LCRA donates 75th anniversary quilt to UT Briscoe Center
June 10, 2011
The Lower Colorado River Authority is donating a commemorative quilt commissioned for its recent 75th anniversary to the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.
The 7- by 12-foot quilt tells LCRA’s 75-year history in pictures, along with messages from key officials. LCRA displayed the quilt at its Austin headquarters throughout LCRA’s 75th anniversary year in 2010.
The Briscoe Center owns and maintains an extensive collection of historical quilts, a major factor that led LCRA to approach the Briscoe Center.
The Briscoe Center is home to the Winedale Quilt Collection, a premier scholarly resource that supports research on quilts and quilt history, a major factor that led LCRA to approach the Briscoe Center. The Briscoe Center’s quilt collection spans 200 years of textiles, and features documentary resources, including extensive subject and biographical files, kits, patterns, fabric samples, and correspondence.
“LCRA is very pleased that the Briscoe Center for American History will be acquiring our 75th Anniversary Quilt,” said LCRA General Manager Tom Mason. “We are excited that our quilt, which was designed to tell the story of LCRA, will be joining a collection of documents, records and artifacts that is unparalleled in its documentation of Texas and American history. In addition, the Briscoe Center has personnel and facilities that will ensure the proper care of the quilt and make it available to researchers. This makes us extremely confident that the LCRA 75th Anniversary Quilt has found a rightful home with the Briscoe Center.”
“We greatly appreciate that the LCRA chose the Briscoe Center to be the repository for this quilt,” said Dr. Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center. “The quilt is a unique representation of the history of LCRA, and will be a welcome addition to the Texas history-themed quilts currently in our collection.”
A committee of LCRA employees, looking for a unique way to help celebrate LCRA’s 75th anniversary, decided on a quilt that would tell the story of LCRA in pictures and words.
The quilt features 54 historical and current-day photos of LCRA and its activities and employees, as well as various logos that have represented LCRA throughout its history.
The quilt also includes congratulatory messages from seven prominent individuals connected to LCRA who responded to LCRA staff requests.
They include former governors Mark White and George W. Bush and Gov. Rick Perry, who appointed members to the LCRA’s Board of Directors; former LCRA general managers Mark Rose and Joe Beal, and current General Manager Tom Mason; and Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson.
The quilt is made of archival-quality cotton and inks to extend its life. Captions explaining each photo were stitched onto the quilt.
An electronic version of the quilt is available on LCRA’s Web site at
http://www.lcra.org/about/overview/history/onlinequilt/interactivequilt.html.
Media Contact: Clara Tuma: (512) 473-3292
Briscoe Center: Erin Purdy: (512) 495-4692
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About LCRA
LCRA is a nonprofit conservation and reclamation district that provides energy, water and community services to Texans. Created by the Texas Legislature in 1934, LCRA has no taxing authority and operates solely on utility revenues and service fees. LCRA supplies electricity to more than 1.1 million Texans through more than 40 wholesale customers. LCRA also provides many other services to the region. These services include managing floods, protecting the quality of the lower Colorado River and its tributaries, providing parks and recreational facilities, offering economic development assistance, operating water and wastewater utilities, and providing soil, energy and water conservation programs.
About the Briscoe Center for American History
Through stewardship, scholarship, and outreach, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History increases knowledge and fosters exploration of our nation’s past. As a leading history research center, the Briscoe Center collects, preserves, and makes available documentary and material culture evidence encompassing key themes in Texas and U.S. history. Researchers, students, and the public mine our collections for a wide range of academic, professional, and personal uses. The collections also inspire the Briscoe Center’s own projects, including books, exhibits, programs, films, and educational materials. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History is an organized research unit and public service component of The University of Texas at Austin.
