AUSTIN, Texas—The University of Texas at Austin has announced a major gift from Newsweek, Inc.—the entire Newsweek magazine research archive for the years 1933 to 1996—to the university’s Center for American History.
The collection will join the center’s News Media History Archive, that contains the papers of media professionals, the archives of media industries and special-focus collections on media issues.
Filling approximately 3,250 archival boxes, the Newsweek archive is a rich collection of news-related materials collected by the magazine’s reporters and staff over a 63-year span. These materials include newspaper and magazine clips, unpublished news and background reports by freelance writers, and reporters’ files previously unavailable to historians and researchers. Once processed, the collections will be available for research by historians and the general public.
The collection includes papers and documentation dating back to the magazine’s inception in 1933 and continuing through 1996, when Newsweek ceased archiving paper background materials.
“Acquiring the Newsweek Archive is a watershed event in the Center for American History’s determined effort to document the history of news media,” said Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, president of The University of Texas at Austin. “We are honored to have the opportunity to forge this relationship with Newsweek magazine, which has played such an influential role in the history of the American news profession.”
Concurrent with the university’s announcement of the gift from Newsweek, Inc., the Center for American History has announced a gift by renowned photojournalist Wally McNamee of his extensive personal photographic archive to the Center. McNamee was a staff photographer at Newsweek for 30 years, producing more than 100 cover photographs for the magazine and photographing historic events around the world. His collection contains more than 300,000 photographic images that he took from 1955 to 1998.
McNamee is a four-time winner of the coveted White House News Photographers Association Photographer of the Year Award. He was the photographer for Newsweek’s Special Projects Unit, which won a National Magazine Award for “Charlie Company: What Vietnam Did to Us,” its investigation into the lives of people who had served in Vietnam 10 years after the conflict. He also served as a photographer for The Washington Post.
McNamee’s archive joins the archives of several other significant photojournalists in the News Media History Archive, including David Hume Kennerly, Dirck Halstead, Bruce Roberts, Shel Hershorn, Diana Walker, Flip Schulke and Margaret Thomas.
“Wally McNamee is widely recognized as one of the top photojournalists in the United States,” said Dr. Don Carleton, director of the Center for American History. “He has honored the center with his magnificent gift, which will enrich teaching and scholarship at the university for many years to come.”
In addition to the Newsweek archive, the center’s News Media History Archive contains the news clipping and research morgues of the New York Times, the New York Herald-Tribune and the Hearst New York Journal-American, as well as one of the largest collections of historic Texas and Southern newspapers in the United States. It also contains the archives of important media professionals, including Walter Cronkite, Robert Trout, Sig Mickelson, Joseph and Shirley Wershba, and Andy Rooney.
The Center for American History is a special collections library, archive, and museum that facilitates research and sponsors programs on the history of the United States. The center supports research and education by acquiring, preserving, and making available research collections and by sponsoring exhibitions, conferences, symposia, oral history projects, publications, and grant-funded initiatives.
For more information about the Newsweek, Inc. gift and the News Media Archive at the Center for American History, contact Dr. Don Carleton at 512-495-4515.
For more information contact: Sheila Allee, 512-475-9672, or Jim Kunetka, 512-475-9641, Office of Resource Development.
