Browse Exhibits (26 total)
Political Freedoms of Women
This exhibit explores first-wave feminism in the U.S. and England and second-wave feminism in the U.S. With a focus on activist strategies, this will examine the wider expansion of these movements, their portrayal in the media, and their modern impact. The progression of the feminist movement overtime contributes to our understanding of social movements and the media, and translates into how we view these in the modern day. The strategies of early women's movements, like parading, and ideas of women's rights reflected in these movements develop a foundation for the modern women's movement.
- Photographs from the Christina Livingston Broom collection are courtsey of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
- Documents from the Austin Women's Suffrage Records are courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
- Documents from the Bonnie Huval Papers are courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Cold War and Competing Visions of Human Rights
This online exhibit, consisting of a selection of items from the Maurice Cranston collection at the Harry Ransom Center, draws upon the philosophical inquiry into the nature of human rights as presented by British philosopher Maurice Cranston. This exhibit contextualizes Cranston's depiction of moral rights as an a priori critique of contemporary visions of human rights within the backdrop of the Cold War and the social justice, political, and economic movements of that era. A theoretical and historical approach to the paradigm debate between positive and negative rights will demonstrate the social ontology of human rights in contemporary political and social justice discourse.
Reclaiming Sexualities: An Exploration of Marginalized Sexuality in the 20th Century
While our project as a whole focuses broadly on America's hidden histories, this exhibit is specifically dedicated to the histories of groups who have been oppressed because of their sexuality or sexual identity. Each of these collections interacts with the idea of reclaiming sexuality through revolutionary empowerment for these marginalized groups, with a particular focus on the experiences of women and queer people.
The colletions are expansive in topic and intersectional in nature. The Morris Ernst papers cover a 1929 court case concerning women's reproductive rights and explore the extensive history of legal figures using moralistic rhetoric to disenfranchise women in 20th century America. The documents that cover "The Great Lesbian Wars" examine class tensions and other issues within the Political Lesbian Movement and broader lesbian community of the transformative 1960s. Meanwhile, the Feminist Zines collection of the 1970s explores the progression of various "waves" of the feminist movement and examines both the strengths and problems of this controversial movement through a display of homemade alternative magazines. Finally, the Noticias collection delves into a narrative about a gay Hispanic community in Houston, Texas during the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis.
Institutional Reactions to Student Activism
This exhibit investigates several historical instances of politically motivated student activism and how institutions such as the federal government, police agencies, and college administrations reacted to them.
The first section discusses the Iranian Hostage Situation. It details some of the decisions the United States' federal government made during the hostage situation as a strategy to pressure Iran and ensure the release of embassy workers.
The next page of the exhibit, 1960s UT Activism and Enforcement, details the rise of student activism on UT-Austin’s campus with special emphasis on the use of underground newspapers and the Students for a Democratic Society organization. This part of the exhibit also explains how local police agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation aided in the documentation and suppression of student activism on campus.
The final page of the exhibit, Motivations for Surveillance, draws from the same collection but focuses on administrative memoranda from the University of Texas. This section of the exhibit provides an institutional view of the conflicts that took place on campus in the 1960s, including the changing power dynamic between the students and the university adminsitration, the influence of national politics on university affairs, and the pressure from external groups to push back against student activism.
The common thread that connects the three sections is a view of activism as a reciprocal process that involves the activists, their audience, and the institutions that are forced to respond to challenges to their authority. As you view this exhibit, please consider the connections between these materials and reflect on the complexities of activism and the responses it often generates.
Disclaimer: This page uses archival material from the collections of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. The nature of these documents limited the scope of our research, and many of the narratives explored in this exhibit invite further inquiry. Many more social and political factors contributed to institutional reactions to student activism. The curators hope that this exhibit will serve as a useful source to researchers but encourage the user to reference other sources as well.
John L. Spivak and the Role of Investigative Journalism in Exposing Mass Incarceration as New Slavery
Formed from a selection of the John L. Spivak papers and photographs, this exhibit displays the importance of investigative journalism in exposing systematic mistreatment of black prisoners in southern prisons and in promoting policy changes during the Progressive Era. This specific campus archive can reveal the “hidden history” of a form of slavery after its abolition through photographic and journalistic evidence, and how this form of investigation began to be used to counteract the issue of social injustice, as well as raise awareness of worker's rights.
The Cause of the Texas Farm Workers' Union
The Texas Farm Workers' Union was an energetic, radical organization with a particular affinity toward direct actions such as wildcat strikes and highly publicized marches. The group, facing incredibly steep odds and with only extremely limited outside support, evidently decided that this particular style of agitation was their best chance at finally achieving the unionization of farm laborers in Texas.
Their urgent, bold, and anti-authoritarian organizational philosophy is a reflection of the strained relationships the Texas Farm Workers' Union had with farm owners and the Texas State government— traditional enemies of labor organizing— as well as with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, a less obvious adversary.
The story of the Texas Farm Workers' Union has unsettling implications for the modern observer. Despite their noble cause, the Union was eventually forced to cease operations due to financial difficulties. This points to the limitations of our political system and the injustices that remain entrenched within it, especially those between Texan farm owners and their workers.