Documents from our collection of the document, the Texas Freedom and the struggle of various groups in texas for freedom equality, and civil rights. Today were in the loren saah day zavala state archives building in austin texas right on the capitol grounds. This is an original portrait of stephen f. Austin, the father of anglo colonization in texas. We believe this portrait was painted from life before his death in 1836. 6 this is an important map that was researched and compiled stephen f. Austin. If he and his father knew texas would be successful, they would have to have a good map of the area. So he worked with the tanner publication or the Publishing Company in philadelphia to create this map. The earliest one was in 1830s. And they issued several editions. The last one being 1836. The 1836 map. Youll notice that it still has the mexican eagle in the cartoush here. At this time in 1836, this time in the publication, it was still part of mexico. This book is a publication of the proceeding of the convention of texas at san felipe deshgs austin in october of 1832. And stephen f. Austin was the president of this convention. And it was a number of it was prominent men who met to draw up a list of grievances they had with the Mexican Government for a variety of reasons that were not really sure about it was never presented to the Mexican Government. But one significant thing about it is the delegation from beyer, san antonio, and the delegation from goal yad in Southeast Texas was not present for the convention. Basically it was the work of white male colonists. That was significant. The hispanics and tay ha knows were not represented. This is a number of our most iconic documents, the handwritten original copy of the texas declaration of independence. And the convention met on march 1 of 1836. At washington, texas which is now known as washington on the brazos. And 59 delegates eventually signed this. There were three hispanics that signed it. One of them was Mexican National lorenzo de zavala. For whom the building was named. Jose Francisco Ruiz and jose antonio navarro. As we talked about before, stephen f. Austin and moses austin, his fathers hope for texas was to colonize it and make it a prosperous place. But this was a dream for white colonists that came from the United States and some european nations. The same promise was not necessarily available to people of other ethnicities. If you were of african descent, you had no rights. This is a document, you might call it a passport for emily west a free woman of color from new york who had come to texas before the Texas Revolution with captain morgan and during the revolution, she was trying to return home to new york and got this letter which would have allowed her free passage. In the meantime, she was captured by santa ana and detained for a while. A myth grew out of this story that somehow she was a woman who had distracted santa ana at the battle of san jacinto. Not much evidence for that. But a myth that grew up that grew out of those events and was perpetrated later on. Itle might have been where the yellow rose of texas might have come out of. Thats the popular lore, any way. We dont even know who the initials j. K. Is. This is a treaty for other tribes in 1836 early in 1836 itss signed february 23, which is right at the beginning of the siege of the alamo. This was work that was done by sam houston who had always had a very close relationship with the cherokees. And the significance of this was that texans wanted to try to be sure that the cherokees and it would be either neutral or on the side of the texan colonists and they did not want to side with mexico if hostilities rose. And this was something that had been worked on for some months with war with mexico impending, there was much urgency to get these signed. Unfortunately, the stipulations of the treaty were not honored and the cherokee did not get their lands eventually. The major signatory was duwali and he was killed at the battle of neches and most of them had to cross the border to indian territory, which is now oklahoma. This continues the signatures tore marks of the indians who participated in it as well as the texan, sam houston, and others. So after texas gained its independence in 1836 after the battle of san jacinto, there was some belief that texas would probably be annexed by the United States. But that did not come to pass very quickly and once it became apparent that texas was not going be quickly annexed, then texas had to be about the business of establishing relationships with other nations, one of the most obvious ones, was, of course, with the United States. So this treaty from 1838 establishes the boundaries between the United States and texas. A very important detail. And so this was when Martin Van Buren was president and this particular document does not contain the actual the actual terms of the boundary treaty. But it was i guess you call it the document of the transmission of that treaty and includes the beautiful fields which contains sealing wax from the United States. Texas also entered into treaties with other nations. Notably great britain. This one was from 1840 and addresses the suppression of the slave trade. And this actually its actually signed by queen victoria. After the civil war and after reconstruction texas experienced a new era of immigration. Again, mostly from the United States into texas. And this is a broadside railroad map in effect from an Organization Called the texas colony association. But again it was a new attempt to colonize the vast lands of texas. In an attempt to address many of the issues that should have been corrected by reconstruction. This is the constitution that was written in 1875, signed in 1876. And interestingly, texas still operates under this constitution today even though its had hundreds of amendments to make changes to it. We can flip to the to the signature page of the document which contains all of the original signatures from 1876. As you can imagine these are many of the most prominent men of their day. And while this document addressed some issues of inequality there of course, these problems did not go away with equality, enfranchisement, most notably of which men of african descent could vote, women were not allowed to vote until well into the 20th century. This is the memorial of the Texas Legislature in 184. 