This collection chronicles the day-to-day history of the Mariposa Ranch of Coahuila, Mexico which was owned by Australian brothers and managed by several generations of family friends originally from New Zealand.

The collection spans the years 1880-1955 and consists of three basic parts, personal correspondence, business correspondence, and miscellaneous business papers. Included are letters, diaries, minutes, proceedings, printed material, financial documents, legal documents, photographic and audio material, maps, charts, graphs, and lists that chronicle the history of La Hacienda de la Mariposa and document the hard work and political savvy of the McKellars as they tried to balance the economic and business necessities of running a ranch, with the political realities of the Mexican Revolution and land reform.

This collection is made up of over 250 projects contained in 24 boxes, as well as drawings and construction documents housed in flat files in one map case.  Stripling’s work consists of 327 legal size folders, each related to architecture projects, as well as 60 folders of information associated with the field of architecture and miscellaneous items. 

The folders in the collection hold articles such as: contract documents, architectural services billing, contractors’ requests for payment,  correspondence, brochures, pamphlets, newspaper articles, magazine articles, photographs, sketches, drawings, and miscellaneous notes.

This collection consists of personal correspondence, manuscripts by Long and others, articles, booklets, essays, clippings, photocopies, research notes, maps, brochures, and photographs. The papers reflect Long's successful career as a Civil War historian and are in very good condition for the most part.

While most of the materials in this collection are dated in the twentieth century, there are several original Civil War documents of the nineteenth century. Of further interest are the drafts of Allan Nevins's Ordeal of the Union, which were edited by E. B. Long, and the nine long index boxes of Long's research notes on the Civil War.

The papers have been divided into the following categories: personal correspondence, manuscripts by Long, manuscripts by others, general files covering a wide range of subjects, drafts of Allan Nevins' Ordeal of the Union, research notes on the Civil War, index card files of articles, and miscellaneous volumes of clippings. The correspondence is arranged both chronologically for general correspondence and alphabetically for correspondence with specific individuals, resulting in some overlapping of dates. Correspondents include Bruce Catton, the Civil War Round Table, Doubleday and Company, Allan Nevins, Lowell Reedinbaugh, and John Y. Simon. Other materials in the collection are arranged either chronologically or alphabetically depending on the nature of the information.

This collection documents Criner's professional and personal life as an artist and educator. The collection includes correspondence, original works of art, prints, drawings, exhibition photos, postcards, writings, photographs, publicity, news clippings, interviews with Criner, and thank you letters and cards from students and visitors who have been taught the art of printmaking and provided tours of the Museum of Printing History in Houston by Criner. The collection includes a number of Criner's prints and copies of his art reproduced as advertisements, exhibits, and prints. Of particular note are the significant examples of Criner’s various cartoons, Johnny Jones, The Job Crowd, The Dogs, and a few others. These were all produced from his stint in the Army, his work with the Houston Post, Houston Chronicle, HUD, and his collaboration with William Henry Hygh. 

A listing of Criner’s artwork and cartoons is included at the end of the finding guide. The collection includes examples of each of these works either in print, photos, or exhibit material.

This collection consists of typescripts of several of Binder's novels with most including the author's corrections and accompanying carbons, and a number of short stories with most corrected including carbons and in some cases tearsheets from the magazines in which the stories initially appeared, corrected and with continuation sheets for expansion into full-length books.

In addition, there are close to 300 business and personal letters, photographs, postcards, and other files including broadcasting projects, non-fiction articles, letters and critiques from literary agents and publishers, materials on Space World, and several folders of unfinished manuscripts. Unusual "picture cards" featuring text and photographs on postcards are included.

Excluding duplicate carbons, letters, etc., there are approximately 2,300 pages (mostly 11 x 8.5-inches) of typescript with a total of about 575,000 words. Many of Binder's letters are on letters received or on the backs of manuscript or script fragments.

This collection details some of Heinlein's interactions with Shasta Publishers and with Playboy Enterprises.

