DRT Library Welcomes Two New Volunteers

The DRT Library is pleased to welcome Kay Garsnett and Shannon Keith as its newest volunteers. Both Kay and Shannon  work with archivist Caitlin Donnelly on a variety of projects pertaining to the library’s archival collections, including developing and staffing special programs and updating information about the archives on the DRT Library’s website. Future projects will include researching the families, individuals, and organizations that have donated materials to the library as well as arranging and describing new and/or unprocessed collections.

Volunteer Kay Garsnett.

San Antonio native Kay Garsnett, above, has a Bachelor of Science degree in geography from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Master of Library and Information Studies degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has almost twenty years of experience as an academic librarian, primarily in the area of reference services, at various institutions including Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley in Missouri. She is currently an adjunct reference librarian at Northeast Lakeview College in San Antonio. Seeking to take her career in a new direction, Kay is currently working on a Certificate of Advanced Study in Archives and Records Administration, an online program through the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During the last couple of years, she has also completed several archival continuing education courses, primarily through the Society of American Archivists; in June 2009 she attended the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives in Washington D.C. Kay is an experienced genealogist and has been an active member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.

Volunteer Shannon Keith.

Shannon Keith, above, is a recent graduate of the Graduate School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, where her coursework focused on various components of archival work and where she served as the secretary of the student chapter of the Society of American Archivists. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Shannon also graduated from Wellesley College in 2003 with a double major in art history and Italian studies. Shannon’s most recent archives experience was an internship she completed this past summer with the Arkansas History Commission (AHC), a division of the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. Collaborating with the Lawrence County Historical Society, the AHC is in the process of planning the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives (NEARA), a branch archives to be built at Powhatan Historic State Park. The three thousand square foot facility will house historic northeast Arkansas county records and provide regional access to historical and genealogical research materials. Shannon’s task was to help the Commission develop a furniture and equipment layout plan that took into account the comfort and work processes of researchers and staff, space limitations, lighting, power, American Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design, and archival workflows. Shannon is currently the Special Collections Librarian at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

We are thrilled to have Kay and Shannon join the DRT Library team!

Volunteer Improves Access to German-Language Materials

Volunteer Lore A. Senseney.

For the past year, Lore A. Senseney has been volunteering at the DRT Library with Assistant Director Martha Utterback and Archivist Caitlin Donnelly, working to translate German-language materials held in the library’s archival collections into English. Thus far, Ms. Senseney has translated almost 200 documents, primarily letters, in the Beckmann family papers and the general correspondence series of the Conrad A. Goeth papers. The translations are being filed with the original document so they will be accessible to researchers. Lore will next be translating documents in the Frances Drennon Shaughnessy family papers.

Translating the documents requires a special and rather unique skill: the ability to read the old Sütterlin German script that is no longer used. Today, Germans cannot read this script. However, Ms. Senseney, a native of Germany, learned it during her first two years of school, as Sütterlin was commonly taught in German schools during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The first page of a letter to John C. and Regina Muller Beckmann, presumably written by Felix Muller, Regina's father.

Lore's translation of the above letter, which Felix Muller began by writing "I have waited for seven years for (a response from you) in vain, and had given up all hope to receive a letter from you ever again."

The rest of Lore's translation of the above letter.

Lore’s journey to San Antonio was an interesting one. She started learning English in 1945 when school resumed following the end of World War II. Three years later, she escaped from East Germany with her mother and joined her father in Frankfurt, West Germany. There, Lore continued her English studies as an apprentice; a student at a school of business for industrial merchants and banking; and a student in the last class of industrial interpreters at the Berlitz school. Ms. Senseney arrived in the United States on August 5, 1959, landing in New York on the USS Buttner with her husband – a career non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the U.S. Army who had been stationed in West Germany and was newly stationed at Fort Sam Houston – and their two-year-old daughter. Lore and her husband later had two more children and at various times lived in San Antonio and Germany.

Ms. Senseney has been a member of the San Antonio Needlework Guild (SANG) and the Embroiderers’ Guild of America (EGA) since 1976. She has been particularly interested in whitework embroidery, a technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric, traditionally white linen. Lore researched this type of embroidery during trips to Germany and began teaching about the technique in San Antonio. Since 1982, Lore has been volunteering at the Witte Museum, using her expertise to help in the conservation of its textile collection.

Throughout her time at the Witte, Ms. Senseney has periodically been asked to translate German texts. Her skills have been increasingly utilized since 2006, when she began undergoing treatments for breast cancer that left her hands numb, making it difficult to hold a needle and continue her textile conservation work at the Witte. However, Lore has found the work of translating historic documents to be equally rewarding, stating “I love it. It is something I can do that I enjoy and is as much fun as restoring an old textile, so it can live another 100 years.”

