volume 4, issue 1 spring 2003 a a winds...

The Idea of Sustainable Agriculture on the High Plains.....2 The Crossroads of Texas Music...........................................2 SWC/SCL Acquires Papers of David James Duncan...........4 Ernest Thompson Seton.......................................................5 The Landscape of Community..........................................6-7 ‘Mestizaje’.............................................................................9 Liccardo joins SWC.............................................................10 Millenial Collection Update................................................12 Mission Statement...............................................................13 Staff Briefs..........................................................................19

[The Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library in cooperation with the WindEngineering Program at Texas Tech University is creating a traveling exhibit and accompanyingcatalogue in both digital and traditional formats. The exhibit will first be shown at the InternationalWind Conference hosted by Texas Tech in June, 2003.The following are excerpts from the exhibitand catalogue.]

Inside This Issue

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Winds across the Llano When Walter Prescott Webb wrote The Great Plains, hedescribed an environment historically referred to as theGreat American Desert to which settlers were unaccus-tomed, a semi-arid land to the west of the 98th meridian.According to Webb, settlers had to adapt to this new landthrough the development of technologies like reliable guns,a decent plow, shelter, and windmills before they couldsurvive, let alone thrive in the region. Even as Webb waswriting his great study of the near American West, farmerswere adapting new machinery to meet the challenges oftilling the soil and planting wheat in America’s mid-section.Although Webb discussed the prevalence of wind across theregion, not even he could have predicted the environmental,social, and economic calamity of the ensuing decade. On top of the Llano Estacado, the winds still blow,especially in the spring. Perhaps owing to local chambers ofcommerce, a breeze is any wind under thirty-five miles anhour. Anything above that can loosen shingles and causetumbleweeds to dislodge and bound across an empty winterfield or chase your truck down a caliche road. Contrary tothe popular view of visitors in March or April, the winddoesn’t always blow in West Texas, but when it does thesand and dirt from the next county etch an imprint on yoursoul. In the late 19th century, white newcomers to the HighPlains found the stark, treeless landscape at once beautiful

and frightening. Without trees to reckon distance orspace, earlier travelers saw the Llano as a sea of grassnot unlike the ocean swells of the Gulf of Mexico.Not a few settlers used to the landscape east of the100th meridian turned back, some turned melancholy,some went crazy listening to the wind as it bent the tallgrass sideways on its way to nowhere, and some foundin the wide open spaces of land and sky a liberatingsense of freedom. In the middle of the summer, days are long hereand the ground is often cracked from drought. Thewind blows hot out of the southwest, and the sweat onyour back dries quickly as “dust devils” wend their wayacross farmers’ fields. In the winter, blue northersapproach, and the wind whistles past while it does itsendless work, carving canyons and lifting topsoil highinto the sky to be deposited miles away. Rising 200 feet or more above the surroundingcountryside, the Llano Estacado stretches for almost300 miles north to south and 150 to 200 miles east towest, the southernmost extension of the High Plains.Created through sedimentation deposited by ancient

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...the winds still blow, especially in the spring. Perhaps owing to localchambers of commerce, a breeze is any wind under thirty-five miles anhour. Anything above that can loosen shingles and cause tumbleweedsto dislodge and bound across an empty winter field or chase your truckdown a caliche road.

Volume 4, issue 1Spring 2003

the crossroads of teXas music

From Buddy Holley to Waylon Jennings to Bobby Keyes,Roy Orbison and Joe Ely, to Butch Hancock, Jimmy DaleGilmore, Mac Davis, John Denver, Bob Wills, Tanya Tucker,Lee Ann Womack, Jimmy Dean, Sonny Curtis, Terry Allen,Jerry Jeff Walker, Lloyd Maines, The Maines Brothers Band,Pat Green, Clay Jenkins, Bobby Keys, Tommy Hancock, TheTexanna Dames, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, andDon Caldwell to name a few, West Texas has producedmusic and musicians far exceeding what one might expectgiven the historically scant population of the region. What is it about Lubbock and the High Plains whichfosters such creative energies not only in music but in thearts more broadly defined to include sculptors and paintersand photographers and dancers and actors? To quote Molly

With the recent acquisition of papersby writers concerned about the naturalworld and our place within it, theSouthwest Collection/Special Collec-tions Library is attuned to issuesaffecting the long term sustainability ofthe Llano Estacado. Over the last fewyears, Southwest Collection staff havegotten to know Darryl Birkenfeld.Birkenfeld grew up on a farm near thePanhandle town of Nazareth as part a

the Promised Land network is involved in a number ofother projects including the Hormiguero Project, a programwhich provides leadership training and community organiz-ing skills for two unincorporated colonias in the TexasPanhandle, as well as for Hispanic landowners in DeafSmith, Castro, Parmer and Swisher counties. The networkalso sponsors an Ag Sustainability Tour and Rural Fair inJuly which includes demonstrations of farming methods,and the Southern Plains Study Club, a series of publicmeetings to discuss topics related to upcoming SouthernPlains Conferences. Birkenfeld is also Coordinator of Ogallala Commons, anorganization which “provides leadership in creating thrivingcommunities sustained by healthy land and abundant waterin the Great Plains region that overlies the Ogallala Aquifer.”Among the organization’s goals are to produce both “a senseof place based on regional arts, history and cultures,” and“self-reliant communities anchored in sustainable wealthgenerated from the land rather than dependence on govern-mental or multinational sources.”

The Idea of SustainableAgriculture on the High Plains

large family of twelve children who learned well the longdays associated with raising crops, cattle, and dairy cows. A tall, slender, unassuming man whose calm demeanorbelies an intense desire to inform people about what he seesas the plight and potential renewal of the High Plains,Birkenfeld is a former Catholic priest who still lives inNazareth, two hours north of Lubbock. As a priest, heministered for over a decade to the struggling Panhandleagricultural towns of Cactus and Stratford. Birkenfeld, who holds a PhD in social ethics from theUniversity of California, believes in sustainable agricultureon the High Plains. He is interested in showing the histori-cal link between spirituality and agriculture across time—-aview of agriculture that extends beyond a business perspec-tive. To that end, in the late 1980s Birkenfeld created thePromised Land Network, a non-profit organization dedi-cated to promoting sustainable agriculture to supportcommunities and natural ecosystems over the long-term. Inthe 1990s the organization was honored in Washington asone of thirty-five model environmental justice projects. For more than a decade, Birkenfeld and the PromisedLand Network has sponsored the Southern Plains Confer-ence, a get-together of scholars, farmers, and other residentsof West Texas to discuss Staked Plain land uses andresources. Over the last decade, the conference has spon-sored presentations, workshops, music and poetry with adifferent focus or theme each year. Conference titles have included: Living on the World’s FlattestMountain: The Llano Estacado as Place, Home and Personality;Embodying Husbandry: Family Responsibilities in a SustainableAgriculture; and Renegotiating the Grass Economy, the latestconference held in February. Over the years, presentershave included environmental historian Dan Flores from theUniversity of Montana, agriculture historian MarkFriedberger, of the University of North Texas, musicianAndy Wilkinson, landscape artist Amy Winton, and a hostof geographers, historians, agriculturalists, farmers andranchers. The conference scheduled for 2004 will focus onwater issues in the American Southwest, particularly on theHigh Plains.

