Category: Center for Texas Public History

From TXST to NPR: Conversations with Executive Producer Erika Aguilar

Image of flyer with dates and times (included in text of blog entry)

Please join as we welcome Erika Aguilar, Executive Producer of NPR’s Morning Edition and Up First. A graduate of Texas State, majoring in History and Journalism, Aguilar leads the team that delivers the news that many of us listen to on our morning commutes. Aguilar will be visiting Texas State as part of the History in the Making Series and Mass Communication Week.

THURSDAY, 6 Oct. 2022

Reception, 5:30 PM
Taylor-Murphy Hall Courtyard (Food to be served)

Keynote/Q&A, 7 PM
Alkek Library Teaching Theater

FRIDAY, 7 Oct. 2022

Student Breakfast 10 AM Honors College Coffee Forum Lampasas

TV and Radio News Panel, 1:45 PM to 3 PM
Old Main 230

 

Sponsored by the Texas State Department of History, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Texas Center for Public History, the Center for the Study of the Southwest, KTSW, the College of Liberal Arts, the Honors College, the Office of the Provost, and The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women. If you require an accommodation due to a disability, contact Dr. Louie Dean Valencia at 512.245.2103 or at lvalencia@txstate.edu. Requests should be made at least 72 hours in advance of the program start time to ensure availability.

Categories: Alumni, Center for Texas Public History, Events, History at Texas State, News, Spotlights, Undergraduate Students

Public History Grad Students Preserve the History of Austin’s First Documented Gay Bar, the Manhattan Club, with a State-Funded Historical Marker

In February 2022, the Texas Historical Commission (THC) approved an application prepared by public history graduate students Amber Leigh Hullum and Railey Tassin to fully fund an Official State Historical Marker for the Manhattan Club. The Manhattan Club was one of Austin’s first queer-friendly public spaces located in the back of a Jewish Deli at 911 Congress. The Club operated from 1957 to 1969.

CBS Austin interviewed Hullum and Tassin about their research on the Manhattan Club. You can read some of Hullum and Tassin’s scholarship on the Manhattan Club in the Handbook of Texas, an online encyclopedia of state history.

Hullum and Tassin successfully nominated the Manhattan Club for the THC’s Undertold Marker Program. The THC selects a handful of sites each year that commemorate “undertold stories” and fully funds the manufacture and installation of Official State Historical Markers. The Manhattan Club was the only site in Travis County selected in 2022 and one of 15 sites selected for this program statewide. The Manhattan Club is also the first site commemorating LGBTQ+ history to receive an Official State Historical Marker as part of this program.

This successful marker project began in a public history graduate course at Texas State taught by Dr. Ruby Oram. She asked Hullum and Tassin to explain why they chose to research the Manhattan Club and the significance of the site receiving a state historical marker.

Dr. Oram: How did you first find out about the Manhattan Club?

Hullum and Tassin: We were in Dr. Oram’s Local and Community History class and one of our projects was to write up a narrative for a possible historical marker with an “undertold story.” Neither of us had ever seen a historical marker with an LGBTQ+ topic, and we knew that we wanted to try and find something– anything– that could help fill that void. We teamed up to work on the project together and then began looking for any leads to follow. We first started with good old Google and stumbled upon a list of Austin’s gay bars and clubs and the years that they had opened. On the list was an establishment called Manhattan Club, which had opened more than 50 years ago. Thus started our trip down the rabbit hole.

Dr. Oram: Why did you choose the Manhattan Club for this project?

Hullum and Tassin: People often think that history is nothing but names and dates with no connection to the present. For most Texans, we are taught that history is a bunch of old white men that did some great things (aka boring). But really, history is people. It’s all of us. It’s the everyday. It’s women, and people of color, and disabled people, and gay people, and immigrants– the list goes on. We chose a site that many people can relate to. The Manhattan Club was a gathering place, a place of community. It was a safe place for LBTQ+ people to come together during an era when it was dangerous to be openly queer. We wanted to tell that story through the Manhattan Club. People want to see themselves in history, so hopefully through this historical marker we can help pull out that mirror.