Of the letters she has worked with from the DRT Library’s collections, Lore writes that they have had “the most diverse content and challenging handwriting styles.” In the course of the project, she has also “researched and learned about the Germans who arrived in Texas in the 1840s and founded a lot of the businesses in San Antonio.”

Thank you, Lore, for all of your hard work!

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

DRT Library Welcomes New Reference Librarian

Chuck Tucker

The Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library is pleased to announce the appointment of Chuck Tucker as reference librarian. Mr. Tucker began in his new position on Monday, November 2. He replaces Mrs. Stephanie Boothby, who vacated the position following the birth of her daughter.

Mr. Tucker is a native of Columbia, Missouri, although as a self-described military brat he lived in various places while growing up. However, as a child he spent summers with his grandparents in San Antonio, and he has now lived here for the past twenty-five years. As a result of these two circumstances, Mr. Tucker considers himself a native of the Alamo City.

Mr. Tucker has a Bachelor of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies with a minor in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He also has a master’s degree in library science and information technology and a graduate certificate in library management, both from the University of North Texas.

His most recent library experience was at a neighborhood branch of the San Antonio Public Library. While he was officially a departmental systems analyst, Mr. Tucker took on additional projects at the library, including outreach activities; the design and implementation of computer classes; and collections development and management. He also implemented library programs specifically for teens, including Guitar Hero and Wii tournaments.

Mr. Tucker and his wife of eighteen years have a thirteen-year-old daughter. He describes his main passions as family, faith, and golf.

Welcome, Mr. Tucker, to the DRT Library!

October Special Events at the DRT Library are a Hit!

Library visitors during Founders Day.

Those who have visited the DRT Library know that during regular weekday business hours it is a non-browsing library, open to researchers only. However, during two Saturdays this October, the Library hosted Open Houses and invited visitors to peruse highlights from the archival collections that were on display.

Volunteer Kay Garsnett staffed the library's table during Founder's Day and let everyone know about the Open House.

The first Open House was held in conjunction with the Alamo’s living history program, Fall at the Alamo, on October 10. The second was held on October 24 as part of San Antonio Founders Day; as one of the fifty historical and cultural exhibitors at the celebration, the library also staffed a booth on the Alamo grounds. This was the first year the library was open with exhibits during Fall at the Alamo; it was also the first year the library participated in Founders Day, which in the past was held at other locations in San Antonio. These events coincided with American Archives Month, which promotes the significance of archives.

More than 2,000 people visited the library during the two October events.

One of the exhibits being prepared for Fall at the Alamo.

The exhibits at both Open Houses showcased outstanding examples of different types of materials in the collections, including maps, photographs, letters, newspapers, government records, books, artifacts, and items of popular culture. During both events, visitors were able to see one of the library’s two copies of the Texas Declaration on Independence; a letter written by Alamo defender Daniel Cloud; examples of redback currency printed by the government of the Texas Republic; a copy of the Telegraph and Texas Register from March 1838; and a cased ambrotype of Alamo survivor Anglina Dickinson. The remaining items on display, however, were different for each Open House. Since the focus of Fall at the Alamo was daily life in Texas during the Republic period, the library’s exhibit for that event focused on materials from approximately 1836 to 1846. By comparison, visitors who came to the library during Founders Day saw items dating from 1579 to 1932; they were especially interested in seeing a petticoat that belonged to Susanna Dickinson and using a stereoscope from the early twentieth century.

These two Boy Scouts weren't the only visitors who enjoyed viewing three-dimensional images through the library's stereoscopes; kids, and even adults, were fascinated with them, too.

Visitors examining "Genl. Austin's Map of Texas with Parts of Adjoining States," published by Henry Schenck Tanner in 1840.

Library visitors examining the various archival materials on display during Founders Day.

Fort Sam Houston’s Gift Chapel

The Post Chapel at San Antonio's Fort Sam Houston.

Earlier today, a celebration held at Fort Sam Houston marked the 100th anniversary of the post’s Gift Chapel, which was dedicated on October 17, 1909, even though construction on the building was not yet finished. The original dedication festivities were marked by a parade and a speech by President William Howard Taft, who had been in El Paso the day before meeting with Mexican President Porfirio Diaz.

