My “next steps” for this week were to learn more about the timeline program by watching the tutorial and to look up newspaper articles contemporary to Dick Dowling for potential significant dates relating to him. Although most of the articles that I found while searching the America’s Historical Newspapers database were already mentioned in Muir’s article, a few presented new, interesting information. Hopefully at least some of these new dates can be incorporated into our timeline.
Some of the more amusing articles that I found thanked Dowling for giving someone an alcoholic beverage like eggnog for the New Year in 1859 or “kiss me quick and go” in 1860. I also found an article describing Dowling adding gas lighting to the Shades. Another article that I found- dated March 16, 1860– describes the fire that forced Dowling to temporarily shut down the Bank & Bacchus. It apparently cost him an estimated $5,000 in damages, which must have been a huge amount at the time. Following that fire, however, Dowling placed many ads in the Telegraph proudly stating the opening date of the Bank & Bacchus as January 30, 1860. Perhaps of more historical significance were his involvement in the start of the Irish Military Company, also in 1860, and his being called to a “Public Meeting” that would “consult on the measure that should be adopted by the State of Texas in view of the election of Abraham Lincoln” in November of that same year. While that last article may just list any and all citizens of Harris County, our own William Marsh Rice was also invited to the same meeting, leading me to believe that it was only significant figures specifically invited in the newspaper. I also found several articles praising the Battle of Sabine Pass in 1863, but they may have already been found for the first library assignment. Neither the database nor Fondren Library have any copies of the Houston Telegraph for late 1867, so the records of his catching yellow fever and his obituary remain elusive as ever.
Moving forward, I would like to look into whether or not we can use the articles from America’s Historical Newspapers in any way since they are copyrighted. Additionally, I would very much like to find Dowling’s elusive obituary. That article should not be as difficult to find as it seems to be at the moment, and it would be a good addition to the timeline. The articles that I did manage to find should help us pin down significant dates for Dowling as well as what was significant about Dowling during his pre-Civil War lifetime.
I agree, I believe information regarding Dowling’s obituary or later years would be a great addition to the timeline. After reading Victor’s post and his mention of incorporating relevant outside information with these smaller events related to Dowling, which of these articles that you found do you think you can connect to relevant events in U.S. or Texas history? Or do you think that for some of these events, we can simply mention them to give the timeline an amusing twist or make the timeline more appealing for a younger audience? I believe our next step should be to decide on a narrower focus for the timeline and which events are crucial to the timeline. From here, we can branch out and see how much time we have to include other information.
Well, it seems that the meeting to discuss Lincoln’s election can easily be tied to outside information, and at the very least it lets us know how important Dowling probably was to the Houston community. Therefore, it might not be too hard to find more instances like it. Regarding the less historically relevant events, they certainly seem interesting enough to include in our timeline. We might not want to focus entirely on them, but, if we are discussing the memory of Dowling, then events like these help us to realize why he’s remembered.
It would be difficult for copyright reasons to put an image from America’s Historical Newspapers on the timeline. But if you find a good one and can locate the original or a microfilm in Fondren, you can scan the article yourself and that can be added to our collection.
But even if you don’t have a primary source about a particular event (like the obituary, for example), that doesn’t mean you can’t include the event on the timeline. As long as you have a reliable source that you can provide for the dating of the event (say, the Muir article), you could still be confident the date is correct.
Incidentally, the Woodson Research Center at Fondren houses the papers of Andrew Forest Muir, who was an history professor here at Rice at the time he was writing his article on Dowling. In his papers (particularly in box 33, folder 1, 12-14; box 34, folder 1, and box 71, folder 6), you can find the notes he took while researching the article. Sometimes these notes include transcriptions of articles he read (for example, he may have seen the obituary and typed out a copy for himself), and if you found one of these transcriptions that you wanted to include in our Omeka database, you could ask the Woodson staff for permission to scan it.