The University of Texas is one of the country’s great institutions of learning. And the education doesn’t stop with the registered students. The Ransom Center is one of several arms of the university that extend to the public. Visiting scholars and the public turn to the research center’s wealth of resources and archives to learn about everything from ancient Mexico to the works of great artists and writers like David Foster Wallace and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. The Ransom Center is also home to one of only five complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible in the United States. Take a tour of the center or come to see any of the ongoing exhibitions, lectures, and events.
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Treasure Trove of Creativity
One of the world’s greatest cultural archives, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin houses collections comprising literature, art, film, journalism, theater, photography, and more. The Center was founded in 1957 by Harry Huntt Ransom, an English professor at the University. Today, the Center’s archives, which begin at the Medieval period and run to the current day, includes both a Gutenberg Bible and a first edition of the King James Bible (seen here), Jack Kerouac’s On the Road notebook, original materials by and about Edgar Allen Poe, and the Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein Watergate papers. Students and scholars can access archival material by appointment, but book lovers can visit the permanent and changing exhibitions at the center on a regular basis.
