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Archival Descriptions
Texas A&M University, Libraries, Cushing Memorial Library & Archives English
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William Harrison Mays Papers

  • US TxAM-C C000003
  • Collection
  • 1866-1982

This collection contains a variety of documents related to William Harrison Mays, an African American cowboy living in Corpus Christi, TX during the late 19th and early 20th century, and his family. The collection consists of tax receipts, promissory notes, land deeds, and receipts for lumber and building loan payments, photographs, and correspondences from which the researcher is able to track the development of a family over the course of three generations.

Of particular interest is a letter written by W. H. Mays' grandson, Roby Williams, dated September 12, 1982, in which he claims that his grandfather, "was a gun toten cow puncher with the Kings and Kennedys who used to ride over the border and steal Mexican's cattle and bring them back to Kings ranch and brand them KR. Grandpa knew he was living such a hard and risky life, he knew he was subject to being killed on some of these adventures and cattle drives up to Abilene, Kansas, so he didn't buy anything in his name. If he was arrested for cattle rustling, they couldn't take his property." One of the deeds dated 1872 may dispute this claim as it conveys to "Harrison Mays, Colored" a property in Corpus Christi for the sum of twenty-five gold dollars. However, all the tax receipts thereafter for the property are made out to a Clarissa Sinclair (also known as Alice Sinclair, William Harrison Mays' wife).

Other items of interest include a photograph, circa 1865, of two African-American men each standing with a leg up on a wooden box with a large bag marked "$1,000." The handwritten caption on the back reads: "Uncle Willie Cox on left. Just after a win in a cock's fight. Bag contains $1,000.00 in gold. San Luis Portisi, Mexico."

Mays, William Harrison

Texas A&M Hillel Articles and Photographs Collection

  • US TxAM-C 1554
  • Collection
  • 1940-1960

The Hillel Articles and Photographs Collection contains photocopies of newspaper clippings, photographs of social events, and a guest book ledger related to the Jewish student organization at Texas A&M University. The collection date range is from 1940 to the 1960’s. The collection contains information about Hillel’s involvement with the World War II effort, including highlights of Jewish Aggie veterans of World War II. Photographs, articles, ceremonies, and building information for the Texas A&M Ike and Fannie Sablosky B'Nai and B'Rith Hillel Building are included within the collection. Other information within the collection contain highlights of Hillel Club organized social dance, including photographs and a guest book ledger.

Nazi Atrocities Photographs

  • US TxAM-C C000058
  • Collection
  • 1945

This collection contains photographs taken by members of the 166th Signal Corps as well as the Associated Press just after the liberation of the concentration camps from the Nazis in 1945.

"A harrowing array of images, including 26 silver gelatin prints, each approx. 8" x 9 3/4", all stamped on verso with detailed captions and other information (some stamped "confidential"), as well as 30 smaller scale photographs (image sizes approx. 3 1/2" x 4 1/2") printed on larger paper stock (6 3/4" x 5") with type-written captions under the image, almost all of the images documenting Nazi horrors perpetrated in several concentration camps, as well as an envelope in which a member of the signal corps sent some of the images home to the USA. Germany 1945. Taken by photographers accompanying the troops that liberated the camps, these images provide detailed and unflinching documentation of the extreme horrors endured in Buchenwald, Ohrdruf, Hergenhein, and Schwartenxenfield and other camps. There are many images of dead bodies in various states, both individual and in masses, barely living survivors, mutilations, images of the structure of the camps themselves, civilians being forced to transport and bury the dead, and, for some reason particularly horrifically, a photo of a decorative tattoo that was skinned off a body and used as a decoration on the wall [of] the Nazi SS quarters at Buchenwald. An envelope from S/Sgt V. Amoroso to Mrs. Amoroso, which apparently contained the smaller images, is also present."

Manuela A. Gomez Photograph Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000169
  • Collection

This collection contains photographs from an exhibit entitled "Juarez Without the Myth."

Gomez, Manuela A.

Ku Klux Klan Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000321
  • Collection
  • 1868-1870, 1916-1970, undated

This collection consists of historical materials relating to the early 20th-century history of the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan. Although it began existence after the Civil War and ebbed away with the end of Reconstruction, the Klan re-emerged following World War I and gained a great deal of political and social influence across the United States into the early 1920s. The materials in this collection are drawn from that period when the Klan came out into the semi-public eye as a formal organization. A few items date from later in the 20th century.

In addition, the collection contains a number of issues of the American and Commercial Advertiser newspaper from 1868-1870, documenting the campaign of violence initiated by the first iteration of the Klan, from immediately after the Civil War.

Materials in the collection include newspaper and magazine articles on the Klan, Klan-sympathetic and Klan-run newspapers and other publications, photographs, organizational materials, and assorted examples of Klan literature and propaganda. They reflect the deep reserves of hate, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, ignorance, and nonsensical beliefs of the Klan and its members, as well as the comically risible vocabulary that was a part of Klan culture and practice.

Materials come from various Klan "klaverns" in Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia, with additional materials from Maine, Minnesota, and other locations.

James H. Copp Photographic Collection

  • US TxAM-C 815
  • Collection
  • 1973-1991

This collection consists of photographs taken by Dr. James H. Copp, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Texas A&M University. The photographs consist of approximately 1,600 8 x 10-inch black and white photographic prints taken of Bryan and College Station, Texas and the campus of Texas A&M during the 1970s and 1980s. In addition there are approximately 775 35 mm slides of the 1980s oil boom in Central Texas.

African American Southern Family Scrapbook

  • US TxAM-C C000557
  • Collection
  • 1900

This collection consists of a photo scrapbook with six small charcoal images that depict African-American life in the rural south with an unrelated pictorial on-lay on the upper cover, all tied together with string.

Abnashi Ram Collection

  • US TxAM-C 1575
  • Collection
  • 1931-1982

This collection contains about 337 letters from Mr. Abnashi Ram, who came to the USA in 1920 and was the first Indian student from India to graduate from Texas A&M in 1923 and established a successful export/import/gift shop in Hollywood, California. The letters also reflect correspondence with other fellow immigrants and many famous Americans. These letters reflect their gut emotions while living as lonely immigrants who could not bring their families to the USA on account of the draconian immigration laws that were finally eliminated in 1967. The collection also includes 75 letters from Mr. Mumtaz Kitchlew of Chicago. Dr. Sharma and his wife have lived in Richardson, TX for over 42 years. Sharma taught at SMU for over ten years. In 2009 he authored a book, Saving Immigrant's Daughter a story about Mr. Abnashi Ram and his daughter who he met at UCLA and ultimately married. Much of this collection has been digitized and is available on the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA) website.

Sharma, Raj