This panoramic photograph, originally part of the Leo M. J. Dielmann Papers, shows President Taft speaking in Alamo Plaza during his trip to San Antonio in October 1909. The President is on a platform in front of the Alamo's Long Barracks; the right side of the Alamo church and the uppermost curve of the its facade are visible beyond the barracks on the right. (SC97.24)

The chapel at Fort Sam Houston was designed by well-known San Antonio architect Leo M. J. Dielmann, and his father, John C. Dielmann, served as the general contractor for the project. Leo Dielmann’s personal and professional papers are housed at the DRT Library; partially because it is comprised of so many sets of oversized architectural drawings and plans, the collection is one of the largest in the library’s archives. A second, similarly extensive, collection of additions is also available for research, although it has not yet been completely processed; a preliminary inventory for the collection is available at the library.

John C. Dielmann's store at 306 E Commerce Street, April 27, 1907. From left to right are Leo M. J. Dielmann, his brother William V. Dielmann, Henry Burns, John J. Jehl, John C. Dielmann, the bookkeeper, and George Theis.

An undated photograph showing the interior of John C. Dielmann's business. Leo M. J. Dielmann is seated on the far right, and his father, John C. Dielmann, is the second man from the left.

The collections contain numerous materials – including plans, drawings, specifications, and photographs – that help document the history of the Fort Sam Houston Chapel. The records also demonstrate Leo M. J. Dielmann’s involvement in its development within the broader context of his work on other private and public structures, particularly churches, in San Antonio and throughout Texas.  A selection of these items have been included in this entry. [Please note that, due to the size of some of Dielmann's original drawings and plans, only a section of them could be scanned and shown here.]

Dielmann's presentation drawing of the chapel's exterior, which shows how he envisioned the building would look when completed.

A detail of Dielmann's preliminary drawing of the first floor of the chapel.

A detail of Dielmann's preliminary drawing of architectural details in the chapel's vestibule.

An undated photograph showing the construction of the chapel.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

“How Old Man Henry and His Family are Getting Along in America”

On October 13, 1856, Henry Baumberger, a recent immigrant and resident of San Antonio, wrote to family and friends in his native Switzerland. The document is part of a collection of eight lengthy letters written by and to Baumberger between 1856 and 1867. Written in an older Sütterlin German script that is no longer used, the letters have been translated into English.

The first page of Henry Baumberger's letter of October 13, 1856. "On this here letterhead," he told his family and friends, "you see some views etc. of our City of San Antonio."

In the letter of October 13, Baumberger described life in Texas in great detail for loved ones living very differently in Europe. “The way people live here is strange,” he wrote. “You hardly will believe me if I tell you the truth and I am telling you nothing but the truth.” On one hand, Baumberger found much to criticize in San Antonio:

An enormous rudeness is generally prevalent in this country. Nobody cares about enlightenment and education. Nobody lived intellectually. Everybody strives for money and for money only. Money is the idol that is worshipped. The officers are not in the least interested in public welfare…Every day on the streets you can see loafers by the dozens, carrying knives and pistols. They are looking for trouble and stab or shoot, as they please. Every week some people are killed in the public street. And as the officers are mostly people of the same kind, usually nothing is done about it. Every night horses, mules or cattle are stolen. In the beginning all this seemed terrible to me and I was afraid of these rascals but not now any more.

On the other hand, however, Baumberger also described circumstances in Texas that he believed and observed to be an improvement over conditions in Switzerland. He explained ways in which American women enjoyed more legal rights than their European counterparts; praised laws that protected debtors from losing all of their property and belongings as payment to creditors; and described the “very happy life” enjoyed by Texas farmers, even though they were “sometimes raided by wild Indians.” Despite his mixed feelings about life in Texas, Baumberger ultimately wrote that “in general I am doing pretty well and so far I never regretted that I have emigrated [sic] to America.”

A detail of the last page of Henry Baumberger's letter, which he closed by asking that his loved ones "don't forget" him, "now in a far away country."

Based on evidence in the letters, Henry Baumberger (born circa 1823) and his wife, Anna Weiss Baumberger, immigrated to Texas with their two daughters, Anna (born circa 1852) and Eliza (born circa 1855). In his letter of October 13, Henry marveled that his young children could “already babble [in] English.” In the same letter, he happily announced the birth of his son, Henry, and explained that the “little fellow is already now an American citizen, because everybody born here is as a matter of course a citizen of this country.” Sadly, in a letter dated July 18, 1857, Baumberger informed his relatives and friends that baby Henry had died from a fever. “God has called him away,” he wrote, “and the hearts of the parents are struck again, because this is the third boy we had to see leaving us…I had trusted to have at last a male offspring. But it was not so to be.” However, by 1867 the Baumberger expanded to include two additional children: Paulina (born circa 1858) and Charles (born circa 1863).