In addition to the annual Southern Plains Conference,

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where he continues to serve as a stage manager forthe Battle of the Bands. 2003 marks his 10th year as aproduction manager for the celebration. Peoples continuesto work special events for Don Caldwell, including RaiderAlley, the pre-football game festivities for fans of the TexasTech Red Raiders. In 1997, Peoples became an instructor at South PlainsCollege in the Sound Technology Department where heserved until 1999, when he was employed full-time at Texas

Ivins when she was writing columns for the Dallas TimesHerald, the answer is “Cause there’s dog-all else to do in theplace. In Lubbock you got to make music, laugh or gocrazy.” Others have been somewhat more sympathetic,claiming that the wide-open spaces promote a feeling offreedom seldom found anywhere else. Ivins, who likes theland under her feet to be relatively flat, claims that the 88.3%of sky in Lubbock is the correct proportion between thetwo. After you get used to Lubbock, says Ivins, “everywhere

of Texas Music Project under the direction of CurtisPeoples, the Archive is taking the initiative to collect,process, and preserve this West Texas Legacy. Peoples, who was hired late last year as Archivist for theproject, is no stranger to West Texas Music or the SouthwestCollection/SCL. Having first played music in the 6th gradedrum corps, Peoples continued to play drums into highschool, but also picked up the bass guitar when he was 13.Playing bass in a few bands and in Chamber Choir through-out high school led to further musical stints in college. Whenhe moved to Lubbock, some friends needed a guitar playerin their band so he took up guitar. In 1987, Peoples attended South Plains College inLevelland for two semesters before playing a few years inlocal bands and for six months in Denver. In 1992, hereturned to South Plains College to finish his degree. During this time, Peoples received the Redd StewartScholarship and won Golden Reel Awards for Producer ofthe Year, MIDI Project of the Year, and Video of the Year.In 1994, as he neared the end of his Associates degree atSouth Plains College, Peoples began working as an intern,and then later as a paid employee, for Don Caldwell Studios. After two years at the studio, Peoples moved on to theCactus Theater for a year and a half. During his time atCaldwell Studios, he became a volunteer for the 4th onBroadway celebration held each year in downtown Lubbock,

Tech’s Vietnam Archive. In late2002 he was hired to start themusic archive for the South-west Collection. During histenure wi th the Vie tnamArchive, Peoples helped processall materials that came into thearchive, and during his last year,he was in charge of transferringaudio visual materials, such asanalog reel-to-reel tape andfilm. In 1971, long beforePeoples arrived, Don Caldwellopened Don Caldwell Studios.In 1973, Lloyd Maines beganworking with Caldwell at thestudio. Maines would soon fatherNatalie Maines, lead singer forthe Dixie Chicks, and was on

his way to becoming a legendary steel guitar player andproducer himself. In 1977, a landmark recording sessiontook place at Caldwell studios, Terry Allen’s Lubbock onEverything. During that time, most of the recording tech-niques tried to emulate the popular Nashville sound of theera. However, these techniques did not satisfy Allen’s styleof music. The Allen session produced songs that wouldbecome hits for the Maines Brothers Band and a new soundidentified as aggressive country. In 1996, Don Caldwellturned over the studio to Alan Crossland. Crosslandchanged the name to Brazos Studios and continued makingmusic recordings and maintained the original tape library. While he was working for the Vietnam Archive, Peoplesworked with Crossland, a longtime friend, playing musicalinstruments on various recordings and co-producing a CD.Crossland continued to work with notable musicians,recording Natalie Maines’ audition demo for the DixieChicks, which landed her a job with what is now the mostpopular female group of all-time. In 2000, Crossland closedthe studio, placing all of the master tapes from years past instorage. The environment was not conducive to analog tapestorage, and Peoples recommended to Caldwell, Crosslandand Southwest Collection/SCL Director, Bill Tydeman thatthe tapes be stored at the Southwest Collection in order to

else feels like jail.” Folksbesides Ivins have pointedout that in Lubbock there isplenty to rebel against andmusic serves as a channel inwhich to direct adolescent andpost-adolescent angst. Well,maybe. Waylon Jennings oncecommented that playingmusic was a whole lot easierthan picking cotton all day. Whatever the reason,West Texas is a catalyst forcreativity, especially in music.The Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library isnow in a position to sort allthis out. Wi th the c r e -a t i on o f t he Crossroads

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Folks besides Ivins have pointed out that in Lubbockthere is plenty to rebel against and music serves as achannel in which to direct adolescent and post-adolescentangst. Well, maybe. Waylon Jennings once commented thatplaying music was a whole lot easier than picking cotton allday.

Volume 4, Issue 1

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The Southwest Collection/Special CollectionsLibrary recently acquired the papers of writer, DavidJames Duncan. Duncan’s work complements andadds to a growing list of contemporary writers whohave deposited their work in the archive as part ofTexas Tech University’s Natural History Initiative.Duncan’s papers will be used by students and otherresearchers who are interested in writing about place,community, natural landscapes and their interaction. Duncan lived for many years in Oregon where as achild he developed a deep appreciation for rivers, forfishing, and for the life stories and lessons they tell.Duncan won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awardfor Literary Excellence in 1983 for his book, The RiverWhy. This first novel and has been compared to Catch-22 and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance whileother works have been compared to Catcher in the Ryeand To Kill a Mockingbird. Since that time, Duncan has crafted The Brothers K,for which he won a second Pacific Northwest Book-sellers Award, an American Library Association BestBooks Award, and which was listed as a New York TimesNotable Book in 1993; River Teeth: Stories and Writings,1995; and My Story as Told by Water, 2001. Duncan’swork has appeared in Big Sky, Gray’s Sporting Journal,

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David James Duncan

Sierra, The Sun, Harper’s, Northern Lights, Orion, andOutside magazine among many other publications. Theauthor has lectured and read across the country ontopics as varied as fly fishing, writing, and wilderness.Currently Duncan lives in Montana. Combining humor, activism, and poignancy,Duncan interjects a personal sense of place into all ofhis tales, often commenting on rivers as metaphor forlife and then focusing on industrial juggernauts whichthreaten life. Duncan is careful not to beat the readerover the head with massive piles of statistical informa-tion, but nonetheless, through storytelling narrative, heachieves the desired result. Duncan uncovers at oncethe beauty and logic of sustaining America’s publiclyowned rivers in contrast to sustaining the voraciousappetites of resource industries and urban developersbent upon using those rivers for corporate profit. Although the bio-regions of the Pacific Northwestare a long way from the Llano Estacado, issues—especially those surrounding the use of land andwater—affect both parts of the country. Duncan’swork is a welcome addition to the James Sowell FamilyCollection in Literature, Community and the NaturalWorld which continues to grow and re-define the scopeof Special Collections at the SWC/SCL. u

Southwest Collection/SCL Acquires Papers of David James DuncancanbB

Ernest Thompson Seton(continued from the spring, 2003 issue of the Chronicle)

