WHO
The University of Texas at Austin’s Briscoe Center for American History collects and preserves primary source material documenting American history and makes it available for teaching and research. Public access to the center’s collections helps ensure that discussions concerning American ideas, identities, origins, and values remain rooted in historical evidence.
WHAT
The Briscoe Center’s American Energy Industry Collections represent the importance of collecting and preserving original material in order for students and scholars to study the energy industry and its influence on the nation and the world. The American Energy Industry Collections include corporate archives, organizational records, personal papers, and oral histories by industry pioneers. From the early days of the oil industry in the 1850s to the 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop through the emergence of the global energy economy, the Briscoe Center’s energy industry collections reflect the social, economic, political, and cultural aspects of the times from which they originate.
The American Energy Industry Collections includes the ExxonMobil Historical Collection documenting the history of the ExxonMobil Corporation as well as its predecessor, affiliate, and subsidiary companies. Comprised of an estimated 4 million documents, 1.5 million photographs, 4,000 artifacts, and well over 30,000 moving image and sound recordings, the ExxonMobil Historical Collection is one of the largest publicly available archives documenting a single petroleum company.
Highlights from the American Energy Industry Collections:
- Chermayeff & Geismar Records
- ExxonMobil Historical Collection
- George P. Mitchell Papers
- Lago Oil & Transport Company Records
- Lago Colony (Aruba) Archives
- Oral History of the Texas Oil Industry Records
- Pennzoil Company v. Texaco Inc. Case Records/Pennzoil-Texaco Dispute Oral History Collection
- Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) Photography Project
- Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners (TIPRO) Records and Oral History Collection
- The University of Texas Bureau of Economic Geology Records
WHY
Students, scholars, and other researchers can examine documents, artifacts, advertisements, moving images, and more from the American Energy Industry Collections. Studying this primary source evidence provides a valuable learning experience across many fields of study such as business, law, marketing, social sciences, geology, engineering, and American studies amongst others. Researchers use the collections to support books, articles, dissertations, theses, documentary films, and exhibits of art and historical artifacts. Researchers from forty-six states and territories, twenty-one countries, and six continents have accessed the American Energy Industry Collections, making this archive an invaluable resource.
“For educators and researchers who want to put today’s modern energy challenges in proper context, the Briscoe Center’s American Energy Industry Collections are an invaluable resource.
— Dr. Michael Webber,
I learn something new every time.”
Josey Centennial Professor in Energy Resources and former Deputy Director of the Energy Institute, The University of Texas at Austin
REQUEST
The size and scope of the ever-growing American Energy Industry Collections, and its importance to Texas’ scientific, economic, social and cultural history, requires the care of a full-time professional archivist. Your gift will help establish an endowment to fund the American Energy Industry Collections Archivist to arrange, catalog, and digitize additions to the collections and provide valuable research services to students, scholars, industry professionals and the public. The endowment will also support a graduate intern in archival studies for the American Energy Industry Collections, archival supplies, and the production of projects such as exhibitions, books, film, and digital projects based on the collections.
The Briscoe Center is seeking to raise $2,500,000 to establish an endowment to support the American Energy Industry History Collections. Naming opportunities are available.
The Briscoe Center does great work. But more can be done.
We need your help. Thank you for your consideration.
Contact:
Lisa Avra, Chief Development Officer The Briscoe Center for American History The University of Texas at Austin
512-731-2704
l.avra@austin.utexas.edu
Contributions can be sent to:
The University of Texas at Austin
Briscoe Center: American Energy Endowment P.O. Box 7458
Austin, TX 78713-74
Or made online at:
https://give.utexas.edu/?menu=OGPENERGY
