Texas Week Newsmagazine

About the Collection

Texas Week was the first weekly magazine to be devoted entirely to the State of Texas. Founded right after WWII, its focus was on capturing the post-War normalization of the State – culturally, politically and structurally. Much of the population had been places and seen things they never imagined, and their experiences would have a significant impact on the State going forward.

The publisher and editor, Raymond Holbrook, worked on the Daily Texan at UT and at the Amarillo Daily News for six years before WWII. He became a Marine Corps intelligence officer in the Pacific and saw war firsthand. He also saw his generation rise to those monumental challenges, and came away feeling the “can do” spirit that swept postwar America.

Undercapitalized, in a cramped office near the Capitol, Texas Week lasted an intense seven months – Aug, 1946 to Feb, 1947. The quality of the copy, photography and presentation showed what the newsmagazine format could do for a regional audience despite its failure. (In the History of Publishing on Britannic.com, Texas Week is noted as one of two regional magazines after WWII in the Time newsmagazine format.)

The Texas Week collection comprises all 28 issues of the magazine. Ray Holbrook went on to be managing editor of several Texas newspapers, taught journalism at North Texas State University, and retired as broadcast editor for the Associated Press in Dallas in 1976.