The San Antonio Guidebook Collection was created by the DRT Library to gather together printed pamphlets and leaflets with descriptive content on the city of San Antonio, Texas, presented in textual or pictorial form. Most of the items were aimed at the tourist market and emphasized the historic, cultural, and scenic landmarks of the city. A lesser number were produced for economic development purposes, promoting local businesses or business opportunities. Some works, mostly pictorial in nature, were intended as souvenirs and often contained scenes of local landmarks, particularly historic sites and buildings and views of parks or nearby natural areas.

The items were usually brief and infrequently included an authorial credit. Those aimed at visitors to the city often contained a map with significant locations marked or suggested itineraries for touring area attractions. Most contained some historical background of varying length and accuracy, usually emphasizing the Spanish colonial period and events of the Texas Revolution. Promotional items often contained statistics on population, climate, economic activity, and other measures of growth and prosperity. In addition to summaries of notable businesses, information on government, transportation, agriculture, education, churches, and recreation was frequently included. Some promotional material was aimed at developing a particular sector of the economy, such as agriculture and, later, manufacturing and technology.

Almost all items were heavily illustrated, usually with photographs, though some included artistic works. Commonly, the Alamo and the other missions appeared, and the earlier items usually included other buildings representative of the city’s civic and commercial aspirations, such as city hall, the county courthouse, banks, hotels, schools, military facilities, and the larger and more lavish residences. The illustrations in later items placed more stress on the visitor to the city in their images, featuring photographs of attractions in a more informal, tourist-oriented context.

A number of organizations published such guides, including business and civic groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Business Men’s Club, Municipal Information Bureau, and Municipal Advertising Commission. Some guidebooks were produced for sale by authors or publishers. Businesses, particularly railroads, produced promotional material aimed at tourists and business travelers.

The guidebook collection is arranged chronologically, though dates for many items are estimated. Noted separately are periodical guidebooks, which are weekly or monthly products usually containing a mix of dated information and general material. Leaflets are also separated within the chronological arrangement. Reports produced by the Municipal Advertising Commission, the agency responsible for producing promotional material for the city, are also part of the collection.

A significant number of the items in the collection were produced by advertising executive Claude B. Aniol, whose San Antonio agency produced advertising material for government agencies and businesses for over thirty years.