Behind the Tower: New Histories of the UT Tower Shooting

“Behind the Tower” is a website produced by The Public History Seminar, a graduate course in the Department of History. Eleven graduate students from various departments wrote historical essays researched in local archives on issues surrounding the shooting including the police response, student life and Texas gun culture in the 1960s, Whitman’s drug use and physical and emotional condition, campus counseling services, the symbolism of the Tower, the university’s response, and the nature of remembering and forgetting traumatic public events. Short biographies of everyone injured or killed by Charles Whitman are also featured. The project is intended to serve as an educational tool for people everywhere to learn more about the tragic event and its aftermath.