The Shasta Publishers' correspondence, primarily from 1945-1958, provides insights to the dealings of Heinlein with an early specialty publisher of science fiction, and to one of the first science-fiction specialty publishers. The Playboy correspondence covers some contractual issues and providing insight on the methodology of creating a "Playboy Interview," including the "caboose," a two-page typescript addendum to the 1969 Playboy interview. The letters reference Heinlein's trip to Chicago, and to the Playboy panel in 1984.

This collection consists of Oliver's manuscripts, notes, and correspondence, published books, magazine appearances, books collecting his stories, foreign-language editions, clippings, and other related material. Chronologically, the collection ranges from the mid-1950s through the mid-1990s.

This collection includes a porcelain plate made in Germany with the inscription "Wheelock - Made in Germany for M. H. James, Bryan, TX - Dresden". The plate contains an image of the original Old Main Building that was destroyed by fire in 1912.

The collection contains over 100 rare letters, autograph quotations, and photographs from 50 major figures in the American antislavery struggle, including several rare autographs from key British abolitionists. Many of the individuals noted provided selfless support, financially, morally, and wrote on behalf of the abolishment of the 'peculiar' institution of slavery. Some of the well-known abolitionists include Henry Ward Beecher, Blanche K. Bruce, William Channing, William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua R. Giddings, the Grimke sisters, Gerrit Smith, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Lewis Tappan, one of the leading financial supporters of the Amistad Africans.

The collection contains photographs and newspaper clippings of these 50 prominent abolitionists.

These two volumes documents feature the personal and political reminiscences of journalist William S. Robinson and were edited and published by his wife in 1877. In the first edition, the first volume was expanded to two with extra illustrations (142 portraits and 53 autograph letters from prominent Americans of the time). Writing as “Warrington,” the journalist was especially noted for his reform positions and radical anti-slavery voice. The portraits and views represent a wide range of 19th-century American historic events, sites, and public figures.

The collection consists of the program books, documents, correspondence, and miscellaneous items collected by the Cepheid Variable Science Fiction Club from its inception in 1969 through 2005. The collection was assembled from deposits of the club, gifts from Bill Page, and other occasional donors.

The collection covers the personal, academic, and professional life of Jeff Stumpo and his founding of the Java Shock slam poetry event held initially in College Station, but now based in Bryan, TX.

This collection consists of miscellaneous files, alphabetical files on the authors, and a complete original folio of poems. Within the first miscellaneous file is background information on the club and correspondence with Bloomsbury Book Auctions. Other miscellaneous files consist of correspondence.  the author files primarily consist of correspondence between poet and club directors, contracts with the club, and proofs of the broadsides.  There are originals and carbon copies in the files.  Many of the letters and proofs are annotated and contain original signatures.  The complete folio contains signed broadsides as well as any other material sent with the poem, such as a brief biography or note from the author regarding his poem.

These six letters, dated December 12, 1862 - August 6, 1863, are from Benjamin M. Linsley to his friend Mrs. Lucy G. Palmer in Suffield, Conn. Each letter is written in ink on both sides of a single folded sheet, except for the first one, which is on two folded sheets, sewn together in the center with cloth thread at some point after they were composed. All are addressed by Linsley from the camp near Falmouth, Va., where his regiment, the 14th Infantry of the Army of the Potomac was based, except the last one, which is addressed from McKinnis Hospital in Baltimore, Md., where Linsley was sent to recover from typhoid fever.

In the letters, Linsley comments on the failure of the Union army to obtain substantial victories ever since the Union defeat at Fredericksburg; inflated prices for postage stamps and sutler's goods; the despair he feels at the poor treatment in general of the sick in military hospitals, not only by medical personnel but by fellow soldiers; strategies for obtaining better food and bedding for his brother while nursing him through a severe fever, probably typhoid; the need for statesmen of moral standing more like George Washington than the much clamoured for "little man" George MacClellan; the trials of long marches in either rain and mud to cross the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, only to retreat back over them after the battle of Chancellorsville, or the intense heat of marches toward Warrenton Junction, Va., from which Linsley was transported with the sick and wounded to recover from typhoid himself in McKinnis Hospital at Baltimore; the desperation of deserters being taken to their punishment; the immoral behaviour of men in camp; the need for more good chaplains like Clay Trumbull of Hartford, Conn., who served with his brother's regiment of Volunteers; and perhaps, more poignantly, the eerie sound of drums during funerals for the many soldiers who died in camp from sickness in their poor living conditions.

