees have a very limited voice in society and are often overlooked, we hope to share some of their thoughts on the realities of containment. The overall goal of this exhibit is to shed light on the personal qualities of incarcerated people in order to restore their dignity and give insight to the issues and problems that incarcerated people face within containment.  

Sourced from diverse collections, this exhibit highlights ethnic communities' struggles in attempting to relocate, relate to other cultures as the minority, and ultimately, uphold their ethnic culture simultaneously. With a unique twist to each collections' situation and focus, we will examine and understand the experiences of Haitian, Latinx, and Muslim American communities at different points in history through archival analysis.

The publishing world has a history of limiting the voices that do not reflect a white, male, straight, or middle-class point of view. Narratives told by people like Sanora Babb and James Baldwin are few and far between due to this reality.

Sanora Babb is not the first writer who comes to mind when reflecting on the Great Depression or Dust Bowl. The first figures who come to mind are authors like John Steinbeck, who wrote The Grapes of Wrath, and photographers like Dorothea Lange. As historians attempt to dig deeper and understand the period more, perspectives like Babb's are more important than ever. She was a woman who had experienced homelessness herself, as she fled Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. What separates Babb from others is that she was not only documenting her surroundings, but she was one of the people whose story should be documented and a part of the historical record. 

James Baldwin's influence has recently returned into American culture, with film adaptations of his works including I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk receiving commercial and critical success. Centering on the black experience in racially torn 1960s-1970s America, these books and films are the first works people think of when they remember Baldwin. Yet, despite its initial critical acclaim, Baldwin's second novel, Giovanni's Room, a story featuring a homosexual relationship between two white men in Paris, is often overlooked and forgotten. From Baldwin's initial efforts to publish it, white publishing companies thought it lacked what they had come to expect from Baldwin: narratives strictly regarding the "black experience."

Found in the "Sanora Babb Papers" and the "Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reject Letters" collections at the Harry Ransom Center, Sanora Babb and James Baldwin's stories unearth the marginalization that both faced in navigating a publishing world not designed for them. 

In the American Southwest, particularly in Texas, there is a strong sense of regional identity connected to Mexico and the border that divides the two. This is due to the large population that identifies with Mexican heritage, from individuals who emigrated in the 2000's to those whose ancestors emigrated in the 1800s. Today, that identity is condensed into the concept of being a "Mexican-American", in part defined by the journeys taken by their ancestors from Mexico to the US and often back again. The traversing of a "border", whether legal or conceptual, is often integral to identity formation and something we hope to explore through this exhibit.

In order to trace the identity of Mexican-Americans in the Southwestern United States, or "Borderlands", the exhibit will look at artifacts from a 19th century Spanish-language theatre troupe to photos of migrant farmers of the 1930s, to contemporary scripts continuing the legacy of the 20th century Chicano movement.

By Kira Azulay, Ashton Sauseda, Brennan Upchurch

This exhibit highlights specific events during the struggle for Black equality in the United States. We link them through the common theme of promoting Black equality and we explore how local strategies expanded into the national struggle against white supremacy.