Harry Ransom Center - Treasures in the Lobby

Photo: Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on UT Austin Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.

This plain-looking building holds one of the great cultural archives in the world. Founded in 1957 by Harry Ransom, later the university's chancellor, the center collects the raw material of literature, film and photography: about 36 million manuscript pages, a million rare books, five million photographs and more than 100,000 works of art.

Walk into the lobby and two of its greatest treasures are waiting, free to see. One is a Gutenberg Bible from the 1450s, one of only about twenty complete copies known. The other is Joseph Nicephore Niepce's View from the Window at Le Gras, made around 1827 and one of the oldest surviving photographs taken with a camera. Lean close and look for the faint rooftops in it.

Upstairs, changing exhibitions draw on papers and objects from writers, filmmakers and journalists. Admission is free; the galleries are closed Mondays, so check the website for current hours.

Getting here: Walk south along Guadalupe Street, or the sidewalks just inside campus, to 21st Street. The Ransom Center is at 21st and Guadalupe.

Did you know?: The center holds Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's Watergate papers, as well as costumes from Gone with the Wind.

Photo op: Inside the lobby, photograph the Gutenberg Bible in its case if photography is allowed that day, and ask staff first.

More on Wikipedia: Harry Ransom Center · Gutenberg Bible · View from the Window at Le Gras

Harry Ransom Center - Treasures in the Lobby

Stops on this tour