The letters are now each encased in a clear plastic sleeve. A one-page report from the National Archives and Records Administration is included with the first letter. This NARA report (2 July 2001) replies to a request made by Professor Dale Baum of Texas A & M University in April 2001 to locate and make a copy of Benjamin M. Linsley's pension documents packet, stating NARA staff could not locate the materials. Baum had listed Linsley as an enlistee of the U.S. Army in Company A, 1st Battalion, 14th U.S. Infantry.

This collection contains letters written by Quincy Adams to Vivian during the Mexican Revolution.

This collection contains letters that are instigated by the inquiries of Mr. Charles Perry Gould, and his desire to have Llewelyn Powys write an introduction for the upcoming reprint of The Simple Cobbler of Agawam. It contains the initial contact, the deal under which Powys writes the introduction, and also what happens to his writings after Powys' death. Sometimes in his letters to Mr. Gould, Llewelyn encloses postcards of Davos, Switzerland, as well as a picture of the author himself.

This collection contains letters from Theodore F. (T. F.) Powys to his sister, Lucy Penny, and his friend, the writer Valentine Ackland.

This collection consists of some correspondence, a significant number of mostly typed manuscript drafts, both published and unpublished, and a printer's galley for her book, Coryell County Scrapbook, published in 1963 by Texian Press of Waco, Texas. Also present are a few newspaper clippings, as well as handwritten and typed research notes for her published book.

The manuscript drafts reveal an engaging blend of scholarship, personal recollection, and anecdotal history chronicling the development of Coryell county from when the area was part of Coahuila, Mexico, through to its formal organization as a county in the state of Texas in 1854. Included is an account of the growth of Fort Hood as a military base in the early 1960s.

Stories are cited from early twentieth-century newspapers recounting Indian skirmishes with pioneering settlers, deeds of cattle rustlers and trail drivers, as well as events surrounding prohibition and various political rivalries. The early days of Fort Gates, now Gatesville, and the later development of Camp Hood, now Fort Hood, one of the nation's largest military installations, are described. Statistical tables and records present expenditures for, and descriptions of, buildings, jails, courthouses, prominent homes, banks, and businesses in Coryell county.

Interspersed among the political and economic accounts of the county's progress are more personal stories of weddings, births, parties, church events, legendary horses, dogs, local heroes, and even the county's centennial celebration in 1954. Mears' relatively unadorned narrative describes in some detail the increasing social, economic, and political prosperity and influence, as well as the setbacks, of Coryell County. Mears' work brings to life frontier Texas culture during the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century.

This scrapbook belonged to George B. Quillen and contains materials from his time at A&M college from 1924-1927.

This collection contains over 100 items, primarily books that are cataloged and available via the Libcat system. The manuscript and drawings are also cataloged and available via the Libcat system.

These comics were created in countries that were ruled by colonial powers in Africa, namely Italy, France, Belgium, and Spain. The comics are both individual copies and bound volumes with numerous copies. They date from around 1926 to 1973.

This collection includes an exchange of letters between Berenice Napper and an official of Connecticut's Commission on Civil Rights, six items concerning Napper's membership in the National Council of Negro Women, eight printed ephemeral items including a photograph of Berenice Napper with three other individuals looking over a copy of Walter White's book How Far the Promised Land?, and a small group of newspaper clippings concerning her work as a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

This collection was part of a gift given to the library by the Anthropology Department.  The collection documents the work and writings of Professor Dolores Richter. The collection includes photographs, negatives, writings, and news clippings related to Prof. Richter’s research in the Ivory Coast, West Africa, and Oceania and the publication of her book “Arts, Economics and Change: the Kulebele of Northern Ivory Coast” published in 1980.