While Henry Baumberger had worked as a teacher in Switzerland, his letters in the DRT Library document the variety of jobs he undertook in Texas: at different times he worked as a merchant, a beer garden owner, and an owner of shipping business that transported freight by wagon from San Antonio to Mexico or Port Lavaca. The 1870 census listed Henry as a member of the San Antonio police force and the 1880 census stated that he was once again working as a teacher.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

American Archives Month: Events at the DRT Library

During the month of October, the DRT Library will be holding two Open Houses in conjunction with special programs being held on the Alamo grounds:

Fall at the Alamo

Saturday, October 10, 2009

10:00 am – 4:30 pm

San Antonio Founders Day

Saturday, October 24, 2009

11:30 am – 4:30 pm

Special items from the library’s 450 archival collections will be on display, including:

• An original copy of the Texas Declaration of Independence, one of about thirteen known to still exist.

• A map of Texas drawn by Stephen F. Austin in the 1820s.

• A letter written by Alamo defender Daniel Cloud while en route to San Antonio.

• A cased photograph of Angelina Dickinson, Alamo survivor.

Researchers will not be able to access library materials during these events. Patrons interested in conducting research at the library should return during regular business hours or contact library staff at drtl@drtl.org.

We look forward to seeing you at the library!

American Archives Month: You Are a User of Archives…And You May Not Even Know It!

Sponsored by the Society of American Archivists and the Council of State Archivists, American Archives Month is held in October to celebrate the importance of archives as institutions that preserve and shape individual memory and the collective memory of communities.

Last year during Archives Month, we posted a blog entry describing what archives are, what archivists do, and why archives are important. This year the focus of Archives Month is the impact of archives. Archivists can collect statistics about the numbers of people who physically visit their repositories and use their collections or who receive information from or about the archives via email, telephone, or websites. Additionally, beyond these patrons are people who utilize archives indirectly because they benefit from the dissemination of historical information based on research conducted in archives. As archivist Paul Conway wrote in 1986, “users of archives are…all beneficiaries of historical information. By this definition, it is unlikely there are many non-users of archives.”

Put another way, when asking who benefits from archives, the answer is “YOU”! This is true even if you’ve never set foot in an archives. Every day you rely on the ability of organizations to preserve accurate records and make them accessible and depend on the work of researchers who study these records and share their findings. Simultaneously, you encounter ways in which past events – big and small, from the distant past and the very recent past – are studied as a way of making sense of the present. Consider the following scenarios in which archives play a vital, if not sometimes unrecognized, role:

• You contact your alma mater to request a duplicate copy of your high school or college transcript.

• You watch a documentary that includes historic images or video footage.

• You watch a historical movie in which crew members consulted historians or archival sources in order to accurately (although not perfectly!) recreate life in the past.

• You read a book – a work of non-fiction in any subject or even a work of non-fiction – in which the author used historical documents or cites other scholars who have studied historical records.

• You read a newspaper article or watch a news program that cites government or business reports, includes statistics showing change over time, shows images or footage of events in the past, or features an expert discussing the history behind a current situation.

• You consult past contracts, reports, policy statements, correspondence (including email), project documents, financial information, or other files at your place of employment in order to perform daily business transactions, comply with legislative and regulatory requirements, protect the interests of the organization and its stakeholders, and conduct research and development of new products or services.

• You watch or listen to a sporting event that contains a “today in history” feature, cites players’ statistics over a period of time, or includes historic images or footage of an important athlete or event.

• You contact your bank or other lending institution to confirm your account balances.

Moreover, chances are that you are an archivist for your own records. This is the case if you manage personal and/or family records such as birth certificates; school transcripts, report cards, or diplomas; pay stubs and other employment records; deeds; mortgages; insurance records; and financial documents such as tax records and bank statements. You may also be an archivist who preserves your family’s history by saving ancestors’ letters and other records as well as historic photographs or home movies. Professional archivists do the came kind of work, although they bring knowledge, skills, values, and training to the endeavor of preserving extensive collections of records for the indefinite future and making them accessible to researchers.

References:

Paul Conway, “Facts and Frameworks: An Approach to Studying the Users of Archives,” American Archivist 49 (Fall 1986): 396.

Was a Texan the First Man to Fly in an Airplane?

It is believed that this glass plate negative shows Jacob Brodbeck's airplane after it crashed in 1865, although this information has not been verified. (SC14120)

One often repeated story of Texas history claims that German immigrant and Hill Country resident Jacob Brodbeck was the first man to fly in an airplane. Although accounts vary, the event allegedly occurred on September 20, 1865, approximately five months following the conclusion of the Civil War and almost four decades before the Wright brothers’ flight experiments on North Carolina’s Outer Banks between 1900 and 1903.