In 1896, following another year of artstudy in Paris, Seton married GraceGallatin, daughter of California financierAlbert Gallatin. An author and feministleader, Grace aided her husband inediting and designing his uniquelyillustrated books. They became theparents of a daughter Ann, who was latergiven the nickname “Anya” (a variationof a Siouan term meaning “cloud grayeyes”) by a Lakota chief; eventually, AnyaSeton gained her own fame as a writer ofhistorical and gothic romantic fiction.Although the Setons’ individual lives and interestsgradually diverged over the years, they remained oncordial terms. Over the next decade, Seton and his wife enjoyedhunting and exploring various wild areas of NorthAmerica, including the Yellowstone, Jackson Hole andWind River country in Montana and Wyoming, theBadlands of North Dakota, and the Sierra Nevada inCalifornia. Accounts of their adventures were pub-lished serially in the Camp Fire Club’s RecreationMagazine (1897-98) and later in Grace’s books, AWoman Tenderfoot (1900) and Nimrod’s Wife (1907). In1900 they traveled to Norway to observe theLaplanders’ domestication of reindeer. Then in 1907Seton, in company with Edward A. Preble of the U.S.Biological Survey, made a seven-month, 2,000-milecanoe trip to the Canadian sub-arctic, during whichthey discovered and named the Laurier and Earl Greyrivers in the Northwest Territories. One notable resultof that expedition was the creation of Wood BuffaloNational Park to help preserve that endangered sub-species of bison. By 1910, Seton had camped in mostU.S. and Canadian wilderness areas and produced andillustrated such works as The Biography of a Grizzly(1900), Lives of the Hunted (1901), and Animal Heroes(1905). The Arctic Prairies (1911), Seton’s account of thenorth Canadian expedition revealed, among otherthings, his mixed reaction to the Indians of his day andtheir lifestyles. Early editions antagonized somebiologists who resented his failure to acknowledgePreble’s contribution to the success of the trip, a clearreflection of Seton’s egotism.

Throughout the Progressive Era, Setonwas one of the country’s leading writersand illustrators in the nature genre; hispopularity as a public speaker on thelecture circuit netted him up to $12,000annually. His most successful literaryeffort, Wild Animals I Have Known (1898),was a bestseller in its time and has beencontinuously in print. With that book,Seton introduced a tradition of animalstories, which attracted such writers asCharles G. D. Roberts and Jack Londonand earned him the friendship of various

celebrities, most notably President TheodoreRoosevelt. His literary cronies included Mark Twain,William Dean Howells, Charles F. Lummis, MaryAustin and Hamlin Garland. Even so, Seton’s reputation was not invulnerable.In an article in the Atlantic Monthly (March 1903), thenature essayist John Burroughs made him a majortarget as one of the “Nature Fakers,” who attributedpowers of reason to animals and insisted that suchcharacterizations were factual. While Roosevelt andChapman agreed with most of Burroughs’ arguments,they at the same time realized the value of Seton’s workand advised him to break off the attacks or at leasttone them down. Shortly afterward, Burroughs andSeton met at a banquet, hosted by steel magnateAndrew Carnegie, for prominent literary people. Thetwo soon became friends, and in a sequel article (July1904), Burroughs ranked Seton first among contempo-rary younger naturalists but cautioned readers todiscern between truth and fiction. Roosevelt report-edly urged Seton to back up his stories with thepublication of his facts. Seton promptly sought to remedy that situation; theresult was his Life Histories of Northern Animals (1909),which dealt with sixty of the more common NorthAmerican mammal species. Critical response wasfavorable, and the work was awarded the Camp FireClub’s Gold Medal. Over the next fifteen years, Setonlabored to expand his Life Histories into the four-volume Lives of Game Animals, published between 1925and 1929. This publication won him the coveted JohnBurroughs (1926) and Daniel Giraud Elliott (1928)

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On Community

The Landscape of Community

On Community

rivers running down from the Rocky Mountains, theLlano is marked on its eastern edge by a geologicalfeature called the Caprock. A cemented hard-panerosion resistant layer of minerals only a few feetbelow the ground, it greeted eastern travelers as theyascended the rugged escarpment leading to what a fewyears earlier had been the home of bison andComanche. From 2500 feet in elevation along its southeasternedge, to almost 6000 feet along its northwestern rim,the Llano Estacado is exposed to the elements. Earlierhabitués realized this and tended to reside in thecanyons which protected them to some degree. Spring-time storms still rise over the Llano’s edge whereprevailing winds, a sharp escarpment and the collisionof cold and warm air masses create spectacularlyvertical cloud formations reaching into the heavens.The lack of anything like trees or hills to block thewind and the subsequent removal of most of the grassholding the topsoil in place has increased the potentialforce of wind storms on the Llano. Beyond thetreeless 50,000-square mile expanse of grass and sky,what indeed struck many a traveler and pioneer as theyfirst topped the Caprock was the wind. Besidesloneliness, exacerbated by the wide-open spaces of theLlano, wind and dirt were frequent companions tosettlers living on the High Plains. Even the canyons did not always provide safety as

Francisco Coronado discovered in 1540. The Spanishconquistador who traversed the area in search of theSeven Cities of Cibola had encamped in one of thecanyons along the eastern edge of the Llano along with1800 other souls when a massive hailstorm arrived atthree in the afternoon. Announced by high winds andthunder, the arriving storm brought cold rain followedby huge hailstones which smashed tents, armor, and

crockery, leaving the Spaniards with an indelibleimpression about the quick violence associated withweather on the High Plains. Long after Coronado departed, the more or lessconstant breeze coupled with wide open spaces on theHigh Plains continued to have varying effects onpeople. For some pioneers, rising over the Caprock forthe first time had the effect of breathing energy intotheir bodies, long tired from countless miles in a twelvefoot wagon. The sunsets, sky and unobstructedhorizon restored them with vigor. This was literally thecase for thousands of people suffering from tuberculo-sis and other pulmonary ailments who took theirdoctors’ advice and headed into the American South-west and the high stretches of the Llano Estacado,where many found in the dry climate and breezes thebest place in the world to recover. Others found in the High Plains a lonely melan-choly, a feeling of being made insignificant in a neverending sea of grass and sky. The earliest white settlerson the Llano often lived in wagons or tents untildugouts could be built. Crude shelters dug into theground where timber was almost non-existent androofed with sod, dugouts were naturally insulated bythe earth. The surrounding landscape visually swal-lowed up these dwellings because of their low profile.Living in such quarters was not unlike living in a cave,although settlers made the most of it by installing ironstoves, fireplaces, and occasionally wooden floors.

Second-tier settlers on the Llano noted a washedout, far-searching look in the eyes of the earliestpioneers, a look bred from scanning the horizon foryears at a time. Lou Carraway Stubbs, who moved toLubbock in 1891 remembered wind storms so violentthat some fifty windmills were toppled across theregion, and reportedly, some women succumbed to a


(Wind, continued from page 1 )

‘Mestizaje’ As Captured through the Lens of a Camera Capturing the essence of someone’s ancestry through thelens of a camera is quite a feat. Yet, Tony Gleaton has anuncanny ability to reveal a people’s past, providing penetrat-ing honesty and character. Recently, Gleaton donated someof his prints to the Southwest Collection/Special Collec-tions Library. In February, Gleaton gave a lecture on hiswork chronicling Black and Native American cowboys ofthe American West. The lecture, hosted by the SWC/SCLin the Marshall Formby Special Events Room, was part ofBlack History Month activities. Currently visiting professor at Texas Tech University,Gleaton has exhibited at galleries throughout the UnitedStates and Mexico including the National Museum ofAmerican Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.The Smithsonian included his work as part of a travelingexhibit that toured the country. Gleaton was born in 1948 in Detroit, the youngest sonof an elementary school teacher and a police officer. Adecade later, his family moved to California where he liveduntil joining the Marine Corps in 1967. After completing atour of duty in Vietnam, Gleaton returned to California toattend UCLA.