This collection contains 171 watercolor illustrated letters by H.O. Kelly, written to his close friend and biographer, William "Bill" Weber Johnson, his wife Elizabeth Ann (McMurray) Johnson, Mary Longwell (Lady), and their family between 1948 and 1955. These letters formed the basis for William Weber Johnson's research for Kelly Blue, a biography of Kelly, first published by Doubleday in 1960, with a foreword by Western writer Tom Lea.

A smaller group of fifteen letters by H.O. Kelly, and two in pencil by his wife Jessie (Bowers) Kelly, are addressed to another art collector and friend, Dallas lawyer, Rudolph Johnson. Seventeen additional letters by Rudolph Johnson, typewritten on yellow paper between 1955 and 1958 are included, addressed to Kelly, or, after the artist's death, to his wife, Jess.

Of interest too is a letter to Kelly by Otto Kallir of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York City, requesting some of Kelly's works to be displayed in an exhibition of American primitive artists to be mounted at the Galerie early in 1952. Included is Kelly's letter to Mrs. Daniel Longwell (Lady) asking permission to refer Kallir to her to view the painting she had just purchased from Elizabeth Ann McMurray. Also of note is a letter written by John L. Paxton of Fort Worth, Texas, in reply to Rudolph Johnson soon after Kelly's death in December 1955. Attached to Paxton's reply is a list of all the known owners of Kelly's artwork at that time, whom Paxton has written to in the interest of collecting funds to aid in supporting the then-destitute Jess Kelly.

In Series 2 copies of correspondence between Elizabeth Johnson, J. Wayne Stark, Irene Hoadley, and others relates to the bulk of the letters in this collection, an art exhibit at the Texas A&M University Memorial Student Center, a color slide of the painting "Penning Goats". and plans by Texas A&M University Press to publish an illustrated edition of Kelly Blue.

The tiny colored drawings found on Kelly's letters and cards to friends and family are a foreshadowing of the lovingly detailed scenes in his oil paintings. As a significant primitive artist, Kelly's paintings present a world of rolling, green pastures, tranquil blue skies, and solid farms and farming towns, also populated by a thick dusting of livestock, including wily goats, unpredictable donkeys, fine mules, and lively horses. The robust folk is reminiscent of Kelly's mother's German ancestors in Ohio, similar to those living in Fredericksburg, Texas, a town Kelly often visited for inspiration. As these letters so vividly attest, when Kelly sold a painting, it was the buyer's initiation into a warm friendship with the raconteur artist, not a mere business transaction.

This collection includes a porcelain plate from 1962 in commemoration of the city of Bryan, TX. The plate contains an image of Lieutenant General John Bell Hood along with Texas Confederate emblems and Civil War images. (unprocessed)

This collection includes a metal commemorative plate with a gold emblem labeled “University of Southern California” with an engraved inscription labeled “The Trustees and Faculty of the University of Southern California Cordially Invite you to Attend the Events of the One Hundred First Annual Commencement Tuesday May 8, 1984 University Park Los Angeles, California Kennith E. Williams B.S. The plate is inclosed in a silver box with a pair of golden eagles embossed on it.

This collection dating from 1846 to 1906 (bulk: 1846-1847) consists chiefly of handwritten letters, journal entries, a memoir, a proof copy of a report from the U. S. Secretary of War on Army operations in Texas and on the Rio Grande during the Mexican War (1846-1848), as well as plans, maps and nine hand-colored copies of lithographic engravings drawn by Everett, which vividly chronicle southwest Texas cultural as well as military history during the late1840s.

Series 1, Letters (1847-1863), mainly handwritten in ink by Edward Everett to his brother, Samuel W. Everett, from 1846-1847, while Everett was serving in San Antonio de Bexar with the U. S. Army during the Mexican War. A few letters from other correspondents pertain to Everett's disability and eventual official discharge from the Army. Three letters written in the period 1852-1863 are about business or from family members.

