Who We Are
The Briscoe Center for American History’s archives, museums, and historic buildings document the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States. The center houses a vast collection of historical evidence, including the most significant collection of Texas-related materials in existence, one of the top three archives on the American South, and unmatched holdings on news media history, to name a few. These extensive collections support the teaching and research of a variety of topics in American history by students, faculty, writers, filmmakers, and many others who access the archives to seek evidence-based answers to their questions and deepen their knowledge of our nation.
What We’re Fundraising For
People around the world have virtual classes, theses, dissertations, articles, books, documentary films, and other research projects with deadlines that must be met. Researchers have questions, and the Briscoe Center wants to help them find answers by making the evidence of history within our collections available online. In the past year, digital image requests in support of virtual teaching and remote research increased five-fold. This surge in requests is expected to continue.
Generous friends like you helped the Briscoe Center purchase two much-needed pieces of digitization equipment in early 2021. The addition of these tools completes the first critical step towards expanding digital access to the center’s collections. Thank you!
The next step is to build the resources needed to sustain the work of increasing the number of digital images available online. During 40 Hours for the Forty Acres, the center seeks to raise $10,000 in contributions to help develop the center’s digital collections.
Your support is needed for this important work! Your gift will help fund:
Image caption: Caitlin Brenner, the Briscoe Center’s digitization assistant, uses the new digital camera set-up for archival use to capture a page from the Aventine Plantation ledger.
Your Impact
Your gift to help increase the number and variety of primary source materials available to researchers on the center’s website helps:
Ultimately, your gift to benefit the Briscoe Center’s digital collections will help faculty develop virtual teaching tools, students conduct research projects, writers complete articles and books, and filmmakers produce documentary films. On behalf of the center’s community of researchers, thank you for your support of this critically important work.
Image caption: Before the pandemic, Hayley Briggs, material culture intern, Hal Richards, archivist, and Lynn Bell, material culture curator, worked on photographing and recording the conditions of various historic quilts, including the Sunshine and Shadow quilt circa 1970 from the center’s Joyce Gross Quilt History Collection shown above.