Capstone Projects

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  Little Flower Church and School: A Digital History of Westside San Antonio's Spirituality and the Dedication of the Community

  Ashton Jeffers

  This project utilizes digital and oral history methods to present a collective narrative on the Little Flower Basilica and School. It begins with the origins of the parish on the Westside of San Antonio to the present day, showing how the parish presents its history to the public. Using a StoryMap to create a digital exhibit, this multi-media project includes a comprehensive historical narrative along with primary source documents and photographs of the development of the parish and its school over time. The StoryMap also includes an oral history audio of Diane Gonzales Bertrand, a former member of the Little Flower Basilica who grew up on the Westside of San Antonio, who was active in the church during her youth. This project also incorporates audio of the Heritage Tours given by volunteer staff and clergy at the Basilica for residents and visitors of San Antonio to enjoy. This project explores themes of generational traditions, religion, Latino cultural heritage, and historic preservation while focusing on a beautiful architectural icon of the Westside from the mid-20th century to the present day.

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  An Oral History Project: Shirley Knutson and Rural Ministry Initiative

  Carly Bagley

  This project examines oral history methods through a series of interviews with Shirley Knutson. These interviews focus on her life and her intentions for Rural Ministry Initiative, a Lutheran residency program for clergy interns. Shirley describes her experiences in rural communities as a child, student, teacher, wife, and mother. This project aims to help historians understand ethical practices and effective principals when conducting oral history projects while also exploring historical themes of domesticity, religion, and family relations from the perspective of a woman living in the Midwest United States during the mid- to late-20th century.

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  The Emma Tenayuca Projec

  Gwyn Hartung

  This project is a multi-directional approach to increase recognition for labor activist and educator Emma Tenayuca, a lead organizer of the 1938 Pecan Shellers Strike in San Antonio, Texas. By collaborating with community leaders in this project, I seek to inspire future generations of San Antonians by highlighting the struggles and successes Emma and her fellow strikers faced. The biggest part of the project is a call to honor Emma Tenayuca with a permanent monument. Other components of the project include a Twitter account dedicated to sharing information about Tenayuca, an ofrenda dedicated to Tenayuca displayed at Centro de Cultural Aztlan and a map that is composed of important places in Tenayuca’s life. Through each of these efforts, I worked with the community to preserve the legacy of Emma Tenayuca and the thousands of others like her who aim to make the world a better place.

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  Filmcasters

  Antonio Coffee

  In this project I cohost a podcast with Nicolas McKay and Christopher de La Rosa about movies and history. We are exploring what we can learn from movies and providing another way for the public to engage with history. Throughout our first eight episodes we have analyzed seven different movies and had one interview with a historian doing working with similar themes. Through these first seven episodes we have been able to talk about the Texas Borderlands, the history of Broadway, the Cold War, P. T. Barnum, Japanese response to nuclear testing, Hollywood censorship laws, and Rudyard Kipling. While exploring these themes I have brought my experience as a public historian to the research and promotion of this project.

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  The CoBALT Oral History Project:Reflections on a Near-Century of Archaeology

  Glory Turnbull

  The CoBALT (Coastal Bend Archaeological Logistics Team) Oral History Project is a series of interviews conducted by Glory Turnbull featuring CoBALT members Bill Birmingham, Ben McReynolds, Frank Condron, Jud Austin, and Rickey Ramseur. CoBALT is a group of citizen archaeologists that protect archaeological sites and excavate in the Coastal Bend of Texas, primarily in the town of Victoria. CoBALT’s history is previously unrecorded, but features heavily in these interviews, in addition to information about Coastal Bend archaeology from the 1950s to present. The members of CoBALT have excavated, surveyed, or collected at nearly all of the archaeological sites in Victoria County, Texas. For the first time, viewers can hear the remarkable stories of CoBALT’s men on the Museum of the Coastal Bend’s YouTube channel.

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  Radical Rattlers: A Narrative of Latino Students at St. Mary’s University in the 1960’s

  Edgar Velazquez

  In the 1960s, St. Mary’s University saw an increase in Latino enrollment and a shift in student political attitudes from confidence in established politics in the early 1960s to radical activism at the end of the decade. The transition occurred as students engaged with the Civil Rights movement and then the Chicano movement. St. Mary’s distanced itself from radical forms of protest, as best exemplified by the formation off campus of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) off campus, arguably the lynchpin of the Chicano movement in San Antonio. Attempting a reconciliation, St. Mary’s declared the 1969-1970 school year The Great Southwest Heritage Year, a celebration and investigation of the Mexican American experience, but the effort proved too little too late. Using the St. Mary’s student newspaper, The Rattler, this project chronicles the events of the 1960s from the perspective of St. Mary’s Latino students, using editorials and campus coverage to understand the evolution from traditionalism to radicalism.

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  The Ballet Folklórico de San Antonio: A Vehicle of Empowerment and Cultural Preservation through Dance

  Victoria Villasenor

  Since the mid 20th century, ballet folklórico has been a source of community, identity, and = celebration for Mexican Americans across the United States. Despite the popularity throughout Texas, its migration from Mexico to the United States is not well-documented nor widely known. Utilizing digital media, oral histories, personal artifacts, and archives this project is an effort to capture the development of ballet folklórico in San Antonio as a pillar of the city’s identity and reputation as culturally distinct. I share this history through the perspectives and experiences of the Ballet Folklórico de San Antonio (BFSA) dance company as they were the first accredited folklórico dance academy in San Antonio and the earliest folklórico groups to establish a relationship with the city government. Their journey as a cultural institution captures the evolution of the broader acceptance of Mexican dance and Mexican heritage in city-wide social, political, and economic initiatives. The Ballet Folklórico de San Antonio’s passion for their craft and their dedication to education is a symbol of resilience against white-washed notions of folk traditions and Mexican culture.

