[2] Harry Ransom founded the Humanities Research Center in 1957 with the ambition of expanding the rare books and manuscript holdings of the University of Texas.

[5][6] Ransom was only the official director of the center from 1958 to 1961, but he directed and presided over a period of great expansion in the collections until his resignation in 1971 as chancellor of the University of Texas System.

In September 2013, Stephen Enniss, former head librarian of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was appointed director of the Ransom Center.

[13] Under Enniss, the Ransom Center continued to collect archives, including those of Kazuo Ishiguro,[14] Arthur Miller,[15] and Ian McEwan.

[17] Two prominent items in the Ransom Center's collections are a Gutenberg Bible,[18][19] one of only 21 complete copies known to exist, and Nicéphore Niépce's c. 1826 View from the Window at Le Gras, the first successful permanent photograph from nature.