When we last sent out a newsletter, we said that we have ambitious plans to keep very busy in 2010. Working past the year's halfway point, we hope that you'll find that we're on track to do just that.
Mostly we hope that you'll take the time to read all about it a little farther down this page. There are several new projects in the works which you will want to know all about. And please share with your friends, too. Word of mouth about our efforts to educate Houstonians about our state and local history and other topics is essential to our success. So help us add to our mailing list and our membership roll.
We're very excited about our first Houston History Book fair coming up in November, so keep reading to learn more about that and much, much more.
Most of you know that Postcards from Texas, the weekly history television series in which HAM was the production partner, was cancelled on May 11, 2010. Reruns continue for the present, but no new shows will be forthcoming. The good news is that frees up time to move forward with more lengthy documentaries. Just in the last eight weeks, we have completed one on historic preservation in Houston and are working on a wonderful documentary about Houston's time as the capitol of the Republic of Texas. Though we are proud of our award-wnning work on Postcards, we will be reaching more people with our accessible history projects.
Important Reminder: We offer a range of memberships as a way to get you more involved with HAM. New members receive one of our HAM Slices DVDs with 20 high-resolution segments on our area's history, Membership's privileges also include discounts on HAM events and products and the warm feeling of giving back to your community. So as much as we hate asking for money, we'd still like you to take a minute to go to our website and become a member of HAM or send
us a donation with PayPal. You'll be helping out a great grassroots organization, and remember, we can't do it without you.
Your money will help support the work we do at HAM. In the last twelve months,
we have:
- Completed Saved on the Bayou: The Story of Houston Preservation, a half hour documentary that traces the battle to preserve our built environment and notes positive steps toward the future.
- Planned Bayou City Noir: The Photography of Marvin Zindler, a photo exhibit that will run at the Museum of Printing History from March through August 2011. It showcases the early 1950s police beat work of young Houston Press photographer Marvin Zindler
- Begun editing Houston: A Nation's Capitol. This rollicking documentary is based around a tour of 1837 Houston with noted historian Stephen Hardin
- Won two major statewide awards for the regional history series, Postcards from Texas. Both the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution recognized Postcards as the top media achievement in Texas history for the year 2009
- Worked with the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission in several aspects of developing an exciting new website, HoustonPreservation.org. The site, which was launched in June, includes all sorts of news, features and resources about historic preservation in Houston. One prominent feature is virtual walking tours produced by HAM
- Started organizing the first annual HAM Houston History Book Fair & Symposium to be held on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at the Heights Church of Christ, 16th and Heights Boulevard. Running from 10 till 4, local history authors will speak on the half hour
- Released the DVD of twenty of our HAM Slices,
mouth-watering bits of Houston history told in a minute long videos. The new DVD mentioned above is a nice milestone. Slices remain available online via our website
- Using multiple professional researchers, we have completed 95% of the research for the first two volumes in our Houston
Neighborhood Series - Historic Schools
of Harris County. This is a huge project covering an area never before fully documented. Our fundraising efforts now turn to money needed for writing, layout and editing
- Shot video for Galveston's Trees: Life After Ike, a documentary that explains how Broadway's iconic oaks came to be and how they live on in a variety of ways
- Submitted 150 hours of our Neighbor
to Neighbor Oral Histories to the Houston Public Library's Houston Metropolitan
Research Center and the Woodson Research Center at Rice University
- Sought coporate funding for the Houston trivia game What's
Your HQ? The game prototype is completed, and we need sponsorship for manufacturing
costs
- Held our HAM Meetups, a place where Houston's History community can
network, learn and chat about anything that interests them
- Contributed to the early stages of a much needed project, The Encyclopedia of Houston and Harris County History. This online project will turn years of work into the first ever comprehensive, scholarly source on our area's past
- Collaborated with dozens of other Houston non-profits
and individual historians in order to keep the momentum going for Houston's History community
- Run our HAM Houston History Road Rally with another set for next May to coincide with Historic Preservation Month
We've been extremely busy. You know there is a "but". So here it is: There is so much more that we have in the works to make Houston history fun and accessible. But to do that, we need your support!
You've been so great to us in the past! Please help
us again this year as we produce our videos, publish our books,
hold our events and work to keep Houston's history alive! If your employer donates to local charities, please toss HAM's name into the mix. Above all, you can help by becoming a member of HAM.
Thanks so much,
Mike Vance
Executive Director and President
Houston Arts and Media
Historic Preservation
All of our efforts are about preserving and presenting stories from our wonderful and interesting past. One of the ways that history is preserved is through saving the built environment. The new website which features the virtual walking tours HAM has produced offers information and resources about how you can become involved in historic preservation in Houston. Our newest documentary, Saved on the Bayou, explores that very topic. You may view the online version via the HoustonPreservation site. HAM urges you to do what you can to keep our tangible history safe.