Series 2, Journal and Memoir (1846-1899) contains three sets of journal entries for Sept. 1846-Jan. 1847. All are handwritten in ink on loose sheets of paper. The memoir, also handwritten in ink, on machine-ruled paper measuring about 8 x 5 inches, covers the years 1846-1848, with additional material added and dated, on at least one page, with 1899. This memoir is edited in pencil by Everett, evidently for publication, since one note suggests that the memoir was donated in 1899 to the Quincy Historical Society, later known as The Illinois Historical Society. The memoir was actually published, at least part, or possibly all of it, under the title "Military Experience," in Transactions of the Illinois Historical Society for 1905.

Series 3, Engravings, Maps, and Plans (ca. 1846-1849) includes nine copies of lithographed illustrations drawn by Edward Everett and engraved by C. B Graham Lithographers in Washington, D.C. The engravings were to be published in a report on U.S. Army operations in Texas during the Mexican War. A proof copy of this 67-page report, titled Report of the Secretary of War, communicating ... the Operations of the Army of the United States in Texas and the Adjacent Mexican states on the Rio Grande (31st Congress, 1st Session, Senate. Executive Document 32), published in 1850, is annotated throughout by Everett in pencil. For this publication Everett was at least responsible for eight illustrations: seven engravings of the San Antonio de Bexar area, including the Alamo church, as well as locations in Mexico; a plan of the ruined Alamo as it was in 1846, before being renovated according to Everett's direction, as a U. S. Army supply depot and workshops.

Engravings include nine copies of the lithographed prints. Notations made in ink on the separate prints, and on p. [4] of the proof copy of the published government report, indicate that: illustrations numbered for publication 2, 3-6 were engraved from original drawings made by Everett; those numbered 1, 7-8 were engraved from drawings made by Everett based on pencil sketches by other individuals, particularly no. 1 titled "Watch Tower Near Monclova," which was drawn by Everett from a sketch by Lieutenant McDowell of the U.S. Army.

Everett's proofs of the lithographic prints have all been exquisitely hand-tinted, in contrast to the severe black-and-white reproductions in the printed report. Of the nine hand-colored prints, two are duplicates of two illustrations, one titled "Church Near Monclova," and the other "Watch Tower Near Monclova." These identical prints are each hand-colored in two versions, apparently to represent the depicted buildings' appearances during the daytime, as well as at dusk or sunset.

Maps include one copy of a published map, possibly also by Everett, though it has been attributed to Josiah Gregg, which also appeared in the 1850 Army Operations report, titled "Map Showing the Route of the Arkansas Regiment from Shreveport La. to San Antonio de Bexar Texas," which is annotated with a penciled in route drawn from San Antonio to Austin, and a town location labeled "New Braunsfels." Also included are two manuscript versions of a map by Edward Everett, one copy titled "Plan of the Vicinity of Austin and San Antonio, Texas."

Plans are represented by two copies of an illustration drawn by Everett for the 1849 Army operations report showing plans of the Alamo before the renovation, titled "Plans of the Ruins of the Alamo near San Antonio De Bexar, 1846." Also present is one manuscript plan, titled "Plan of San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, 1848," which is labeled as "Drawn from recollection by E. E." The legend states that locations number 1-5 on the plan show, for instance, the spot near the Plaza in town where Everett received his disabling gunshot wound in the leg, the Hospital where he convalesced, and the Quartermaster's Office, to which he was assigned to work after being declared disabled from active service in the field.

A handwritten loose-leaf page kept with the proof copy of the report is titled "Index to Col. Hughes Report," and lists subject divisions and page numbers, though these divisions are not present in the published report by Hughes.

Thus Everett's accounts of frontline actions in the Mexican War mainly rely on reports from occasional volunteer soldiers or scouts, or Mexican nationals, returning back to Texas from the front lines of battle in Mexico. As much as he is able, however, Everett produces very detailed accounts of the various battles and skirmishes in and around the Texas-Mexico border, including battles at Monterrey, Saltillo, San Luis, Camargo, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, and Tampico, recording a large number of casualties on both sides.

