Western Americana at SMU

Enhancing the strengths of ÃÛÌÒ½´and its Libraries

plate 02 buffaloThe Rees-Jones Collection and Rees-Jones Library of the American West enhance the University’s longstanding excellence in research, teaching and cultural appreciation of the American West. This collection complements the strengths of the DeGolyer Library, which houses approximately 180,000 volumes, over a million photographs and a wide array of manuscripts, maps, newspapers and ephemera. Together, these resources position ÃÛÌÒ½´as a leading academic center for Western history, offering a balance of breadth and depth that supports specialized research and interdisciplinary teaching.

ÃÛÌÒ½´academic programs, including those in the and the , explore the history and development of the Southwest, borderland issues like immigration and the region’s contributions to the U.S. economy. The Rees-Jones Collection enriches these programs and SMU’s ability to attract scholars and students interested in Western studies. Since 1996, Clements Center travel grants have brought visiting researchers to SMU, resulting in numerous publications. The Rees-Jones Collection and Library will amplify this activity, further establishing ÃÛÌÒ½´as a hub for Western scholarship.

Renowned as one of the nation’s premier Western collections, the Rees-Jones Collection deepens ÃÛÌÒ½´holdings and strengthens its standing as a center for Western history. The combined collections create unparalleled opportunities for teaching, research and interdisciplinary scholarship.

Complementary collections at SMU

By Russell L. Martin, III, director of DeGolyer Library

DeGolyer Library has strong holdings in early voyages and travels, beginning with the Columbus Letter (1493) and including many accounts of the Colonial Spanish Southwest. The Rees-Jones Collection is strong in Western “outlaw” books and cattle trade material, especially brand books. Both libraries have strong holdings of overland narratives (also known as “Wagner-Camp” materials). These accounts of travel across the Plains and Rockies, 1800–1865, are among the most colorful and vivid descriptions of the Western country, prized by collectors and historians.

DeGolyer’s photography collection, including many of the masterworks of western photographers, is enhanced by the arrival of the Rees-Jones Collection’s holdings of photographs from the northern Plains region.

With maps, there is little duplication between the two collections; instead, there are the kind of fortuitous extensions that are the delight of specialists. For example, DeGolyer has the 1856 edition of DeCordova’s Map of Texas; Rees-Jones has the 1857 edition.

While the Rees-Jones Collection is focused primarily on the pre-1901 period, DeGolyer’s 20th-century holdings include Western business enterprises and literature, political collections, the Archives of Women of the Southwest and Mexican history.

DeGolyer’s ephemera collection is wide-ranging and includes almanacs, broadsides, pamphlets, brochures, trade catalogs, timetables, city directories and bank notes. The Rees-Jones Collection, in addition to legendary rarities, also has very extensive holdings of more common material. By combining these two distinguished collections, ÃÛÌÒ½´houses extremely rare materials as well as “ordinary” Western imprints, the raw materials of what scholars call “print culture.”

Fifty years after the donation of the DeGolyer Library, ÃÛÌÒ½´celebrates the arrival of the Rees-Jones Library of the American West – and the bright future for scholarship that it promises.