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  A microscopic view of the COVID-19 virus: Pandemics Move the World Forward: A history of humanity’s progression via pandemics

  Harold Johnson

  This project argues that pandemics have the ability to move the world forward in ways such as causing economic shifts, leading to new medical innovations and stimulate changes to current religious ideas. By examining past pandemics, such as bubonic plague, the influenza outbreak of 1918 and smallpox, this project demonstrates how humanity has risen to the challenge pandemics create. Through innovations, invention and societal changes, pandemics are often the catalyst for major changes in the world. As the world wrestles with COVID-19, it is good to remind ourselves of humanity’s resilience and to consider what the lasting results of the pandemic will be.

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  Baseball, Hot Dogs, and Raspas: The Prospect Hill Yellow Jackets Athletic Club During the 1960s in San Antonio, TX

  Adam Neiro

  The Prospect Hill Yellow Jackets Athletic Club was an important institution in San Antonio’s West Side in the 1960’s. It was a vehicle through which the emerging Mexican American middle-class families integrated and acculturated into the American mainstream. Using images, maps, archival photographs, newspaper articles, obituaries, and oral histories, this project presents evidence on how organized youth sports played a major role in helping shape and define the identity of a Mexican American community in San Antonio and provided the foundation that spawned an engaged generation of achievers.

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  The Southwest History Project

  S. Michael Sleeter

  The purpose of this project is to expand Public History practices in the community of the Southwest Independent School District. Its main goal is to establish a community historical society that will preserve and promote the local history of the area while allowing students to gain practical experience in the field. A newly created Public History class at the High School will support it. By giving members of the community the knowledge and ability to record and preserve their local history, the power to keep alive the collective memory is in the hands of those who made this area their home.

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  History ReinVOKed

  John Cadena

  For citizens of San Antonio’s Westside, growing up in the Barrio is just a way of life. In this environment, generations of families share similarities in their educational experiences. Children learn in the same classrooms as their parents and grandparents. They roam the same hallways, and sometimes learn from the same teachers. This was a result of industrialization and urbanization of San Antonio in the early twentieth century. Prompting construction of Sidney Lanier High School, Lanier was build based on an adaptation of John Dewey’s Theory of Vocational Education. Through what became known as the social efficiency model, the San Antonio Independent school district aimed to use Lanier as a means to produce a minority labor force through vocational training. This was in contrast to the academic focused high schools provided to San Antonio’s Caucasian population. As a result, generations of Westside inhabitants have shared the campus of Sydney Lanier, home of the “Voks,” a mascot connected to the campus’s vocational emphasis. Despite this, Lanier contains a rich sense of history and tradition, a history unknown or recognized by many in the community. Through my project that creates an exhibit on the history of Lanier, I aim to build a renewed sense of pride and accomplishment for the Westside community.

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  Let’s Talk About Native American Histories at the Alamo

  Gabriel Cohen

  This exhibit is intended to address an issue that is being hotly debated in San Antonio. The Alamo is one of the most recognizable monuments in the United States and has nurtured a rich and multicultural history for the last three centuries. Despite this diversity, the site only memorializes European American histories. Exhibit panels and programming at the Alamo encourage visitors to learn of the Anglo-Texan experience in Texas, provide a cursory and almost vilifying portrayal of Mexico and demonstrate a neglect for Texas Indian history. While working as a guide at the Alamo, I rationalized how to go about fixing this problem. Given the complete absence of Texas Indian history, I decided that visitors must have historical context on Texas Indians to understand their history at the missions. This project will provide the following: a contextual platform for visitors to acquaint themselves with Texas Indian history, present Native Americans as the main historical figures of the Spanish colonial missions and increase awareness of the threats against Texas Indian heritage and history at the Alamo.

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  The House on Marcos Street

  Danielle Garza

  The House on Marcos Street, a house that’s been in my family for over forty years, is one of many homes in a neighborhood filled with generations of stories and memories that influence the community today. Many memories have been created in this small home -- from the realization of my ancestors’ dreams to the hardships of reality. The families within this neighborhood have seen joy and suffering just like my own family. This neighborhood is constantly changing, affecting the people who call this community home. Today this community changes through the increase of gentrification, the decrease of livable homes. and the negative connotations others in San Antonio have towards the West Side. Through this exhibit, I tell a story about a common Hispanic family whose life has been shaped in this space. I connect it to the changes currently occurring in this neighborhood, because as the neighborhood is changing, the people who live within it have a right to know about these transformations. For this reason, history and the present are interwoven in this exhibit.

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  Returning to Roots: Adobe Structures in San Antonio

  Shine Trabucco

  This project articulates the importance of the preservation of adobe structures in San Antonio. In it, I identify and map adobe structures that remain today using an accessible digital platform. This project incorporates community engagement including stories of local residents of San Antonio and providing public workshops.