Of particular interest is Everett's extensive first-hand description of the ruins of the Alamo, and how it was converted for U.S. Army use as a military headquarters, according to plans drawn up by Everett. He deplores the vandalism already wreaked by relic seekers and stressed the respect shown to the mission church by the U. S. Army restorers, who refused to plunder it for building stone but instead merely cleaned away the debris. In the process, skeletons were uncovered, which Everett assumes to be from the time of the siege and Battle of the Alamo in 1836. Everett's accounts of frontier life in the rather rambunctious confines of San Antonio, complete with ambushes, shootouts, rough and ready court trials, and various local characters are often riveting.

Everett also pictures the moods and attitudes of the soldiers toward a variety of issues. Everett describes their arduous marches, unsavory living conditions, often dire medical care, and the cruel climate tormenting them. Having been left behind in San Antonio with all the stores rejected by the army, which had proceeded on into Mexico, Everett's men were faced with nursing broken down mules and horses back to usefulness, salvaging wagon parts from several damaged ones to make a serviceable one, and generally, trying to make do with what could be had in the vicinity, or easily transported from the Quartermaster at New Orleans.

According to Everett, communications on the Texas frontier often proceeded through "solitary express riders." He describes Mexican culture co-existing with "the Indians" and their horse-stealing. He also gives an excellent but pejorative account of the Texas Rangers and their activities, calling them desperados. Everett describes Mexican Generals Santa Anna, Torrejón, and Woll, the exceedingly unpopular U. S. Army Colonel Churchill, officers George W. Hughes, 1st Lieutenant W. B. Franklin, 2nd Lieutenant F. T. Bryan, General Zachary Taylor ("Old Rough and Ready"), General Winfield Scott, and General James Morgan, Captain J. H. Prentiss, Brigadier General John E. Wool, Major General Worth, Captain James Harvey Ralston, Captain L. Sitgreaves, as well as Edward Everett's own two brothers Charles Everett and Samuel W. Everett (Sam).

Full of absorbing narrative and elusive details often lost in larger historical works, the content of Everett's narratives and letters may be summed up in his own words from the handwritten memoir: "Mine is not a tale of battles, or of the movements of great armies, but the details will show some of the hardships and vicissitudes of a soldier's life, the exposure to which causes a greater sacrifice of life than that ensuing from wounds of death received from the enemy."

The collection contains foil figures from the Texas A&M College Slide Rule Contest (1947). Figures included: 5 fish; 4 Texas-shaped molds; 1 figure with a circular shape with the name of the college written; and 1 wooden figure.

This collection consists of 7 small bronze sculptures and 1 plasterite sculpture created by various artists and cast as various bronze works.

This collection contains letters, magazine and newspaper articles, magazines, prints, and other materials documenting the work of artist Edward Muegge "Buck" Schiwetz, as both a commercial and fine artist.

His sketches and watercolors are featured in a vast majority of the print material in the collection, from Christmas cards to sketchbooks to fine prints.

Rather than focusing on Schiwetz's life and his time at Texas A&M, the collection pays most attention to his art career and people's opinion of Schiwetz as an artist in the traditional sense of the definition.

This collection consists of twelve letters handwritten in black ink on both sides of thirteen pages of blue-lined paper with an envelope. The letters are arranged into two series. At the center of the top of the paper are printed the words "Nation War Work Council of the Young Men's Christian Association," each side of which is decorated with an American Flag and the symbol of the YMCA printed in red and dark blue ink. Each page, measuring 27 cm. x 15 cm., is now housed in a transparent plastic folder. On the upper-right side of the envelope are handwritten words "Sailor's Mail". The addressee written on the envelope is Mrs. J.E. Bosworth, who lived on 141 Midland Ave. in Syracuse, New York. However, the letters are addressed to "Dear Folks." Bosworth seems to have bought the envelope before he wrote the letters because his letters begin on June 16, 1919, but the date stamped in blue ink on the envelope is June 14, 1919. In his letters, Bosworth very often does not write the first singular pronoun "I" and uses "&" in preference to the word "and." He crosses out with one or two lines on the words he writes incorrectly. He provides some hand-drawn maps and pictures. He frequently mentions numbers to detail his stories. Of interest is that he comments on the characteristics of the Bolsheviks. He also mentions that he hopes to fight them because he has had no chance to hear gunshots, except in practice.