“The photographs which I create are as much an effort todefine my own life, with its heritage encompassing Africaand Europe, as it is an endeavor to throw open the discourseon the broader aspects of ‘mestizaje’ ... the ‘assimilation’ ofAsians, Africans and Europeans with indigenous Americans.The images I produce, most often, are ones in which peopledirectly and openly look into the camera, yet the mostimportant aspect of these portraits is that they give anarrative voice by visual means to people deemed invisibleby the greater part of society ... and deliberately craft an‘alternative iconography’ of what beauty and family and loveand goodness might stand for — one that is inclusive, notexclusive.” - Tony Gleaton

“The images I produce, most often, are ones in whichpeople directly and openly look into the camera, yet the most important aspect of these portraits is thatthey give a narrative voice by visual means to people

deemed invisible by the greater part of society.”

--- Tony Gleaton..

Image Courtesy of Tony Gleaton

In the early 1970s, he developed a keen interest inphotography. In New York he worked as a photographicassistant and took various jobs pursuing his goal to becomea fashion photographer. In 1980, Gleaton left New Yorkbehind. As He hitchhiked and took odd jobs across theAmerican West, he photographed real life icons of the West,working ranch hands and rodeo cowboys, both Native- andAfrican-American. Drifting to Texas, Colorado, Nevada,Idaho, and Kansas, Gleaton met a number of Black rodeoperformers who became an integral part of Cowboys:Reconstructing an American Myth. Traveling the West, Gleaton met Mexican rodeo perform-ers in Los Angeles and traveled with them back and forthbetween Mexico City and the United States. Sharing anapartment with a stunt man from Churubusco Studios inMexico City, the photographer embarked on a 7-yearsojourn across the breadth of Mexico. At one point he livedtwo years with the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico.In the Mexican states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, Gleatonphotographed the descendants of millions of African slavesbrought to New Spain beginning in the 16th century. For thisproject which became Tengo Casi 500 Anos (I am almost 500years old): Africa’s Legacy in Mexico, Central & South America,Gleaton traveled over 20,000 miles using ground transporta-tion to complete the work. In 1997 he returned to the SierraMadre Occidental in Northern Mexico where he lived andphotographed the Cora, Huichol, Tarahumara, Yaqui,Cucupa and the coastal dwelling Seri peoples.

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Author H. Allen Anderson

Andrew John Liccardo recently joined the SWC/SCL as Library Associate, in the Exhibits and Outreachdepartment. He received his M.F.A. from Texas Techin 2001 and has taught photography classes in theSchool of Art and Mass Communications. With two years as a student assistant in Exhibitsand Outreach, Liccardo is no stranger to most of theSWC/SCL staff. During his initial two years at thearchive, he assisted with exhibit preparation, createdexhibition quality digital images, and updated the photolab. He also spent time researching photographcollections for images to use in exhibits, in the SouthwestChronicle, and in the annual SWC Academic Calendar.In 2001 he curated an exhibit from the SouthwestCollection Photograph Collection for the ShiftingLandscapes symposium. Liccardo has been involved in the MillennialCollection project since its inception. He was a mem-ber of the Shifting Landscapes symposium committeeand lectured at the event on the interaction betweenthe Southwest Collection, the School of Art, and thestudents working on the project. He will continue toplay a major role in the growth of the project and inthe interaction between the Southwest Collection/SCLand participating departments and groups. Liccardo has been photographing the Lubbock areasince 1997 and has recently exhibited his images of theTexas Plains in New York, Florida, Michigan, Buffalo,Boston, Atlanta and of course Lubbock. He has anupcoming solo show in Amarillo this July.. Liccardo’s expertise in will greatly enhance theability of Exhibits & Outreach to take on moreambitious projects and to enlarge its scope in keepingwith the mission of the Southwest Collection/SCL.

medals. By ably blending his own field experienceswith the findings of zoologists and other observers,Seton produced an eminently readable work that, at thesame time, reflected the latest scientific thinking. Hislandmark insights into animal psychology and empha-sis on life histories have made his Game Animals anenduring text. Throughout his life, Seton was never recognized asan artist of the first degree. Most of his mammalpaintings were quite good, if academic, but his artisticability is best shown in his numerous pen and ink fieldsketches. Although his forte was depicting quadru-peds, his watercolors and sketches of birds werelikewise evocative. While he never entirely masteredthe look of flight, Seton devised the field identificationsystem later perfected in Roger Tory Petersen’s FieldGuides. As an illustrator, Seton launched the standardfor the later work of Louis Agassiz Fuertes and others.Even his rare attempts at sculpture reflected hiscreative genius, and his unique combination of writingand illustration made him an exceptionally effectivepublicist for the natural world. Almost from the beginning, Seton showed greatinterest in Native American lore and culture. Through-out their western travels, he and his wife visited severalIndian reservations, befriended their leaders and clearlysympathized with their plight at the hands of the whiteman. In 1902 Seton organized the Woodcraft Indians

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Liccardo Joins SWC/SCL Staff

(later Woodcraft League of America), a colorful youthmovement which idealized Indian life and lore. Heheld annual campouts at his Wyndygoul and DeWintonestates near Greenwich, Connecticut, for area youth,during which he taught them campcraft and Indianways. With his publication of Two Little Savages, theWoodcraft movement caught on, and chapters wereorganized nationwide. During a lecture tour in En-gland, Seton met with Sir Robert S. S. Baden-Powell,who was formulating ideas for his Boy Scout move-ment there. As a result, in 1910, Seton played a keyrole in the formation of the Boy Scouts of Americaand edited its original handbook, which was largely arevision of his Woodcraft manual, The Birch Bark Roll. For five years, Seton served as Chief Scout andvigorously promoted the movement. In addition, heand his wife had a hand in the organization of theCamp Fire Girls, founded in 1911 by Luther andCharlotte Gulick. However, Seton’s staunch opposi-tion to uniforms, military-style discipline and sloganssoon caused dissention within the BSA leadershipranks. Moreover, Seton accused Baden-Powell ofstealing and “corrupting” many of his ideas withoutgiving him proper credit. Consequently, in 1915, hebroke with other BSA leaders, notably Dan Beard andJames E. West, to give greater attention to his Wood-craft organization. Continuing his research on Indianhistory and culture, Seton in 1918 published Sign Talk,a study of Indian sign language. This work, whichbecame a standard text among educators for the deaf,attracted the attention of ethnologists and historianslike George Bird Grinnell, Frederick Webb Hodge,James Mooney, Francis La Flesche and Natalie Curtis.In 1926 Seton was among the first recipients of theBSA’s Silver Buffalo award for his role in Scouting. From the time of his first lecture tours to the“Land of Enchantment” in the early 1910s, Setonconsidered making New Mexico his permanent home.As early as 1927 he began making arrangements tomove there, and by 1931 he had taken out his natural-ization papers and left the East for good. Purchasingsome 2,500 acres near Santa Fe, he established SetonVillage as a summer institute. There he built his stoneand adobe “Castle,” whose thirty rooms containedmost of his 8,000 paintings and drawings, 13,000books, and 3,000 bird and mammal specimens, inaddition to his numerous Indian artifacts. His summerCollege of Indian Wisdom attracted world-wideattention and was endorsed by many, including Bureau

