Today@Sam Article

SHSU Collection Offers Insight Into Noted Texas Statesman's World

Sept. 14, 2015
SHSU Media Contact: Julia May

SHSU Special Collections associate Trent Shotwell and Special Collections librarian Felicia J. Williamson look over some of the materials from Bob Gammage's personal and private collection that have been donated to the university.  -- Photos by Brian Blalock

Sam Houston State University has received a significant collection of materials documenting the personal and political life of the late public servant and Texas statesman Robert A. Gammage, who was known as a champion of civil liberties and was a member of the corruption-fighting “Dirty Thirty” bipartisan group during his time in the state legislature.

Staff in the Special Collections section of SHSU’s Newton Gresham Library have been processing the materials, spanning 1956-2012, since February when Gammage’s wife, Lynda Hallmark Gammage, donated them to the university.

The work is now complete and the finding aid, or index, to the collection, is available online.  More than 50 boxes house the actual items.

John Domino, SHSU professor of political science, was a friend of Gammage for 20 years and was instrumental in working with Mrs. Gammage and SHSU Director of Library Services Ann Holder to get the items situated at the university.

“Bob and I had been friends for a long time and had even talked about writing a book together,” Domino said. “After his death, I realized that as valuable as his contributions and achievements were, nothing had been written about him.”

Domino began work on an article about Gammage’s work on the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Appeals.  His research resulted in The Jurisprudence of Texas Supreme Court Justice Robert A. “Bob” Gammage: A Legacy of Civil Rights & Liberties, which was published in 2013 in the South Texas Law Review.

“While conducting my research on Bob in Austin, I went to the Gammage home in Llano, and Lynda gave me access to his office,” Domino said. “He had a massive book and document collection and had accumulated a tremendous amount of newspaper articles and clippings about court decisions and his involvement in the judicial process.

“He had also kept letters and many things relating to campaigns,” Domino said. “I realized how valuable the items were for research, not only about Bob, but also about the political environment of that period.

Among the items in the collection are campaign materials.

“Access to the materials will benefit scholars and students alike. I would like to see our students use these resources, thus taking their research beyond secondary literature, legislation and court cases,” he said.

After visiting with Mrs. Gammage about her wishes for preserving the items, Domino contacted Holder to make arrangements for the transfer.

SHSU Special Collections librarian Felicia J. Williamson and Digital Resources Librarian James Williamson traveled to Llano, boxed up the items, and then transported them back to SHSU. 

“Typically when we receive a collection, we compile an inventory first; then we go through item by item, sorting each piece into a collection, and load the information to our management system, which is Google searchable,” she said. 

“At the same time, we create a pretty detailed collection-level description that entails writing an encyclopedia article about the person, the main players and events of their life, and then we add that description, along with how collections are arranged and how you can access them,” she said. “Everything is keyword searchable and that’s really the benefit.

“The Gammage collection includes a lot of personal items,” she said. “His main congressional collection went to the University of Texas and the majority of the items from his time on the Texas Supreme Court went to the Texas State Library and Archives.

“When a member of Congress retires, they are responsible for finding a place to put their Congressional papers, so that happened in 1996 before he died,” she said. “Also, there are laws governing where a former justice must leave materials relating to the Supreme Court.

“So, in my opinion, what this donation to Sam Houston State University consists of are the materials he held onto until the end of his life—things that were personal and important to him,” she said. “We are very excited to have these things.”

One of the five oversized scrapbooks containing articles.

Among the items in the collection are campaign materials, advertisements, audiocassettes, videocassettes, photographs, and correspondence. The collection also includes articles and drafts of books that Gammage had written, as well as five enormous scrapbooks covering his professional career.

“They are the largest scrapbooks I’ve ever seen come into Special Collections,” Williamson said. “He had a special cabinet built to manage them.”

In addition to his time in the political arena, Gammage was an educator.

“After he retired from public office, he concentrated his efforts on education,” Williamson said.  “He also worked as a pro bono attorney.”

He served as visiting professor of political science at SHSU; visiting professor of public administration at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi; special lecturer in American Alternative Dispute Resolution at the University of Glamorgan in Ponypridd, Wales; and lecturer in political science at Texas State University.

Sam Houston State University recognized Gammage’s achievements and contributions to society with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 1990 and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Wall of Honor Award in 2012.

- END -

This page maintained by SHSU's Communications Office:

Director of Content Communications: Emily Binetti

Communications Manager: Mikah Boyd
Telephone: 936.294.1837

Communications Specialist: Campbell Atkins
Telephone: 936.294.2638

Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu