By Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra Andrew Torget’s Seeds of Empire places the early history of nineteenth-century Texas squarely within the political economy of slavery, cotton, and geopolitics. Torget shows that Spanish Texas had become an utterly dysfunctional polity. A royalist bloody response to the creation of autonomous creole juntas almost led to the annihilation of the Tejano […]
Textbooks, Texas, and Discontent: The Fight against Inadequate Educational Resources
By Alejandra Garza and Maria Esther Hammack Controversies surrounding textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas. For years, textbook selection in Texas has grabbed headlines and generated great discontent and debate. Textbooks adopted by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) are unusually important because they are also adopted for use in classrooms across the country. Whatever Texas adopts, students across […]
The Illegal Slave Trade in Texas, 1808-1865
At the turn of last century Eugene C. Barker, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted research on the illegal slave trade in Texas. Barker sought to unveil the obscure history of slave smuggling in Texas and he set out to collect information pertaining to that subject.
Americans Against the City, By Stephen Conn (2014)
By Emily Whalen “Have you ever lived in the suburbs?” New York City Mayor Ed Koch asked in a 1982 interview for Playboy magazine. The interviewer had asked the famously witty Koch if he would ever consider a gubernatorial campaign for the state—if Koch won the race, it would mean a move away from the […]
History Revealed in a Very Small Place
Our family knew Luling as a town one passed through quickly on trips from Austin to the Gulf coast, noticing only banners for the next “watermelon thump” and gaily decorated oil pump jacks. Recently it became my unlikely entry point into a visual appreciation of Texas Jewish history and more.
Tejanos through Time
by Emilio Zamora The Texas State Historical Association, the oldest and most important professional organization dedicated to preserving and advancing knowledge about Texas history, recently announced the publication of an eBook entitled Tejanos through Time, Selections from the Handbook of Tejano History. The publication, edited by Emilio Zamora, Professor in the Department of History at […]
A Gold Mine in a Silver Edition: Jim Hogg County, March 9, 1939
By Alejandra Garza Browsing through the online finding aids for the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, I was stunned to discover that they housed an original copy of a 1939 newspaper from Hebbronville, my hometown in South Texas. The curiosity quickly got the better of me and I was at the repository the next […]
History Museums: The Bullock Texas State History Museum
As a native Texan with a degree in history from UT I’m probably a little biased in this area, but my favorite history museum is The Bullock Texas State History Museum.
The Curious Life of General Jackson’s Horse’s Hair
By Josh Urich The artifact below and the document that accompanies it are out of the ordinary: hair taken from General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson’s horse, Old Sorrel. The hair itself was plucked by General Fitzhugh Lee and given to John S. Wise, the son of former Virginia governor Henry S. Wise. John S. Wise […]
Conflict in the Confederacy: William Williston Heartsill’s diary
William Williston Heartsill volunteered to fight for the South before the Civil War even began. For the first two years of his service, he and his comrades from Harrison County, Texas served as a cavalryman on Texas’s western frontier.