At the April 19 commemoration in Waco this year, I met Catherine Wessinger, Professor of Religious Studies at Loyola University in New Orleans. She is co-editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions," the author of two books on Millenialism, and editor of two books by Branch Davidians (Mt. Carmel survivor Sheila Martin and David Koresh's mother, Bonnie Haldemann).
Catherine informed me of the Lee Hancock Collection at Loyola--a collection rich with internal government memos, interview reports and expert reports, as well as news articles and FLIR videos, among other items related to the raid, siege, assault and trial of the Branch Davidians. Lee gathered these materials during her numerous years researching the topic as a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, and she had access to some government documents that other reporters typically did not have.
Lee, Catherine and the archivists at Loyola were all interested in moving the collection, and after discussions over the ensuing months, we were able to secure acquisition of the collection here at the Southwestern Writers Collection. Although we are a literary manuscripts repository, our collecting scope does include papers from area journalists. We also feel this collection, centered on the government's side, will compliment Reavis' nicely, which focuses more on the Branch Davidian side.
Also, according to Catherine, the Lee Hancock Collection contains photocopies of documents (or detailed notes on classified documents) that have not been or are no longer accessible to the public. Catherine recently wrote an article about the contents of the collection and an article about the startling conclusions she came to as a result of researching the collection. You can read both articles and all the others online in the latest issue of Nova Religio, The entire issue is devoted to the Branch Davidian incident, and will be published in print in October. It also contains an article by Matthew Wittmer, "Traces of the Mount Carmel Community: Documentation and Access," that contains information about the Reavis papers and The Ashes of Waco digital collection.
We're very happy that our work this past year digitizing and providing online access to The Ashes of Waco research materials was instrumental in the future acquisition of the Lee Hancock Collection! We should acquire it around January 2010, and we can definitely see creating a similar digital collection of out of it someday.
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