State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte donates her personal papers to UTSA

By Ryan Schoensee
Communications Specialist, UTSA Libraries

(Aug. 8, 2014) --Leticia Van de Putte, state senator and Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor of Texas, has donated her personal papers to the UTSA Libraries Special Collections for use by students and scholars.

Donated in late 2013 and recently made available to the public, the Leticia Van de Putte papers collection consists of 12 boxes of correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs and awards. Official records from her political offices are not included. The papers will be available to scholars, students and researchers interested in examining her impact across two decades in civil service.

"State Senator Van de Putte is creating a significant political legacy here in San Antonio," said Nikki Lynn Thomas, manuscripts curator who inventoried the papers. "Just as her leadership will have a lasting impact, so will her papers have an enduring relevance for scholars examining the political history of our region."

Van de Putte's papers include news clippings and a photograph from 1957 with the majority of the materials spanning from 1990 to 2012. The documents are now housed and preserved at UTSA's HemisFair Park Campus and can be accessed via the Institute of Texan Cultures Special Collections reading room. Those interested in viewing the papers can request an appointment to access the collection.

"Our efforts to acquire, preserve and digitize unique materials supports the scholarly work of students for generations to come," said Amy Rushing, head of UTSA Libraries Special Collections. "We are proud to preserve Senator Van de Putte's legacy and to promote the university's academic, research and outreach missions."

In 1990, Van de Putte was elected Texas state representative. She remained in the state House of Representatives until 1999, when she was elected to the State Senate for the 26th District. In 2003, she was appointed chair of the Texas Senate Democratic Caucus, a position she held until 2011. Van de Putte is chair of the Veterans Affairs and Military Installations Committee and a member of the senate committees on education, state affairs, business and commerce. She is co-chair of the Joint Committee on Human Trafficking.

In 1993, Van de Putte was awarded a Kellogg Fellowship at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. She served as co-chair of the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

In November 2013, Van de Putte announced that she would run for lieutenant governor of Texas in the 2014 elections.

Supporting the university's ascent to premier research university status, UTSA Libraries Special Collections supports the university's teaching, research and outreach missions by acquiring, preserving and digitizing primary resources for use by students and scholars at UTSA and around the world.

The UTSA Libraries Special Collections preserves the legacies of San Antonio and South Texas through a rich array of primary resources. Strengths of the collections -- which are open to academic and casual researchers alike -- include San Antonio history, urban development and architecture, regional authors, Mexican cookery, women and women's history, and the Texas-Mexico border region.

Additional UTSA collections include the papers of other local, state and national political figures including Ernestine Glossbrenner, Charlie Gonzalez, José Angel Gutiérrez, Cyndi Taylor Krier, Frank Lombardino and Eugene Nolte Sr.

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For more information, visit the UTSA Libraries website.

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