The Bob Bullock Collection spans the years 1917-2003 with the bulk of the material focusing on Bob Bullock’s political career from 1975-1999, when Bullock was Comptroller of Public Accounts and then Lieutenant Governor of Texas. The Bullock Collection provides a comprehensive account of the last quarter of the 20th Century in Texas politics, through the eyes, words, and deeds of one of Texas’ most legendary politician and respected statesman. Bob Bullock’s love for Texas was genuine…and that love is visible in the physical record of his Collection. Also present in the Collection are personal items and artifacts from Bullock’s life that were donated by Bullock, members of his family and friends. Together, these materials provide a window to the public and private sides of Bob Bullock.
Bob Bullock began donating his papers and personal items to Baylor Collections of Political Materials in 1993. From 1993-1999, BCPM staff made approximately two trips a year to Austin to collect Bullock materials. All materials, including personal and campaign items, were picked up at the Lieutenant Governor’s office, and came to the Lieutenant Governor’s office from the different places Bullock kept his things, such as his campaign offices, home, and storage. BCPM staff began receiving items from Jan Bullock after Bullock’s death in 1999, and several trips since that time were made to pick up items from Jan Bullock’s house and storage unit. The Bullock Collection continues to receive donated gifts of items and materials that are added to the Collection as they arrive.
The Bob Bullock Collection is divided into 5 series: Campaign, Comptroller, Lieutenant Governor, Media, and Personal, and consists of approximately 1,125 linear feet of material.
It is important to note that Bullock’s materials were accumulated from a variety of places, such as his home, campaign offices, and storage units, and therefore arrived at Baylor in varying degrees of completeness. Different individuals headed Bullock’s campaign office during different campaigns, and the materials from the campaign offices reflect different styles of filing and office management. The Comptroller’s records were rescued from the State after the retention schedule had slated them for destruction. Therefore, due to the variances in the State retention schedule and differences in the handling of campaign materials, the Comptroller’s records and Campaign records cannot be considered complete.
There is extensive cross-filing within the Personal, Campaign, Comptroller’s and Lieutenant Governor’s Series. Bullock often kept copies of correspondence and items of interest at his Campaign office as well as the Comptroller’s office and Lieutenant Governor’s office. The reverse is also true. Correspondence to and from the Campaign office and paid for by Bullock’s political campaign would often be copied and taken to the Comptroller’s office or Lieutenant Governor’s office and inserted into individual files and issue files. In addition, quite often Bullock would have copies of correspondence routed to different individuals within his offices for consideration and response. As a result, correspondence may also be under the author’s individual file as well as the file of the individual Bullock routed the correspondence to, and the issue the correspondence related to.
The Bullock Correspondence DVDs contains information other than the subject of the particular piece of correspondence. Bullock kept mail logs on constituent mail which included dates of incoming mail and outgoing responses as well as names of spouses, places of employment, addresses and phone numbers. When scanned for the DVD’s, this private information was often a part of the scanned document. Therefore, due to the private nature of this information, access to this DVD set is restricted to archivists and librarians.