of Indian Affairs Commissioner John Collier, architectof the “Indian New Deal” during the 1930s. HisSeton Village Press, for a time, published a monthlymagazine, The Totem Board, which featured animal andIndian lore. Moreover, Seton relocated the WoodcraftLeague’s executive offices in Los Angeles, California,where he had many friends and supporters. In 1935,four days after divorcing his first wife, Seton marriedJulia M. Buttree, his longtime secretary and a commit-ted student of Indian culture, who was almost thirtyyears his junior. The couple later adopted a daughter,Beulah Deanna (Dee). All the while, the Chief never stopped painting,writing or telling his stories. Throughout the Depres-sion and war years, he was in continuous demand as alecturer, especially on college campuses. For example,in the spring of 1937, a delegation of coeds fromTexas Tech and their sponsor, Dr. William CurryHolden, visited Seton Castle by special invitation.This group was the Ko-Shari Club, a campus women’sorganization with an Indian theme. Every spring theclub made a field trip to New Mexico. There theytoured the Frijoles Canyon ruins—the setting ofAdolph Bandalier’s novel, The Delight Makers, andinitiated new members at an ancient kiva. On thisparticular occasion, the Ko-Sharis were so charmed bytheir hosts and their work that they arranged to havethe Setons speak at their campus in March of thefollowing year. The positive response of the studentsand faculty to the couple’s joint lecture on animals andIndian lore at the old gymnasium prompted James G.Allen, then acting Dean of Men, to invite them backin July as part of Tech’s summer recreation program.On the appointed day (July 6), despite threatening rain,the Chief and his wife gave their “Message of theRedmen” to an audience of 400 on the green in frontof the Administration Building. In addition to their tours, Seton published severallater books, including The Gospel of the Redman (1936),Great Historic Animals (1937), and his autobiographyTrail of an Artist-Naturalist (1940). Even when theevents of World War II compelled them to limit theirtravels and discontinue their summer institute, theSetons’ popularity never waned. To the very end, theChief remained active. He continually made moreplans for writing and speaking engagements. He diedat his beloved Castle near Santa Fe on October 23,


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Millennial Collection Update by Andrew Liccardo

The Millennial Collection, an interdisciplinarydocumentary project supported by the School of Artand the Southwest Collection/SCL, recently sawexpansion in both its holdings and its outreach intothe larger community. The Millennial Collection isunique. Side by side with documentary portfoliosfrom professional photographers is student work fromProfessor Rick Dingus’s documentary photographyclass. Already in its third year, approximately 500photographs and artifacts have been included in thecollection and the project is ongoing. Earlier in the year Dingus’ documentary classvisited the Southwest Collection and viewed theMillennial Collection work archived here. They alsospent time researching and making copy negatives ofhistoric photographs of Lubbock and the surroundingcommunities. They then visited those sites and maderepeat photographs for comparative purposes. Utiliz-ing the historic image along with their own contempo-rary versions, the students saw the effects of thepassage of time on the location. They were able to see

how visiting the actual site can shed light on informa-tion in the image and the decisions made by thephotographer. Having students research the SouthwestCollection’s photograph collection encourages them toask questions about historic photographs that will theninform the photographs they make and place in thearchive. The students are currently finishing finalprojects which will be considered for inclusion in theMillennial Collection at the end of the semester.

Furthering an important goal of the project inMarch, forty images from the Millennial Collectionwere displayed in a show at The University of Utah’s

Architecture Department. RickDingus visited the campus, at-tended the show opening, gave apublic lecture concerning themission and evolution of theproject and met with faculty todiscuss how the two institutionscould collaborate on work tofurther the goals and mission of

the project. This marks the second time the work hastraveled for exhibition, having been displayed at AustinCollege in 2001. The success of the project and thesymposium, Shifting Landscapes in 2001 has attractedattention from a wide variety of disciplines. A goal ofthe project is to inform a wider audience and toencourage interdisciplinary participation from acrossthe country, enlarging the scope of the project. The Southwest Collection is currently lookingtowards adding more professional portfolios to theMillennial Collection. After a recent campus visit andlecture, Peter Brown of Houston visited the archive,and showed a portfolio of prints to Special CollectionsLibrarian, Bruce Commack. Brown has been photo-graphing the western plains for over a decade, includ-ing the communities of Tahoka, Brownfield, Dickens,Levelland and Dimmit. In 1999 he published thephotographs in a book entitled On the Plains. Michael Berman, another photographer who hasbeen photographing in the southwest for many years,also visited the Tech campus this spring to lecture andshow work to Dingus’ documentary class. Mr. Bermanis currently talking with the Southwest Collection aboutthe possibility of collecting a portfolio of his recentwork. Currently Berman is working on a projectphotographing the desert areas in the border region ofArizona and Mexico.

help preserve them. Many of the tapes had begun todeteriorate and are still badly in need of preservation. Most of the recordings in Caldwell’s ¼ inch collectionwere recorded on tape that is prone to absorbing ambientmoisture in the air. This causes the tape to get sticky, withpieces of the oxide flaking off in chunks, rendering itunplayable. This deterioration is called hydrolysis, or stickyshed syndrome. The hydrolysis is so bad most of the tapeswill not even play without sticking to the heads and trans-port of the tape machine. Fortunately, tape manufacturershave found a process that will temporarily dry out themoisture in the tape long enough for it to be played and re-recorded to another medium. A baking process allows thetape to be played and converted to another format forpreservation. The treatment lasts about thirty days and thenthe tape returns to its original state. The tape can onlysurvive about three treatments in its life and will thenbecome unusable. Before transferring the tapes to anothermedium, the Southwest Collection staff will prepare thetapes through this baking process. The Caldwell collection contains about 5000 reel to reeltapes in various track configurations, and documents threedecades of influential West Texas musicians, as well as awide variety of musical style. Already, Peoples has madeplans to digitize the collection of tapes in order to save atleast three decades of recorded West Texas music. Inaddition to tapes from Don Caldwell, the SouthwestCollection has received about 150 ¼ inch reel to reel tapesfrom Broadway Studios, about 100 Albums of West Texasand Texas music called the Ralph Dewitt Collection which isexpected to expand.. So far the music project has received one grant from theHelen Jones Foundation to work on preserving the Caldwelltape collection, but the project will require additionalfunding in order to buy the equipment designed specificallyfor archiving audio material. According to Peoples the moststate-of-the-art audio archiving system available is calledQuadriga. Peoples recently traveled to New York to see thesystem in action, and notes that the system is currently usedby some of the leading archival repositories in the world. At

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present, European and Asian countries have taken the leadin transferring sound recordings using the system includingnational archives and libraries. In the United States, Vidipax,Absolute Audio, and National Audio Restoration Serviceshave now installed the Quadriga system to perform restora-tion functions. Unlike other systems, the Quadriga system allows theoperator to transfer any analog audio format, producemetadata (including information from peripheral devicessuch as scanners), and generate error logs for analog tapeand digital files. The digital sound recording, metadata, anderror logs are all stored together, which makes it easier toaccess the information and reduces the number of metadatarepositories. This system is designed to save 40 percent of the manhours needed to transfer materials. The Quadriga equipmentwould not only be used for the music archive, but also forthe Southwest Collection/SCL’s oral history project and theArchive of Turkish Oral Narratives (ATON). Future plansalso call for working with other universities on Texas andSouthwest recorded sound projects. Through People’s contacts with musicians in West Texas,an advisory board has been established to assist with themusic archive. Don Caldwell, Joe Carr, Alan Crossland,Kenny Maines, Wally Moyers, Eddie Reeves, Jerry Stoddard,and Andy Wilkinson will serve on the board. Initial planscall for collecting everything pertaining to West Texas musicincluding not only recorded music, but oral histories,photographs, posters, and promotional material. Peoplespoints out that the archive will pursue all styles of WestTexas music—Country, Rock, and Tejano— to name only afew.

