Thomas W. Streeter Collection of Austin Family and Texas Revolution Papers

Thomas W. Streeter (1883–1965), businessman, collector, and bibliographer, was born in New Hampshire and received degrees from Dartmouth College (B.L., 1904) and Harvard Law School (LL.B., 1907). Streeter worked as a businessman, including in the oil industry. He retired in 1939 and devoted his time to collecting and bibliography for Americana and Texana.

Streeter compiled the five volume Bibliography of Texas 1795-1845, published in three parts. In 1957, he sold his collection of Texas imprints to Yale University.

Stephen F. Austin (1793–1836), founder of Anglo-American Texas, was born in Virginia to Moses Austin and Maria Brown Austin. Moses Austin moved his family from Virginia to Missouri in pursuit of opportunities managing lead mines. After this pursuit failed, Moses traveled to San Antonio in 1820, where he made a successful request for a land grant in Spanish Texas and the ability to bring 300 families to the region. Moses was aided in this endeavor by his association with the Baron de Bastrop, who encouraged the governor of Spanish Texas, Antonio Maria Martinez, to accept Austin's bid.

Moses Austin died of pneumonia shortly after his return to Missouri, and Stephen assumed responsibility for the settlement charge. Austin began bringing settlers to Texas in 1821, shortly after Mexico achieved independence from Spain. Austin managed immigration and established and maintained the land system from the colony's capital, San Felipe de Austin. He also had civil and military control over the colony until 1828, when the Constitution of Coahuila and Texas went into effect and facilitated integration of the colony into the larger Mexican government.

Upon Mexico's independence from Spain, the Mexican government began to have growing concerns about revolutionary activities in Texas. In 1831, Austin was arrested in Mexico City on allegations of attempting to incite insurrection; he was freed in July 1835 and returned to Texas. Later that year, the Texas Revolution began. Texas achieved independence in June 1836, and Austin was appointed the Republic's first Secretary of State. He died in office two months later, on December 27, 1836. His sister Emily Austin Perry's husband, James F. Perry, served as executor of his estate. After Austin's death and the independence of the Republic of Texas, border disputes with Mexico continued, such as in the Mier Expedition of 1842.