An Educational Day

Today we decided to see a couple of of Austin's museums. It was supposed to be rainy--a good day for museum visits.
First we went to the Harry Ransom Center on the University of Texas campus. One of the world's finest cultural archives, the Harry Ransom Center houses 36 million literary manuscripts, one million rare books, five million photographs, and over 100,000 works of art. Highlights include the Gutenberg Bible (c. 1455), the First Photograph (c. 1826) , and major manuscript collections of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, and Tennessee Williams, to name but a few. Of course we did not see it all but did see quite a bit.
The special exhibition going on at this time had to do with the evolution of writing. They had everything from early stone tablets to digital writing. Original mauscripts from authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and hand-written Bibles (in Latin) were all on display. It was very interesting to see all of these items in one display. The emphasis on writing as communication and how it has all evolved was very informative.
They also had a display about the evolution of the photographic image. There were images shown using many different photo processing techniques. There were prints on metal, paper, glass, and cloth.
After all that education, we grabbed a quick lunch at one of the campus eateries and headed over to the Lyndon B Johnson presidential Library. The Library is also on the University of Texas campus.
The main level of the library is an exhibition telling LBJ's life story and the story of his presidency. Many original documents such as the Civil Rights Act are on display. Slogans and buttons from the Kennedy-Johnson campaign, as well as numerous photos from the sixties brought back memories. The displays were very well done and even included background music from the era. This is a view looking up to the 4th through 7th floors which hold the document archives. There are over 31 million individual items from original signed bills to letters from kids who worte to the President. They saved everything!

The 10th floor housed a gallery showcasing the work and life of LadyBird Johnson. She was a very active First Lady and still today works towards many environmental causes for Texas. In addition, the 10th floor houses a 7/8th size replica of the Oval Office as it was during LBJ's term.
It is difficult to see the enormous telephone on the desk-such
a difference from today's technology. In the lower right is a console with 3 TV's. LBJ really liked to watch all 3 networks at one time to stay up with what the news people had to say about him. Imagine how many TV's he would need today to watch all the news shows at once!!

Well, our rainy day turned out to be a sunny 85 degree day. Not exactly an indoor type day but we really enjoyed our activities anyway.