For more information contact: Curtis Peoples

ArchivistTexas Tech University

Southwest Collections Special Collections LibraryLubbock, Texas 79409-1041

[email protected]: 806-742-3749 ext 265

Fax: 806-742-0496www.swco.ttu.edu

The Mission of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library is to provide uncompromising service:

To fellow staff members, in a cooperative effort that recognizes the dignity and worth of individuals and their potential forunique contributions, and therefore promotes more efficient operation and better service to patrons.

To patrons from the university community, by actively striving to determine the research needs of faculty, staff and students;by making resources available to the greatest extent possible; and by serving as a center for interdisciplinary activity.

To patrons from the larger regional/national community, by acquiring, preserving, securing and making available the re-sources that are considered useful for the present and posterity, and by offering outreach programs to inform the public of ourresources and mission.

MISSION STATEMENT

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sort of distress which left them anxiously pacing thefloor. At night, following such storms, both womenand men became painfully aware of the relative silencearound them, and their loneliness, enhanced by theoccasional howl of a coyote made them all the morehomesick for a landscape of trees and people leftbehind. Perhaps the most scathing attack on the breezymeteorological character of the Texas High Plainscame in 1925 with the publication of The Wind, byDorothy Scarborough. Originating from accounts toldto her by her mother who had come west seeking relieffrom tuberculosis in the high arid climate of WestTexas, The Wind is set around Sweetwater during thedevastating drought and blizzards of 1886 and 1887when many a cattleman left the cattle business and theLlano Estacado behind forever. Centered aroundLetty, a delicate girl who has left the lush verdure ofVirginia for the treeless plains of Texas, The Windprovoked outrage in Texas readers and particularly inboosters and local West Texas chambers of commerce.By the closing chapters of the book, Letty, beset by thedemonic howling of the wind, has gone insane. “She hadn’t been herself. It was the wind, the windthat was to blame! Nobody ought to hold a crazyperson responsible for what he did, and the wind hadmade her crazy. She could see things clearly now,because it wasn’t blowing. She must think fast, beforeit started up again, because the wind did things to herbrain that wouldn’t let her think…” Living in West Texas meant isolation. Leaving

behind trees and kinfolk in 1878, Quakers fromIndiana led by Paris Cox arrived on the Southern Plainswith perhaps little realization of such isolation. Coxarranged for a German immigrant named Heinrich

Schmitt to break some land near what would becomethe Quaker community of Estacado. Schmitt hadchanged his name to Henry Clay “Hank” Smith, apatriotically American name, and made the most ofopportunities presented him on the High Plains. Yearsafter Smith departed this earth, a farmer was plowingalong the edge of Blanco Canyon where Smith hadhomesteaded. Shining in the newly turned soil was ametal glove, a gauntlet to be exact. Confirmed asbelonging to a Spanish soldier, most probably onefrom Coronado’s 1540 expedition, the metal artifacthas led to further archaeological discoveries in thecanyon. Digging in the dirt has yielded copper cross-bow points and other relics suggesting that Coronado’smen camped in the canyon during his quest for theland called Quivira in the 16th century, perhaps duringthe momentous hailstorm. Unlike Smith, who prospered here, the nearbyIndiana Quakers soon had their fill of the wide-openspaces and opted to join their brethren and sisters inmore hospitable climes at Friendswood, 500 miles tothe southeast. Like many towns above the Caprocktrying to hold on today, Estacado eventually dried upand all but blew away. The latest latecomers to the High Plains, those whofollowed the Indians, Ciboleros, Comancheros,pastores, buffalo soldiers, cowboys and even theQuakers, brought with them a strong will to survive inwhat seemed a harsh and unforgiving environment.Proud, stubborn dirt farmers also brought along areligious conviction that they were destined to succeedon the Llano where they might have failed in the past.A land grant law of 1876 and Texas’ unabashedcourting of railroads opened up the vast lands of theLlano Estacado to these lean, hard “nesters,” as cowpunchers and cattlemen derisively called them. Typical of these newcomers, in 1901, Andrew andMary Blankenship, and their young son, Wallace, andfive other families, journeyed seven days from ErathCounty, Texas to the Llano Estacado. One hundredten miles northwest of Big Spring, and 20 milessouthwest of the village of Lubbock, lay a 2 ½ milestrip of land stretching to the New Mexico borderwhich had been missed by surveying crews from thenorth and south. Subsequently, Jim Jarrot, a friend ofthe Blankenships, had gained permission from the stateof Texas to “settle up” this strip of land, and aftersome deliberation the Blankenships decided to headwest. As it climbed the eastern edge of the Llano, their

(Wind, continued from page 8)

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The Texas High Plains in Poetry and Photographs With the acquisition of the Walt McDonald papers, theSouthwest Collection/Special Collections Library adds to itsimpressive collection of contemporary writers who writeabout the landscapes of community, place and the naturalworld. McDonald (profiled in “Painting the AmericanWest” in the spring, 2002 issue of the Southwest Chronicle),one of the most prolific of American poets is also one ofthe most honored. The author came to Texas Tech in 1971. Since then hehas published eighteen collections of poems and a book offiction. Named Texas Poet Laureate for 2001, McDonaldwon six awards from the Texas Institute of Letters includingthe Lon Tinkle Memorial Award for Excellence Sustained

Throughout a Career and four Western Heritage Awardsfrom the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. The poet has twoNational Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow-ships and is the recipient of numerous outstanding teachingand distinguished research awards throughout his career. Beyond a singular ability to paint the American West withpoetry, McDonald’s collaborative projects with visual artistsand archivists have yielded some striking imagery and text.In All That Matters: The Texas Plains in Photographs and Poems,1992, Janet Neugebauer, archivist at the Southwest Collec-tion/Special Collections Library, selected images which mostappropriately reflected McDonald’s prose. In 1999 the pairteamed up again to produce Whatever the Wind Delivers :Celebrating West Texas and the Near Southwest . It is a presenta-

tion of poetry and eighty-three photographs which meshinto a portrayal of the often harsh landscapes of West Texasand the spirit of survival. Neugebauer’s focus reflects basicneeds for humankind: food, clothing, shelter, government,recreation, and spirituality. Spirituality is something never far from McDonald’sworldview. His recent partnership with fellow West Texanand State Photographer Wyman Meinzer has all the spiritualelements that one discovers in the natural landscape of theTexas High Plains. Meinzer’s photographs deftly captureMcDonald’s vivid descriptions of the plains. The GreatLonely Places of the Plains follows Meinzer’s most recentpartnership with the author John Graves on Texas Rivers. The Southwest Collection/SCL has worked with bothMeinzer and McDonald over the years, creating exhibits tohighlight both men’s artistry, and providing materials tocreate an historical context to their work.

