The David Shapiro Collection

Context: As a graduate student at UT Austin, I worked for two years in an American history archive, where I did records management, organization of historical archival collections, and research. When archival collections are reviewed and organized, archivists create a document called a finding aid, which is a reference for researchers to learn about what’s in a particular collection, as well as the historical context around it. These documents help researchers figure out if a particular set of records will be useful to them.

Finding aids follow a standard format and almost always include an overview of the person/organization who created the historical records (a “biographical note”), as well as an explanation of how the records are arranged (a “scope and content note”). This writing sample shows the biographical and scope/content notes for a set of historic documents I organized and archived in 2013. The full finding aid is available here.

Audience: Academic researchers, historians, undergraduate or graduate students

Tone: Academic, professional

Biographical Note

David (“Dave”) Shapiro was a campaign aide for Senator Ralph Yarborough and a prominent advocate for the "Two-Party Democrats" movement to restore a two-party system in Texas by strengthening the Republican party. Two-Party Democrats, later known as the Rebuilding Committee, sought to reclaim the Democratic Party as a liberal platform, and cause conservative Democrats to migrate to the Republican Party. An alum of the University of Texas at Austin, Shapiro was actively involved in politics, ultimately becoming president of the UT Young Democrats club. Shapiro started working for Ralph Yarborough’s campaigns in the 1950s and remained dedicated to Yarborough throughout the liberal Senator’s extensive political career.

In 1961, with the strength of the Two-Party Democrats behind them, Dave Shapiro and fellow Yarborough campaign aide Chuck Caldwell encouraged liberals to vote for John Tower, and against conservative Democrat William Blakely, ultimately helping Tower to become the first Republican in the Texas Senate since the Reconstruction. In the 1962 Texas governor election, Shapiro worked closely with Republican Jack Cox in his unsuccessful race against the conservative Democratic candidate John Connally.

By 1968, Shapiro and the Two-Party Democrats had rebranded themselves as the Rebuilding Committee and launched their most ambitious effort to protect John Tower’s Senate seat from Democratic challenger Waggoner Carr. The Rebuilding Committee encouraged liberals to vote for Tower and kept voter turnout low, ultimately helping Tower win reelection.

Aside from his role in politics, Shapiro also practiced law in Austin, Texas.

Bibliography:

Menefee, H. 1970. The Two-Party Democrats: The Study of a Texas Political Faction. Masters thesis. University of Texas at Austin.

Scope and Contents

The David Shapiro Collection (1952-2000) consists primarily of news clippings and political campaign materials, along with correspondence, newsletters, speeches, and press releases. The collection documents the political climate in early 1960s Texas, emphasizing the efforts of the ”Two-Party Democrats” to strengthen the Texas Republican party and force conservatives out of the Democratic Party. Highlights include an extensive collection of Senator Ralph Yarborough clippings and campaign materials, as well as campaign-related correspondence between Yarborough and Dave Shapiro. The collection also includes maps, plans, and voting statistics used by the Two-Party Democrats in early 1960s Texas elections.

The Political News Clippings series focuses primarily on Texas election races and results. The series also contains biographical profiles of prominent Texas political figures, as well as some clippings on national political topics. News clippings are grouped first by publication year and then by election or topic. Clippings concerning multiple topics are grouped together by year.

The Campaign and Political Materials series contains promotional materials, such as flyers, pamphlets, newsletters, pins, reel-to-reel radio ads, and bumper stickers, associated with Texas political campaigns, as well as voting statistics and electoral maps used to facilitate candidates’ campaigns. Artifacts and multimedia in this series include three campaign pins, for Senator Yarborough and the NFWA, as well as three reel-to-reel tapes of Yarborough campaign advertisements.

The David Shapiro Papers series consists of Shapiro’s personal political papers, including political essays, notes, AFL-CIO memos, and extensive political correspondence, such as correspondence to and from Senator Ralph Yarborough and Chuck Caldwell, a fellow Yarborough campaign aide.