Related Collections

Janet Cooper Collection
Files and legal papers from the court cases of Janet Cooper vs. Kingsville Independent School District. Janet Cooper sued for nonrenewal of her contract due to a teaching method she employed called the Sunshine Project. The Sunshine Project involved role playing and simulation to dramatize conversion of a radically segregated society during Reconstruction to one less segregated. Eight years of litigation resulted and the case went to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Cooper won the case, was reinstated, and received back pay, retirement pay, and lawyer fees.

Colored Trainmen of America (C.T. of A.) Records
The new St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway, headquartered in Kingsville, opened up jobs for African-American workers. The African-American workers were not allowed to be in white unions so they formed their own, the Colored Trainmen of America, which was formed in Kingsville, Texas by the black railroad workers of the Gulf Coast Line.

Lawrence Elling Family Collection
The collection was given to South Texas Archives from the estate of Lawrence J. Elling, an engineering graduate of Texas A&I. He received his BS in 1946 and an MS in 1953. He worked for Houston Gas and was ultimately Chief Design Engineer for Entex in Houston. The Archives accepted his thesis, and supporting documentation including class term papers, maps, drawings, and other research in support of his thesis. Also accepted were his diploma, certificates and photos of his family which lived in Kingsville, Riviera, and Vattman for most of the first half of the 20th century.