Lyn Stoll and Wyman Meinzer

wagon train was headed into a land both frighteningand overwhelming, and the wind was there to greetthem:

The newcomers who started trekking up the Caprockin the late 19th century chose watered canyons in whichto live. As late as 1910, mention was made about thepermanent surface water in Yellow House Canyon, butmany of those who came had no choice but to bravethe elements out on the open plain above. In the late19th and early twentieth centuries, a succession ofnesters arrived on the High Plains. The trappings ofcivilization soon followed these nesters. Small townslike Lubbock sprang up in the middle of cow pastures,and preachers baptized the faithful in stock tanks andplaya lakes that held enough water. Until the 1930s, establishing a reliable water supplymeant drilling a well and setting a windmill over it topull precious waters to the surface. Many settlers reliedupon the expertise of a dowser, or “water witcher” tolocate and drill wells. Before electricity reached thewide open spaces on the Llano Estacado, windmillsproved invaluable, allowing ranchers and farmers tofence their land and water their cattle, not to mentionviewing the stark landscape around them. Many arancher, his wife and children scaled a windmill tosurvey the horizon in the hopes of seeing a distantpasser-by. One mill, the Yellow House, was reportedlythe tallest in the world at 132 feet. Drilled in 1886, thewell was located in Yellow House Canyon in thesouthwestern corner of Lamb County. In order tocatch the wind, the tower had to reach high into thesky since its base was planted on the canyon floor. Before 1920, thousands of windmills were sold anderected across the American Plains, including the LlanoEstacado. Many believe that it was the windmill, morethan any other invention, that helped settle the Ameri-can West, as it gave water to railroads, ranchers, andfarmers where precious little existed on the surface.

Windmills helped sturdy pioneers trying to make aliving above the Caprock beginning in the 1870s. Butfarmers needed more, especially on the southernportion of the High Plains where cotton became themain crop by the 1920s. As springs were tapped out,farmers discovered what one writer has called “the landof underground rain,” an aquifer stretching from theHigh Plains of Texas north to South Dakota. TheOgalala Aquifer was a godsend to Texas drylandfarmers, especially since state law allowed landownersto pump as much water as they wanted from beneaththeir land. Today, as the aquifer is depleted, farmerscontinue to suck ancient rainwater deposited during along ago era, using electricity instead of wind to pull itto the surface. Second-tier settlers, those that came to the Llano inthe 1920s and early 30s still relied on the wind forwater resources, but for them the wind became muchmore an enemy than a friend. From the worn-outcotton fields of places like Erath and Wise counties,part of the Rolling Plains and Cross Timbers regionsof Texas, settlers struggled up the Caprock in wagonspiled high or low with earthly possessions. Thisoutcropping of rock that defines the outline of theLlano Estacado marked the geographical and develop-ing cultural perimeter for those who finally reached thetop and set about breaking the soil. The journey of farm families to the Llano wasgradual, heightened by the claims of speculators plyingtheir trade in places as far removed as Illinois andIowa. From worn out farmlands further east andnorth came those looking for cheap land, peoplewanting to believe the elaborate claims and the evenmore suspect images of corn growing above a man’shead in a dry climate of less than twenty inches of rainin a year. It was an ongoing journey of tired souls andtired bodies heading for the promised land. Therewere many who got here late, the same kind of folkdepicted in the imagery of Dorothea Lange during thethirties. Some came later still. Part of the acreage nowcontributing to the white mono-culture surroundingLubbock was not broken until the 1940s. Second and third generation High Plains farmers—those who descended from the earliest pioneers—were moving towards what appeared a progressivelyeasier lifestyle with the widespread use of gasolinetractors in the 1920s. These new metal machines,along with abundant rainfall and high commodityprices on the tail of WWI created the illusion that the

“ I experienced my first fright of thenew world when we climbed the rocky,narrow, little used wagon trail, as thewind began to beat the cover on ourwagon, swelling into a giant balloon. Aswe climbed higher, the wind becamecolder and more violent, and the mulesbalked stubbornly at being beaten in theface with dirt and gravel from theroad”.

e (continued on page 17 )


High Plains was one big sand box to dig up and plant. In the Panhandle, the northernmost stretches ofthe Llano Estacado, farmers gassed up their tractors,hooked up their plows and ripped open just aboutevery square acre of tillable soil, replacing bluestemand grama grass with wheat called Turkey Red. Dayand night they churned up topsoil, each inch of whichhad taken natural forces 1000 years or more to create.Where earliest settlers walked behind draft animals anda breaking plow that tortured limbs and back, plowingthree acres a day, the new machine-driven contraptionscould eat through 100 acres—even more if they ranboth day and night. In 1931, the High Plains began to experience oneof the cyclical droughts that had afflicted the regionfor millennia. The rains stopped falling, and over theensuing decade, farmers hoping to reap the benefits ofa wheat bonanza reaped only dust instead. The topsoilheld intact for eons by a blanket of long and short

grasses now turned into huge clouds of dirt, stretchingfor miles across the sky, blocking out the sun. Andstill, some farmers, confident that the rains would soonreturn, continued to plow up what remained of thesouthern plains. Many thought the end of the world was at hand,and prepared to die while others succumbed to dustpneumonia. At one point in the middle of the decade,the wind and dust howled for twenty-seven days andnights without stopping, the color of the cloudsdetermining whether they came from Kansas, Okla-homa, or from some place more sinister. Areas considered at best marginal for planting lostall their topsoil. Fence rows disappeared under atorrent of dust clinging to anything in its path. What

the dust did not destroy, static electricity, enhanced bybillions of dust particles, turned living green to brownand black. Jackrabbits, scrounging for food, came outof the low hills appearing from a distance like antsmoving across the barren earth. Above the plaintivecries of the rabbits which some likened to the cries ofbabies, hungry settlers joined in driving the long-earedcreatures into make-shift corrals where they clubbedthem to death and divvied up the spoils to take home.Today, you can still find jackrabbits darting across sanddunes deposited by the winds more than half a centuryago. Many on the High Plains during the Great Depres-sion of the thirties came to believe that the dark cloudsof dust causing such misery were visited on the peopleliving there by God himself. Many preachers andchurches espoused the view that the perils of dust werea sign of God’s disapproval, an omen of the impend-ing apocalypse. The grassroots population seems tohave believed such rhetoric as their own statementsabout the crisis included frequent references to scrip-ture denoting an angry God, punishment, and Judg-ment Day. Following the worst dust storm to hit the Llano, theblack blizzard of April 14, 1935, authors, songwritersand poets, journalists and boosters all had their owntake on the calamity. While a great many folks in theregion had all they could take, and were willing tosuffer the uncertainties of migrating to California, theJoads for instance as depicted in John Steinbeck’s novelThe Grapes of Wrath, many more chose to stay in theregion. Following the advice of John L. McCarty, aDalhart booster and editor of the local newspaper, theDalhart Texan, farmers joined “The Last Man’s Club,”pledging to stick out the vicissitudes of dirt and windno matter what: “In the absence of an act of God, serious familyinjury, or some other emergency, I pledge to stay hereas the last man and to do everything I can to help otherlast men remain in this country. We promise to stayhere `til hell freezes over and skate out on the ice.” Seventy-five percent of people living in the DustBowl region of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico,Colorado and Kansas did just that. Following encour-agements like, “Grab a root and growl,” they stayedwhere they were. A seemingly empty province, the Llano Estacadowas populated late by ranchers and poor white farmers

