The sound of hands clasping the wooden stocks of 1903 Springfield rifles echoed loudly across the field as a crowd of Houston Cougars football fans watched. Thirty young men, all dressed in their pink and green military dress uniforms, were executing the Queen Anne’s Drill—a complex rifle maneuver that required high levels of discipline and […]
Archive | University of Houston
The University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program, 1979-1989
The UH English Department, with John McNamara as chair, shaped its creative writing program in the late 1970s, when such programs were sprouting up across the country, as a way to draw students at a time of “steadily declining graduate enrollment in the Department.” In 1978, the department asked poet Cynthia Macdonald, then at Johns […]
North America Taiwanese Women’s Association
Not content with the status quo and lacking an organization to represent them, a small group of thirty Taiwanese women from the United States and Canada formed what became the North America Taiwanese Women’s Association (NATWA) in March of 1988. A non-profit run primarily by volunteers, NATWA created a nongovernmental organization to address major issues […]
A Life of Activism: Maria Jimenez
In May 1957, Maria Jimenez arrived in Houston, having just left her native Coahuila in Mexico to reunite with her father. Her family settled in a small Magnolia Park home near Maria’s school, Franklin Elementary. There, as a first grader, she experienced her first dose of anti-Mexican sentiments. Within the halls, classrooms, and playgrounds, school […]
The Peter Beste and Lance Scott Walker Houston Rap Collection
From hip-hop music’s earliest days, Houston has contributed greatly to the genre’s development. In the 1990s Houston icon DJ Screw gave us “chopped and screwed,” arguably the city’s most notable contribution, but Houston can claim many others. A handful of Houston-area rappers, like Geto Boys, Bun B and Pimp C of UGK, and Paul Wall, […]
Center for Public History 30th Anniversary
The spring issue celebrates thrity years of the UH Center for Public History. The issue includes a retrospective by director Marty Melosi and articles by several of our students on a variety of Houston History topics from the late nineteenth century to the more recent past.
A Thirty Year Journey – But Not Over
As the Center for Public History celebrates thirty years at the University of Houston, director Marty Melosi looks back at the journy.
To the Red Planet and Beyond: The Mars Rover Celebration
By Alicia Nichols Space and space exploration have long captivated adults. For elementary and junior high students, the siren call of our galaxy and beyond is no different. Luckily for Houston-area students, there are programs such as the Mars Rover Celebration. The Mars Rover Celebration is an educational program for third through eighth graders at […]
Donald Barthelme and the Adams Petroleum Center
One of Houston’s most important literary figures was the late writer and novelist Donald Barthelme (1931–1989). But for many years Barthelme labored in the shadow of his better-known father, Donald Barthelme, Sr. (1907–1996), a nationally prominent architect.
Three Continents: From the Bayou to the Biennale
From the Gulf of Mexico to the heart of downtown, the Houston Ship Channel has proved to be a vital piece of the city’s growth for one hundred years. Through history, we can trace how Houston’s economic ethos has transformed a narrow, winding bayou into an international epicenter of import.