AUSTIN, Texas–The 20th century news clipping archive of The New York Times has been donated to The University of Texas at Austin Center for American History by the New York Times Corp., UT Austin officials announced Monday (Oct. 26.).
The center houses one of the largest collections of newspaper archives in the United States.
“It’s a great event. The Times morgue is one of the most important untapped resources for the study of the modern United States,” said Dr. Lewis L. Gould, a UT Austin professor of American history. “This will further increase the outstanding reputation of the Center for American History.”
Dr. Don Carleton, director of the center, said: “What we have here are the extremely well-indexed articles of comprehensive coverage of all the major events of U.S. history as they occurred during the major portion of the twentieth century. It’s quite a coup.”
Carleton said while a variety of newspapers today are recognized for their in-depth national coverage, the Times is the only publication recognized for consistently covering news events as a national newspaper of record since the turn of the century and through both world wars.
Carleton said the donation will officially be announced at a dinner at 7:15 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 28) at the Headliners Club in Austin.
Media may attend to cover the program, which will include speeches by Arthur Gelb, president of the New York Times Foundation and former managing editor of the newspaper, and Linda Amster, director of research for The New York Times. The program will begin after dinner is served.
The archive already has been delivered to UT Austin’s Library Storage Facility in four tractor-trailer trucks and is ready for researchers to use, Carleton said.
Austin attorney Larry Temple, a distinguished UT Austin alumnus, provided a donation to finance the move. The storage facility is located at the J.J. “Jake” Pickle Campus in north Austin.
The Times Corp. donation consists of 2,500 linear feet of actual newspaper clippings dating from 1908 through 1989. In 1989, The New York Times changed over to electronic storage. Carleton said the clippings are in excellent condition.
Carleton said it is far easier for researchers, especially undergraduates, to go through a clip file containing actual copies of all the articles desired on one particular subject than to hand-crank through reels of microfilmed newspapers to find a particular article published on a particular date.
“We’re talking about a tremendously wonderful time-saving measure,” Carleton said. “The clippings are indexed and filed the way New York Times reporters used them.”
Carleton said the Center for American History also houses the archives of the New York Herald-Tribune and the Hearst Corporation’s New York Journal-American.
CBS network has donated the archives of the CBS Evening News during the period when veteran Walter Cronkite was managing editor, and Cronkite earlier donated all his papers and the collection of his work at CBS to the center.
The Center for American History is a special collections library, archive and museum that facilitates research and sponsors programs on the historical development of the United States. The center administers three facilities: a research and collections division in Sid Richardson Hall on the UT Austin campus; the Sam Rayburn Library and Museum in Bonham; and the Winedale facility near Round Top, a site featuring historical buildings also used for festivals, exhibits and conferences.
For more information contact: Dr. Don Carleton (512) 495-4515.