1884 by the undersigned committee of colored men. I guess thats kind of a predecessor of the black caucus. And theyre asking for redress on several issues to pertain to african descent living in texas at the same time. This small leaflet or handbill entitled handicapped was published by the texas Suffrage Association in about 1919 in advance of the vote, the upcoming election by texas male voters, of course, about whether women would be given the vote. And, of course we know eventually the 19th amendment was ratified giving all women in the United States the right to vote. You can see this document and many more that we previewed by visiting the Texas State Library and archives commission. And several of these items documents, and artifacts will be feature in the upcoming exhibit, texans struggle for freedom and equality which will launch in mid january. Find out where cspans local content vehicles are going next online at cspan. Org localcontent. Youre watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. Join American History tv today for a look at the historical role of the House Speaker as the 114th Congress Gets under way. Well feature the opening day remarks of former speakers tip oneill, newt gingrich, dennis hastert, and nancy pelosi. Well hear from raymond smock who explains the role and offers brief profiles of the four congressional leaders. Thats today at noon eastern time on cspan 3s American History tv. Monday night, on the communicators, Martin Cooper inventor of the cell phone on spectrum issues and the efforts by federal agencies to provide for the growing needs of mobile phone service providers. The ultimate in the spectrum Efficient Technology is dynamic spectrum access. It includes a lot of things. It includes cognitive radio. And it includes some new technology thats just starting to become laboratory available where we can use satellites to actually create a model of the world so when somebody transmits, they will know whether theyre going to interfere with somebody else. You put all of these things together i hesitate to tell you how much more efficient it will be because you will laugh me out of this room. But were talking not about tens of times improvement or hundreds or thousands, but millions of times improvement. And thats not as crazy as it sounds. From the time of marconi till now, beare a trillion times more efficient than we were in marconis time. So the thought of being a million times more efficient in the next 20 or 30 years is not as crazy as it sounds. Monday night, 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan 2. Each week, American History tvs american artifacts visits museums and historic places. Up next, inside the u. S. Capitol house wing where historian Matthew Wisniewski and kara elliott used artifacts to trace the history of women in congress. This is the first of a twopart program. The first begins with Jeanette Rankin elected to the house in 1916 from montana. Elected to the house four years before the women had the right to vote nationally. In a way, shes really a bridge from the Suffrage Movement to women attaining full political rights. If you look at the first two decades of women who were elected, and theres roughly about 20 women elected to congress from rankin to the 1930s. A good number of these people dont have political background. They havent held elective office. And instead, they are a large number of them, are widows who succeed their late husbands in congress. And later they would ascribe this as the widows mandate, the rout for a lot of women in college. This persisted in the 1960s to the 19 up 0s. A large number of women followed their husbands or maybe they had a prominent political father who they followed him to congress. So there was a real kind of familial connection. That wasnt rankins experience. It was for this woman here who were looking at this picture on the rostrum, this wonderful picture of edith norris rogers. Rogers was a widow from shes from massachusetts, represented a district from northern massachusetts. And she succeeded her husband, john rogers, who was a highranking member of the Foreign Affairs committee. The ranking republican. And she actually had a lot of experience helping him with administering the committee and administering his personal office. And so she knew what his legislative agenda was. We kind of new the rhythms and the contours of life here on capitol hill. One of the things that happens when a Senior Member passes away like that, the house has to have a special election. No one can be appointed to the house. And depending on state laws that election has to happen in a fairly short amount of time. So what would happen is local Party Leaders would turn to the widow and say will you run for the partial term. Because you have name recognition. Rogers is going to be on the ballot. The expectation was that the wife would serve out this term and then she would retire and the part of them would find a suitable male candidate to succeed her. But rogers had different ideas. She ends up staying in the house for 35 years. She is still the longestserving woman in the house. And she was for a very long time, the longestserving woman in congress. She was recently surpassed by Barbara Mikulski of maryland who has both house and senate service. She not only had longevity. She was very influential in terms of veterans affairs. Prior to her experience in the house, she had volunteered from the red cross. She had become an advocate for servicemen returning from world war i. And rebe uns in the 1940s briefly regained the majority in the 80th congress, she becomes one of the very first women to chair a major congressional committee. It controls flipflop back and forth between democrats and republicans. Shes a republican. You can view this and all other programs at our website. Todd groce ttalked about the significance of the campaign and how is it has been remembered. The ceremony in savanna is about 20