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, Brodbeck’s “aviation achievements remain shrouded in doubt.” This is primarily because documentary evidence is largely lacking, as Brodbeck’s drawings or blueprints for his airplane have not survived and descriptions from eyewitnesses (e.g. letters, journal entries, or newspaper reports) have never been found.

However, materials at the DRT Library do appear to suggest that, despite uncertainties about whether Brodbeck ever actually flew his airplane, he was working on a project aimed at accomplishing this feat.

A republished copy of Jacob Brodbeck's notice, which appeared in the Galveston Tri-Weekly News on August 7, 1865.

In her work Jacob Brodbeck “Reached for the Sky” in Texas, descendant Anita Tatsch includes a photocopy of an article written by Brodbeck that was printed in the Galveston Tri-Weekly News on August 7, 1865. In this article, Brodbeck wrote, “For more than twenty years I have labored to construct a machine which should enable man to use, like a bird, the atmospheric region as the medium of his travels.” Brodbeck’s main purpose in writing the article was to attract funding for the construction of a large “air-ship,” the design of which he intended to patent. “I have therefore concluded to collect subscriptions,” Brodbeck wrote of his financial plans.

“These subscriptions I shall not ask as donations, but as shares, to be refunded together with a part of the proceeds of the sale of the patent right, or the sale of air-ships, as the case may be. I have put the price of one share at five dollars. Every shareholder will receive a certificate, securing to him a proportionate interest in the proceeds of the enterprise.”

A document contained in the library’s archival collections demonstrates and verifies the financial strategy Brodbeck outlined in the newspaper. The document contains four stock certificates, each for a quarter share of stock that San Antonio physician Ferdinand Herff purchased in Brodbeck’s airplane venture. Discovered by Herff’s son in 1924, the stock certificates were donated to the library by granddaughter Zelime Herff Simpson in 1966.

Ferdinand Herff's stock certificates, which helped fund Jacob Brodbeck's efforts to develop an "air-ship."

At the same time, Simpson also donated a final item related to Jacob Brodbeck’s “air-ship”: a six-page typed document entitled “Detailed specifications written by Jacob Brodbeck of an airship made by him.” A note attached to the end of the specifications indicates that the copy in the library’s collections is a transcription and translation of the original, the location of which is not known. According to the addendum, the specifications were “carefully prepared and written in the handwriting of the late Jacob Brodbeck prior to the construction of his airship which worked successfully as far as it would at that time. It was translated from German to English by his granddaughter, Miss Annie Brodbeck…in 1932.”

The first page of a translated and transcribed copy of Jacob Brodbeck's specifications for an "air-ship."

While these documents offer tantalizing evidence that Texan Jacob Brodbeck spent many years working to develop, construct, finance, and patent a means for mechanical flight, whether historians can accurately consider him the first man to fly in an airplane remains a mystery.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Meet the DRT Library Staff: Beverly Ewald

At the DRT Library, the anniversary of each staff member’s date of hire is celebrated with cake or a similarly delicious dessert. Since cake is not easily shared electronically, we are instead going to observe hire dates on the blog with a new series of “meet the staff” entries that share information about each member of the library team. First up is Beverly Ewald, who started working at the DRT Library in September 2008.

* * * * *

Beverly Ewald, DRT Library Cataloging Librarian.

I am the newest member of the DRT Library staff. As the Catalog Librarian, I have the responsibility of assigning call numbers and subject headings to all of the new books that the Library receives as well as updating the online catalog and making corrections or revisions as necessary. I also take my turn helping patrons with their research when they come into the Library and answering e-mail requests for information.

I have been doing genealogy as a hobby for many years, and I enjoy the challenge of family research: it’s just like finding missing pieces of a gigantic puzzle, and it is a lot of fun to meet distant cousins you have recently discovered.

I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and my Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

My previous work in libraries has included a high school library, a private college library, the Archdiocese of San Antonio Archives, several church libraries, the Nonprofit Resource Center of Texas Library, and the Bulverde/Spring Branch Public Library.

Other employment has included ownership and management of several small businesses including two custom picture framing stores; a maid service; a business that specialized in residential and commercial window cleaning and new construction cleanup; and a business that specialized in residential, commercial, and auto window tinting.

My husband, Ken, and I enjoy living in the Hill Country north of San Antonio. We have a garden and like to make pickles and jelly and can tomatoes and other vegetables. We both also enjoy wildlife photography. We attend church at The Branches in Bulverde, an experimental new church development with combined Lutheran and Presbyterian roots.