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Tarlton Law Library Oral History Collection

The Tarlton Law Library began collecting oral history interviews in 1986, when a grant from the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission enabled the Library to conduct five oral history interviews. The interviewees were all graduates of The University of Texas School of Law whose careers shaped the Law School and the legal history of Texas:

Robert Calvert, Joe R. Greenhill, Sr., and Jack Pope as Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Texas, W. Page Keeton as the long-time dean of the Law School, and Gus M. Hodges as one of the school's more colorful professors. Collecting oral histories carries with it the obligation to preserve the interviews and make them available to the public.

The program continues and the interviews are added to the archives to be available for research, and made available more generally in published form. One of our recent additions to the Tartlon Oral History Series, Roy M. Mersky: an Oral History Interview, won The Law Library Publication Award in the print division from AALL (American Association of Law Libraries) in 2009.

The library also collects or otherwise makes available a wide range of oral histories created by other institutions.

If you have questions or suggestions about this page, please contact the Rare Books & Special Collections Department.