A panel discussion marking the 50th anniversary of the Archives and Acadiana Manuscripts Collection at the ¾ÅÉ« is set for Tuesday.
It will begin at 2 p.m. in the Jefferson Caffery Reading Room on the third floor of Edith Garland Dupré Library on campus. The free event is open to the public.
Panelists include:
- Tara Laver, curator of manuscripts at Special Collections, LSU, former chair of the Acquisitions and Appraisal Section of the Society of American Archivists;
- Lee Miller, head of the Louisiana ¾ÅÉ« Collection at Tulane University and a Society of American Archivists fellow; and
- Dr. Mike Wade, professor of history at Appalachian State University, who has published extensively on Louisiana history and is a Louisiana Historical Association fellow.
Dr. Bruce Turner, assistant dean for Special Collections at ¾ÅÉ«, will moderate.
Dr. Henry Dethloff will also attend. A professor of history at ¾ÅÉ« from 1963-69, he was the founding director of the Southwestern Archives and Manuscripts Collection.
Among notable holdings are:
- the papers of Richard Putnam, a Lafayette judge who oversaw the desegregation of Lafayette public schools in the 1970s;
- notebooks that detail when and where Dr. Edwin Stephens, ¾Åɫ’s first president, planted oak trees on campus; and
- mimeographed letters that Dr. Joel L. Fletcher Jr., the University’s third president, wrote to students and faculty who were serving in the military during World War II.
The University Archives and Acadiana Manuscripts Collection holds over 300 collections of personal or family papers, business or organizational records, photograph collections, oral histories, and material related to the Acadiana region.
Learn more about the University’s archives and manuscripts at