Thomason Room

This walnut-paneled room of over 6,000 square feet of the Newton Gresham Library's 4th floor houses Special Collections-primarily printed books (ca. 12,000 titles) , but also manuscript collections which do not pertain to SHSU's history. In addition, there is a large vertical file of great value for research in history, especially local history, a card index which facilitates biographical research on thousands of Texans, and display cases which feature examples of manuscript items, original art work, and ephemera e.g. broadsheets, newspapers, and pamphlets.

Notable among the displays are the vivid drawings of Col. John. W. Thomason, Jr., for whom the room was named in 1968 when the Newton Gresham Library was completed. Thomason, born in Huntsville in 1893, had a distinguished career as a Marine officer (his book Fix Bayonets! is still a revered work to Marines and World War I buffs). He was one of the best-known authors of his day, and is immediately recognizable as a talented artist by the sketches which adorn his own numerous books as well as those of other authors who sought out his illustrative skills. Leda Bass Thomason, Col. Thomason's late widow, presented nearly 1,900 of his drawings to SHSU, as well as his manuscripts.

As the "treasure room" of the Newton Gresham Library, the Thomason Room houses such rare books and fine bindings as have come to this institution over its many years of existence, as well as important special subject (Texana, Civil War, criminal justice, avant-garde poetry) and special author (Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein, H. G. Wells) collections. Several major collectors over the years have left a rich legacy of their love of books. Dr. Joseph Clark-41 years a faculty member at Sam Houston-was instrumental in founding both the Texas Collection in the old Estill Library (nucleus of the collection later placed in the Thomason Room) and the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. One of his major achievements was negotiating the purchase of Rev. E. E. Shettles' collection, which was extraordinarily strong in books of exploration and travel, crime and criminals, religion, and the Civil War. Shettles' great interest in the Civil War, especially books about and printed in the Confederacy, laid a strong foundation for the acquisition of the Porter Civil War Collection. The most unexpected collection in the Thomason Room was gathered not by an individual but a publication, The Wild Dog, whose correspondence, manuscripts, and associated papers reveal an astounding assortment of seminal writers of the 1960's. Another unique holding is the nature/adventure films of Ron Shanin, an international lecturer.

The Criminal Justice Special Collection, created in 1986 by pulling together scattered research materials, is presently housed in the Thomason Room. The most important components of C. J. Special are the personal libraries and the papers of the first two directors of the Bureau of Prisons, Sanford Bates and James V. Bennett. Other major collections are those of Austin MacCormick and Wladimir Eliasberg. The Eliasberg collection is the largest individual collection ever acquired by the library and its more than 12,000 items-exclusive of manuscript materials-reveal a "renaissance man". Dr. Eliasberg's interests (and his publications) ranged across criminology, penology, criminal law, forensic medicine, labor relations, political science (especially his native Germany during and between the two world wars), art and literature. His bookplates may be seen in books all over the library, though C. J. Special contains a significant core collection. The donation by Mrs. Jane Burns of her husband's professional collections of thousands of slides, films, and tapes has resulted in the Hank Burns Criminal Justice Media Collection. The wide range of subjects covered by Dr. Burns' research includes prison architecture around the world, administration of capital punishment, history of incarceration, famous trials, law, torture, etc. The instructional value of this collection is enormous.