New Finding Aids: August 2019

We’ve had a busy and productive summer processing collections! Here’s another round of finding aids we’ve published so you can see what we’ve been up to.

As a reminder, Finding Aids act as a table of contents for our collections. These aids help you find information about specific collections we have, and the information contained in the collections. We create these aids so it’s easier for researchers to figure out if collection is relevant to their work.

The strengths of our collections include Wyoming and the American West, politics and public policy, ranching and energy, entertainment and popular culture, industry, transportation, and military history. The documents and archives we hold serve as raw data for scholarship and heritage work, and support thriving communities of place, identity, and interest in Wyoming and beyond.

black and white image; one person smiling in hall of archives shelves. person holding collection

Finding Aid Updates (from collections processed 6/9/19 – 7/10/19)


Wyoming attorney and judge John R. Arnold. Arnold was a county officer in Uinta County in the 1890s.

Petroleum industry historian James P. Martin. Martin compiled information about Standard Oil and the Rockefeller family.

Richard S. Putney oral history. Putney was a minister with the University of Wyoming campus ministry in the 1960s and 1970s.

Edwin M. Binder photo album. Binder’s service as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force in Germany in the 1960s is documented.

Bennett Hammer LGBT clippings collection. From 1970-2009 Hammer collected articles on LGBT-related issues to preserve the dominant discourse in United States culture.

Montana-Yellowstone Oil Company. The company brought the first rotary drill to Cedar Creek Oil Field (Mont.) in 1917.

University of Wyoming Outreach School. The Outreach School was incorporated into the Office of Distance Education Support in 2017.

Wyoming Quilt Project. The project aimed to document quilt-making and its history in the state.

Jean Howard was a Hollywood actress, hostess, celebrity, and photographer. University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center (AHC) has digitized and made accessible online 1500 negatives from the Jean Howard papers #10714. Her book, Jean Howard’s Hollywood: A Photo Memoir (1989), depicts the time of the Palm Springs movie colony and studio rule. She was born Ernestine Hill on October 13, 1919 in Longview, Texas. Her father financed her participation in fashion shows and beauty contests. She signed a contract with MGM, but went to New York with Lorenz Ziegfeld instead. She was in the 1930s Ziegfeld Follies and later in a number of films including The Prize Fighter and The Lady. Louis B. Mayer fell in love with her and proposed marriage, but she rejected him and married Charles Feldman (agent-producer) instead. They divorced in 1948, but continued to share their intimate and professional life until his death in 1968. In 1964, she met musician Tony Santoro in a Capri nightclub. They lived together and migrated between Capri, Italy and California until they eventually married and settled in California in 1973. After their divorce, Howard spent more of her time in Italy, but returned to California during her last years. She died at home in 2000. Jean Howard’s interest in photography began during the 1940s on the advice of a graphologist, who convinced her to take some serious classes (her student work is in the collection). Her ability to capture fellow celebrities at their ease makes her pictures remarkable. They appeared in Life, Vogue, and other major magazines while her fame as a photographer grew. Collection contains biographical material, correspondence, celebrated photographs, subject files, and materials for autobiographical photo books on Hollywood and Cole Porter.


These and other AHC collections can be discovered in the University of Wyoming Libraries catalog. We are open for walk-in research on Mondays 10 am – 7 pm and Tuesdays through Fridays 8 am – 5 pm. For distance research assistance please contact our reference department at ahcref@uwyo.edu or 307-766-3756.

#AlwaysArchiving

This entry was posted in Digital collections, Hollywood history, Laramie, LGBT, LGBTQIA+, Local history, military history, Motion picture actors and actresses, motion picture history, Natural resources, newly digitized collections, newly processed collections, oral histories, Out West in the Rockies, popular culture, University of Wyoming, University of Wyoming history, Western history, Wyoming history and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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