Dr. Oram: Why is it significant that the Manhattan Club receive a state historical marker?

Hullum and Tassin: Historical markers are one of the most accessible forms of public history, serving as a physical representation of significant moments, people, and places. Identifying the location of the Manhattan Club with a marker will make LGBTQ+ history more visible within the public landscape of Austin. It is especially significant due to its placement on Congress Avenue, only one block south of the Texas Capitol building. Additionally, as the first undertold historical marker commemorating queer history, it will hopefully set a precedent for future research and recognition.

Dr. Oram: What’s next? Any plans for the marker unveiling?

Hullum and Tassin: As of right now, we are taking the final steps to confirm the marker’s location, in collaboration with the Travis County Historical Commission. Once the marker inscription is finalized by the Texas Historical Commission, the marker will be ordered and installed. We are hoping to work with the City of Austin and other organizations to put on an unveiling event (date TBA) for everyone to come together and celebrate Austin’s LGBTQ+ past and present.

 

Image: Austin History Center

Categories: Center for Texas Public History, Graduate Students, History at Texas State, Research, Spotlights

Introducing Dr. Ruby Oram!

Photo of Dr. Ruby Oram

We are excited to welcome Dr. Ruby Oram to Texas State this semester! Dr. Oram is a social historian of American women and gender, labor, education, and urban reform movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As a public historian, Dr. Oram’s work centers on addressing issues of diversity and representation in historic preservation and local history.

I’m thrilled to join the History Department at Texas State University this year and contribute to the growing Public History Program! I have eight years of experience working as a public historian in the fields of museum education, collections management, public programs, and historic preservation. I earned my PhD from the U.S. and Public History Program at Loyola University Chicago in 2020, where I studied women’s and gender history, urban history, labor history, and the history of education in twentieth-century America. My current research examines a group of women who created vocational programs and schools for girls in progressive-era Chicago, and explores how their reform efforts reinforced class and racial inequalities between female students in the city’s public high schools. I’m also in the process of nominating a group of public vocational schools in Chicago to the National Register of Historic Places.

I’m excited to teach “Introduction to Public History” this semester, which provides a rare opportunity for undergraduate students to study the presentation of history to public audiences through museums, historic sites, digital projects, and more. Texas State University is one of the few universities in the state (maybe the only?) offering an undergraduate public history course, and I look forward to teaching it regularly! I also look forward to teaching “Local and Community History” for our graduate students in the spring. I hope to eventually teach courses in my research areas including U.S. women’s labor history and urban history, as well as additional public history courses on museums and material culture.

When I’m not thinking about history, I am often exploring the parks and trails around my home in South Austin or listening to music with my tuxedo cat, Gus. I have a firm conviction that Motown and Atlantic Records released the best American music between 1959 and 1967. Lastly, I never outgrew my teenage obsession with thrifting for vintage clothes on the weekends. I face a current crisis of where to store my vintage winter coat collection now that I’m a Texan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: Center for Texas Public History, Faculty, History at Texas State, Research, Spotlights

History Faculty Recognized by College of Liberal Arts

Faculty photos

Congratulations to our History faculty members who have been recognized by the College of Liberal Arts!

Scholarly/Creative Activity

Dr. José Carlos de la Puente (Achievement Award)
Dr. Louie Dean Valencia-García (Golden Apple)

Service

Dr. Nancy Berlage (Achievement Award)
Dr. Shannon Duffy (Golden Apple)

Teaching

Dr. Sara Damiano (Golden Apple)
Dr. Jeff Helgeson (Achievement Award)

Categories: Center for Texas Public History, Faculty, History at Texas State

TXST Faculty Members to Present at American Historical Association Meeting in NYC

AHA 2020

Congratulations to all our faculty members who will be presenting at American Historical Association 134th annual meeting in January in New York City!

Categories: Center for Texas Public History, Faculty, News, Research