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(Wind, continued from page 16 )

e

who started trickling into the territory in the lastdecades of the 19th century. For them, the vastwilderness of grass represented a last chance toobtain cheap land and make it produce. By the1930s in the midst of the Great Depression, theproud, wind-scarred and weather-beaten people ofthe High Plains still found it difficult and distastefulto succumb to the exigencies of relying onRoosevelt’s New Deal. The creation of towns with names like NewDeal, Roosevelt, and the re-settlement communityof Ropesville, however, bear witness toWashington’s ambitious plans. Removing farmersfrom areas designated sub-marginal— places wherethe wind had already scraped away a good portionof the topsoil—and placing them on new landswhere they had to conform to government agricul-tural methods, may have seemed distasteful forawhile, but hundreds of applications poured in. Ropesville, which lies a few miles southwest ofLubbock, was part of the Rural RehabilitationProgram, a division of the Federal EmergencyRelief Agency under Franklin Roosevelt’s 1930sNew Deal. Although the FERA helped to relocateboth urban and rural families into the fall andwinter of 1933, program leaders realized by thenthat farmers required a program to restore theirself-respect in addition to restoration of theireconomic viability. Farmers needed low-interestloans to purchase fertilizer, seeds, feed, livestock,tools and land in order to support themselves, andavoid the relief rolls which exceeded 2,000,000 ruralAmerican families. Consequently the Ropesville ResettlementProject, one of seventy-eight “community” projectsacross the country, established seventy-seven youngagricultural families from across the wind-scarredHigh Plains to start over. Albeit using new, govern-ment prescribed methods and governed by a boardof directors under the Texas Rural CommunitiesAgency and representatives from the AgriculturalAdjustment Administration, tenants were gratefulfor the opportunity to start over. In 1935, Texas Rural Communities, Inc. pur-chased from Ellwood Farms the southern part ofthe Spade Ranch, some 4100 acres for $25 an acre.Originally, the Ropesville Project was designed tosub-divide acreage into 40-acre tracts with homeson each, but that experimental idea was replacedwith one calling for farms of at least 120 acres

1946, at the age of 86. The autopsy revealed that hehad pancreatic cancer. Following a memorial service,his body was cremated, as he had requested, in Albu-querque. Julia Seton continued to entertain audiences withher late husband’s animal stories and Indian lore almostup until the time of her death in 1975. Her daughter,Mrs. Dee Seton Barber, continues to maintain theCastle as a museum and center for the study of Indianlife. Prior to her death, Mrs. Seton gave the bulk ofher husband’s papers, art pieces and book collection tothe Ernest Thompson Seton Memorial Library at thePhilmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico.Seton’s original, handwritten journals, which he keptfrom 1879 until a few days before his death, weredonated to the American Museum of Natural Historyin New York. Several of his paintings and drawingshave turned up in other museums and repositories,including the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum inCanyon, Texas. Although the decentralized Woodcraft Leagueeventually fell apart, regional groups, like the LosAngeles-based Woodcraft Rangers, continued in theU.S. Likewise, Woodcraft groups in Great Britain, theNetherlands, the Czech Republic, Japan and othercountries around the world continue to memorializethe Chief as one of the great popularizers of thenatural world. Indeed, Seton perhaps was ahead of histime, for he probably would have found a readyfollowing among today’s environmentalists, animalrights groups, Indian organizations and wildlifeconservation associations.

Seton, continued from page 11

apiece, then 160 acres, until finally by 1947, the projectcomprised 16,223 acres and had an average farm sizeof 210 acres. Initially thirty-four windmills with steeltowers and cypress water tanks provided water for eachhomestead. Earlier notions for the project had encour-aged truck farming on 40 acres as a way to “turn awayfrom cotton production…” on the High Plains. Theseideas were quickly abandoned in favor of follow[ing]the pattern of traditional homesteads in the area wherea portion of the acreage would be devoted to cotton.Old habits die hard. Fifty years after the dust had supposedly settled onthe Llano, locals were just as adamant about wantingWashington, or for that matter, Austin, officials to stayhome as they had initially been in the thirties. In themid-1990s, the Environmental Protection Agencyvisited the High Plains during one of the springtime’sfrequent days of “blowing dust.” The EPA declaredthe air in Lubbock, Texas and the surrounding areaunfit for breathing. As the wind blew, hard bitten


Staff BriefsH.B. Paksoy , Archivist for the Archive of Turkish Oral Narratives (ATON) presented a paper, Views of the ‘Outlaw Concept’ in ComparativePerspective: ‘The American West” and the “Zeybeks in the Turk lands” at the West Texas Historical Association Annual Meeting in Lubbock, April11th. ATON has received worldwide attention with its digitized on-line collection, recording over 18,000 document requests from the site,http://aton.ttu.edu/ in the first three weeks of January. Of the three similar programs worldwide ATON is the only collection digitizedand accessible on the web. There are currently over fifty links to the ATON website from various other sites around the world.

Diane Warner presented a talk on the establishment and scope of the James Sowell Family Collection in Literature, Community and the NaturalWorld at the 24th Annual Conference of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association meeting inAlbuquerque, N.M., Feb. 14, 2003. Warner presented “Icicles” and other poems at Angelo State University’s Seventh Annual WritersConference in Honor of Elmer Kelton on Feb. 20th. She attended the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia(Jan. 2003), and currently serves on the ALA LAMA Cultural Diversity Committee. In April, she attended the Texas Library AssociationConference and is Alternate Councilor for Texas Regional Group of Catalogers and Classifiers and appointed Webmaster for Archives andLocal History Round Table. Warner will have a poem, “For My Son, On His Birthday,” published in the Comstock Review. Brenda L. Haes, Assistant University Archivist, will receive a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology in May from Texas Tech University.Her thesis is entitled: “Reinterpreting Chiricahua Apache Ethnohistory Through the Work of Keith H. Basso.” This is Haes’ secondMaster’s degree.

Steve Bogener, Coordinator of Exhibits & Outreach received a Quality Service Award and honorarium from Texas Tech University onApril 9, 2003 at a reception at the Merket Alumni Center. The award is given annually “to recognize and reward both individual and groupefforts in supporting the SERVICEplus philosophy of Texas Tech University.”

Cataloger, Julia Saffell, will receive a Master’s degree in Library Science from North Texas University in May. This will be Saffell’s secondMaster’s degree. She already possesses a Master’s in Education with emphasis on school library work from Texas Tech.

Exhibits Preparator, Lyn Stoll, will accompany her husband, Mark, in Germany this summer where he will conduct research at theUniversity of Goettingen as part of a Templeton Foundation grant .

Contributing Editor: Steve BogenerPhoto Editor: Andrew John LiccardoDesign and Layout: Laura Goss

SOUTHWESTCHRONICLE

Spring 2003, Volume 4, Issue 1 Comments, questions, or ideas for articles should be addressed to:Steve Bogener at (806) 742-3749 or [email protected]

Published by the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Libraryat Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409-1041

Volume 4, issue 1Spring 2003

volume 4, issue 1 spring 2003 a a winds...

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