The Texas Political History Collection consists of the papers of elected officials and private citizens, past and present, who have influenced the course of Texas politics and government. The collections concentrate on 20th century political officials from the North Central Texas area in particular. Papers of prominent legislators from the region in the collection include those of U.S. representatives Martin Frost and Dale Milford, Texas state senators Betty Andujar and Oscar Mauzy, and Texas state representatives Fred Agnich, Scott Bailey, Joe Cannon, Joe Hawn, Chris Miller, James Sewell, and James Vecchio.

Also included are records of political groups, such as the Texas AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education, Dallas County Farm Labor Political Conference, Democratic Advisory Council, Texas Democratic Party Executive Committee, and the Tarrant County Democratic Party Primary Convention (1974), and the papers of political activists, such as Margaret Carter, Julianan Cowden, Lois Ham, George and Latane Lambert, and Paulia Weaver.

The Texas Political History Collection includes a series of interviews by Dr. Allan Saxe with prominent Arlington politicians and another series focusing on Mexican-American leaders in Texas conducted by Dr. José Ángel Gutiérrez.

Finding aids, inventories, and descriptions are available for many of the archival collections. All collections, both processed and unprocessed, are listed and described, in the 2000 edition of A Guide to Archives and Manuscripts in the Special Collections Division at The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries. An electronic version is available online, and a loose-leaf addendum to the Guide is available at the Special Collections reference desk. Most of the collections are also cataloged and appear in OCLC and the UT Arlington Library Catalog.

See online Finding aids

If you have questions about the Texas Political History collections, please contact Gary Spurr at spurr@uta.edu or (817) 272-7511.