Meetups
Our next meetup is just around the corner. We invite our HAM members and volunteers, representatives of other history-related non-profits, people
we've interviewed, historians, researchers and anyone else who enjoys Houston history to meet us at these events.
Each meetup is a chance to meet new and different people - those doing
great work in historic preservation and history documentation in Houston,
and many more who just love to hear about it. From time to time, the authors of books about our city will come to talk and make the book available for us. It's great to be
able to offer an opportunity for people to network about Houston history in an informal setting. It's really just a fun way to
spend a Saturday afternoon, so you all should come by and
join us.
We meet on a Saturday with time and location varying according to what we cook up.
We try to always include a chance to meet for lunch and conversation. It's fun. Click here
if you'd like to be included on the mailing list.
Olivewood Cemetery
We continue to support Margott Williams and Charles Cook from the Descendants
of Olivewood Cemetery to help raise awareness of Olivewood Cemetery,
Houston's first incorporated African American Cemetery, and to stand
by them as they face their own special challenges. In the past, we've organized volunteers to help keep the beautiful cemetery clean and mowed, and we'll be doing so again in the future. We'll keep you posted. More importantly, don't forget to continue your own volunteer efforts to keep Houston great. More about volunteer opportunities with HAM appears below.
Houston: A Nation's Capitol
For two hurly-burly years, the Bayou City was the capitol of the Republic of Texas. As Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar and others squabbled over the direction in which they would lead the fledgling nation, scores of drunken, furloughed soldiers battled in makeshift saloons, on the town’s muddy streets and at the dueling grounds which was located south of Texas Avenue, and therefore away from the city limits. Noted author and historian, Stephen Hardin, leads a tour of locations that serves as the backbone of this documentary. Interviews with other scholars, snippets of contemporary journals, photographs, maps, music and graphics will make this an engaging way to learn about Houston’s beginnings. Learn more here.
Bayou City Noir: The Photography of Marvin Zindler
Houston Arts and Media and The Museum of Printing History are partnering to present a very special exhibition entitled Bayou City Noir: The Photography of Marvin Zindler. This exhibition will introduce audiences to the man who prowled Houston's streets as a crime beat photographer for the now defunct daily newspaper Houston Press, decades before he became the crusading activist with the white wig and the blue glasses. It was a time when most considered Houston to be the nation’s murder capitol, and when the city’s seedier side could be readily found on blocks in the heart of downtown. The exhibition, appearing at Houston’s Museum of Printing History from March 23, 2011 – August 13, 2011, will include a series of lectures on photojournalism, newspapers and the Houston of 1952. Learn more here.
Texas and Texans In the Civil War
The American Civil War remains the most pivotal period in our nation’s history, and likely the most studied. In spite of that, no comprehensive film or video project has ever been done to document the large role that Texas and Texans played in that conflict and in the events both immediately before and after. This project will present five feature length documentaries to be released in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The first, focusing on 1861, would come out in 2011, with four more years to follow. The subject matter will be much more than just the military history. We will also explore the demographics and politics of Texas prior to secession, the realities of slavery in the Lone Star State, life for those on the home front as the War raged on, blockade runners and the fortunes they produced that would alter Texas for decades, Texas camps for Union prisoners and the story of Juneteenth. The land and sea operations and battles which occurred in the Department of Texas will be thoroughly explored, as will the actions of Texas troops in the major campaigns back East. Adults and students alike have many sources to learn about the Civil War overall, but many of the important events in Texas and those performed by Texans have been largely neglected. We are seeking major funding for this project which will produce high-quality, high definition DVDs which will remedy that omission. Learn more here.
HAM Slices
These mini-documentaries, featured on DVD and via the web, are all about making Houston history fun! They're HAM Slices.
Our YouTube channel is going strong, and you can see all the HAM Slices there. Additionally, we have them on TeacherTube at the request of social studies curriculum managers at area school districts. Once a year, we'll offer a full menu DVD that will let you savor the HAM Slices on a full sized screen in beautiful high-resolution. You'll want them for your video library, and luckily you can get them now with membership or by donating at a certain level. Learn more here.
Historic Schools of Harris County
We are finishing our research for the two-volume book set Historic
Schools of Harris County, the first in our Houston Neighborhood
Series. With funding help, we're ready to move on to writing, editing and layout and then have the work ready
for release by early 2011.
This ambitious work covers areas never before documented. It tells the stories of more than 630 schools that existed in our county prior to 1950, but more importantly it also plumbs the depths of segregation, follows the rise of education for girls and lays out trends in teaching over a hundred seventy years of history. Many controversies you thought were new have been around for decades.
History Documentaries
With a tiny crew of four, two working only half-time, we led the production of forty episodes of the award-winning TV series, Postcards from Texas. Our plan is to put that talent and efficiency to work in producing several full length documentaries on a wide array of under-reported topics from our area's colorful past. They will be ready for television and the classroom.
