William Deming Hornaday:

An Inventory of William Deming Hornaday Transcripts of World War I Letters and Personal Accounts (A-L and unknown) at the Texas State Archives, about 1916-about 1922

Biographical Sketch

William Deming Hornaday was born near Plainfield, Indiana, February 4, 1868. He commenced his career in journalism at age 17 and worked for newspapers in Indianapolis, Indiana; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Memphis, Tennessee. To supplement his salary, Hornaday worked as a special correspondent for a network of newspapers across the country. In 1898, he moved to San Antonio, Texas to work for the San Antonio Times and later the San Antonio Express. During this period, Hornaday gained national renown for an investigative report on poor rations provided to U.S. soldiers.

From San Antonio, Hornaday went to Mexico where he served as publicity director for the Mexican National Railway. During this period he interviewed several Mexican presidents and revolutionaries, including Porfirio Díaz, Victoriano Huerta, Álvaro Obregón, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco Madero, Doroteo Arango (Francisco "Pancho" Villa), and Emiliano Zapata.

In 1913 Hornaday embarked on a world cruise as a special correspondent for a newspaper syndicate. During the next several years, he made several trips to Europe, the Far East, and the Pacific islands. Hornaday came to Austin in 1917 as Director of Publicity for the University of Texas at Austin, a position he held until his death in 1942. In 1921, he established a student-owned and operated clipping service, which extracted narrative accounts and letters from World War I Texas servicemen from local newspapers. Hornaday prepared typescripts of these clippings, which forms the substance of this collection.

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Scope and Contents of the Records

Letters and personal accounts printed in local newspapers were gathered by a student clipping service at the University of Texas beginning in 1921 and then were transcribed by William D. Hornaday. The volumes of transcripts include approximately 2,400 individual letters and personal accounts of Texas soldiers, sailors, and Marines in the "Great War" (World War I), for individuals with last names beginning A-L and unknown, and date from about 1916 to about 1922. The letters and personal accounts include descriptions of military life, battles, and injuries; persons, places, and events in France and Germany, at sea, and on U.S. military bases; and the influenza epidemic and activities at home. Each index entry contains the name of the writer, the military unit or other designation (such as Red Cross or YMCA), if known, and the beginning volume-page number of the letter. Of note is a transcript of a letter by Captain Beauford Jester, who later served as governor of Texas.

This series was split into two separate finding aids due to the electronic file size limitations imposed by the online finding aid web site (TARO). If you are reading this electronically, click on the following link to access the finding aid for the second group of transcripts - William Deming Hornaday Transcripts of World War I Letters and Personal Accounts (M-Z). If you are reading this in paper, the finding aid for the second group is found at a separate divider within the binder.

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Restrictions

Restrictions on Access

To preserve the transcripts, the original typescripts will not be accessed for researchers.

Restrictions on Use

Researchers must use the carbon copies of the transcripts.

Under the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended in 1998, unpublished manuscripts are protected at a minimum through December 31, 2002 or 70 years after the author's death. Researchers are responsible for complying with U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17 U.S.C.).

Technical Requirements

None.

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Related Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

(Identify the item), William Deming Hornaday Transcripts of World War I letters and personal accounts. Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Accession Information

Accession number: 1975/070

This collection was donated to the Archives Division of the Texas State Library by William D. Hornaday's son, Joe Hornaday, on February 19, 1975.

Processing Information

Michael R. Green, November 1991

Corrections and further encoding to TARO project standards by Tonia J. Wood, February 2002

Finding aid converted from EAD 1.0 to 2002 by TARO, July 2003

Finding aid divided to conform to TARO file size limits and edited for DACS compliance by Tonia J. Wood, October 2009

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Other Finding Aids

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Detailed Description of the Records