This collection includes books, serials, and framed artwork.

This collection consists of correspondence to and from legendary author Frederick Pohl, mostly regarding editorial matters and other items of authorial business.

Most of the letters, dated from 1948-1952, are to or from Shasta Publishing founder Erle Melvin Korshak or editor Ted Dikty. There is also some correspondence between Pohl and Playboy Magazine dated between 1962-1978.

This collection contains biographical data, publications, and data on the Biology Department at Texas A&M in which Sewell was a faculty member, as well as reports and other papers relating to oyster mortality research carried out through the Texas A&M Research Foundation Research Project 9 (February 1, 1947 - May 31, 1950).

The research project 9 was funded by six major oil companies and led by two Texas A & M University Professors, Sewell H. Hopkins (Head) and John G. Mackin (Associate Head).

Prompted by several lawsuits filed by Louisiana oystermen against major oil companies claiming damages to oyster fields as a result of drilling in the Gulf Of Mexico region, Project 9 was conducted under the auspices of the Texas A & M Research Foundation. Project 9 allowed researchers to design and implement field and laboratory studies seeking to determine the effects of oil production activities on oyster production. Eventually, a then as-yet-unknown parasite was discovered which preyed upon the oyster crop after they had begun to reach maturity.

Two other large research groups investigating the same allegations against oil production in the Gulf headed by H. Malcome Owen (Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission) and Albert W. Collier (Gulf Oil Company) compared notes with the Heads of Project 9, coming to the same conclusion. As a result of this collaboration, a description of this newly discovered parasite called Dermocystidium marinum was published in 1950. The lawsuits were subsequently dropped or settled out of court.

More importantly for the history of the Texas A & M University System, however, is the fact that Research Project 9 led ultimately to the creation and expansion of a Marine Sciences program, represented by the newly established (1949) Department of Oceanography at Texas A & M University in College Station. On 1 June 1950, after the termination of Research Project 9, Research Project 23 was begun to continue studies on oyster disease and maintain a Marine Laboratory at Grand Isle, La. The Texas A & M Marine Laboratory was established (1952) at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Tex. In 1968 Texas A & M University was named a Sea Grant College. The Marine Laboratory and the Texas Maritime Academy were merged in 1971, which is now known as Texas A & M University at Galveston.

These papers, therefore, form a picture of the ground-breaking research in oyster mortality conducted by Sewell H. Hopkins as head of Project 9, which led to increased sensitivity of the interplay of industry and the ecosystem, and to the formalized study at the university level of marine biology in the Gulf area.

Other researchers whose work is represented in the papers include Jay Donald Andrews, A. D. Bajkov, Harry J. Bennet, James L. Boswell, Clair Brown, Sidney O. Brown, M.D. Burkenroad, Fred Caulthron, C. Ray Elsey, I. I. Gardescu, Gordon Gunter, C. K. Hancock, Harold W. Harry, Joel W. Hedgpeth, Willis G. Hewatt, A. A. Jakkula, Fred W. Jensen, P. Korringa, Louis Lambert, Hugh B. Lofland, Elmer J. Lund, G. Robert Lunz, Jr., John C. Aull, Alvin F. Dodds, Shirley Alfred Lynch, John G. Mackin, Wiley G. Lastrapes, H. A. Marmer, R. Winston Menzel, Thurlow C. Nelson, Joseph F. Prokop, W. C. Rasmussen, Sammy M. Ray, J. H. Roberts, Fred W. Sieling, John J. Sperry, Victor Sprague, and Claude E. ZoBell.

    * Bibliography

    * Ray, Sammy M. "Historical Perspective on Perkinsus Marinus Disease of Oysters in the Gulf of Mexico." Journal of Shellfish Research. Vol. 15, No. 1:9-11.

    * Ray, Sammy M. "Texas A & M University's Contributions to Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Research." [Viewed 2002-10-10 at: ]