Topics we're studying include: the Levi Jordan Plantation, Houston’s Home Front during WWII, The Old Quarter and the downtown live music scene of the early 1970’s, Texas and Texans in the Civil War, historic Houston saloons, and the history of Houston’s stand up comedy scene. Our mission also includes the possibilities of filling other educational voids, as well.
N2N Oral Histories
We are entering the fifth year of our N2N Oral
History project. We are still looking for dedicated
volunteer interviewers who are willing to help us preserve the stories of longtime Houstonians. We'll give you training, suggested questions and guidelines, and you will meet some remarkable folks and make sure their memories can be enjoyed by future genertaions.
These digital audio recordings are
donated to both the Houston Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston
Public Library and the Woodson Research Center at Rice University's
Fondren Library. We have already donated about 150 hours, and we will continue to gather these histories as our Houston Neighborhood Series progresses.
We would love an opportunity to talk to the community and civic organizations
you may be involved with to share the work we're doing and to look for
people to interview as well as volunteer interviewers. Please contact
us here if you would
like us to come speak to your group.
What's Your HQ?
As many of you know, we have completed a prototype of our educational
Houston trivia game called What's
Your HQ?. We are currently looking for a Houston corporation who
wants to help contribute to the community by sponsoring this project and at the same time to be recognized for their community service.
HAM Houston History Book Fair & Symposium
Houston Arts and Media is very excited to present our first Houston History Book Fair & Symposium. The event will be held on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at the Heights Church of Christ, itself a 1924 City of Houston Landmark. Hours will be from 10 to 4 with a different author speaking in the church library on the half hour. Many of the top books on Houston's past will be available. The church is located at 16th and Heights Blvd. Please put it on your calendar now.
Top
Houston Foundations Support HAM
We're into the sixth year since we launched Houston Arts and Media in order to educate and engage Houstonians in their regional history, arts, science and other areas. We have been fortunate in that several of the city's top foundations showed that they believed in our mission, too, by giving us substantial funds to help us meet our Houston History Initiative goals. Houston Endowment, Inc has again chosen to support HAM with a nice grant that will begin any day. These represent the financial support we need to move at a decent pace with these important projects and to bring them to fruition. .If you have a family foundation, please let us know so that we may apply for support. It is what keeps us moving forward.
Looking for Corporate Members
It is an ongoing job of any non-profit to secure this support from foundations, corporations and individuals. One of the areas we are hoping to greatly expand is the number of corporate members. It is a small price for a local business to pay in order to support educational efforts in our community and help preserve these important stories from our past and our other projects. Please help us keep the momentum. Use your connections and your imagination, and keep our educational work in your thoughts. We need corporate memberst.
Book Fair - November 13, 2010
This is the first time we're doing this event. Every year, numerous great works by a diverse collection of authors document aspects of our region's history. This event looks to bring many of them together to meet the public, discuss their books and sell and sign copies. If you've written a book on some aspect of our area's past, we'd like to include you. It is an all-day event on Saturday, November 13, 2010 at the historic Heights Church of Christ, 16th and Heights Boulevard. Doors open at 10am. Admission is free.
Amazon
As always, we want to remind you that if you do any shopping
at Amazon.com, please use the search engine on our homepage.
We get a small percentage of your purchase. It won't pay for office
space, but it might cover a ream or two of printer paper, and that works
for us.
GoodSearch
We have signed up with GoodSearch, a Yahoo-powered search tool
that donates a small amount to our organization each time you use the
engine. To support us with this tool, go to www.goodsearch.com,
and type in Houston Arts and Media into the "Who do you search
for?" field. Couldn't be simpler!
HAM Store
We also have some nice t-shirts and other merchandise with our
spiffy logo available through our CafePress store.
They make great gifts!! So have fun shopping.
Recent Donors
We would very much like to take this time to thank all of the wonderful people and companies who have been supportive of the work we do at HAM. We try to recognize those businesses who support us, and patronize them as often as possible. Above all, we hope you can see the videos, books and events we produce and be proud that you helped make it possible. Thanks so much!
Top
Volunteers
We've been working non-stop for more than four years on our projects,
and we've made a lot of progress. But we need your help. We need volunteers
to:
- transcribe interviews
- interview long time Houstonians
- interview the owners of long-time Houston businesses
- identify Houstonians with stories to tell about their neighborhoods
- photograph historic Houston buildings, parks, landscapes, bridges,
schools, businesses, industrial areas
- do library research
- SPREAD THE WORD!!!
Donations Needed
We also need donations of:
- a new 8-core Mac with capability to run video editing software
- office space
- software upgrades
- additional video lighting and audio equipment
- a vehicle to become a rolling art car/recording studio
- and, as always, money.
Thank you so much for your support and your interest in Houston Arts
and Media…
Top
|
