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| famous texans in history: Growing Up in the Lone Star State Gaylon Finklea Hecker, Marianne Odom, 2021-04-06 A fascinating collection of oral history interviews details Texas in the early twentieth century and how life in the Lone Star State helped the interviewees achieve success. |
| famous texans in history: From Santa Anna to Selena Harriett Denise Joseph, 2018-03-15 Author Harriett Denise Joseph relates biographies of eleven notable Mexicanos and Tejanos, beginning with Santa Anna and the impact his actions had on Texas. She discusses the myriad contributions of Erasmo and Juan Seguín to Texas history, as well as the factors that led a hero of the Texas Revolution (Juan) to be viewed later as a traitor by his fellow Texans. Admired by many but despised by others, folk hero Juan Nepomuceno Cortina is one of the most controversial figures in the history of nineteenth-century South Texas. Preservationist and historian Adina De Zavala fought to save part of the Alamo site and other significant structures. Labor activist Emma Tenayuca’s youth, passion, courage, and sacrifice merit attention for her efforts to help the working class. Joseph reveals the individual and collective accomplishments of a powerhouse couple, bilingual educator Edmundo Mireles and folklorist-author Jovita González. She recognizes the military and personal battles of Medal of Honor recipient Raul “Roy” Benavidez. Irma Rangel, the first Latina to serve in the Texas House of Representatives, is known for the many “firsts” she achieved during her lifetime. Finally, we read about Selena’s life and career, as well as her tragic death and her continuing marketability. |
| famous texans in history: Black Texans Alwyn Barr, 1996 discusses each period of African-American history in terms of politics, violence, and legal status; labor and economic status; education; and social life. Black Texans includes the history of the buffalo soldiers and the cowboys on Texas cattle drives, along with the achievements of notable African-American individuals in Texas history, from Estevan the explorer through legislator Norris Wright Cuney and boxer Jack Johnson to state senator Barbara Jordan. Barr carries. |
| famous texans in history: Big Wonderful Thing Stephen Harrigan, 2019-10-01 The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and of the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. “I couldn’t believe Texas was real,” the painter Georgia O’Keeffe remembered of her first encounter with the Lone Star State. It was, for her, “the same big wonderful thing that oceans and the highest mountains are.” Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of ancient as well as modern people along the path of Texas’s evolution. Blending action and atmosphere with impeccable research, New York Times best-selling author Stephen Harrigan brings to life with novelistic immediacy the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists—all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea. Written in fast-paced prose, rich with personal observation and a passionate sense of place, Big Wonderful Thing calls to mind the literary spirit of Robert Hughes writing about Australia or Shelby Foote about the Civil War. Like those volumes it is a big book about a big subject, a book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas. |
| famous texans in history: Texas Cemeteries Bill Harvey, 2010-01-01 Winner, Journalistic Achievement Award, Texas Historical Foundation, 2004 From the simplest slab of weathered stone to the most imposing mausoleum, every marker in a Texas cemetery bears witness to a life that—in ways small or large—helped shape the history and culture of the state. Telling the stories of some of these significant lives is the purpose of this book. Within its pages, you'll meet not only the heroes of the Texas Revolution, for example, but also one of the great African American cowboys of the traildriving era (Bose Ikard) and the first woman in Texas elected to statewide office (Annie Webb Blanton). Visiting cemeteries from every era and all regions of the state, Bill Harvey recounts the histories of famous, infamous, and just plain interesting Texans who lie at rest in Texas cemeteries. The book is organized alphabetically by city for easy reference. For each city, Harvey lists one or more cemeteries, giving their location and history, if significant. At the heart of the book are his profiles of the noteworthy people buried in each cemetery. They include not only famous but also lesser-known and even unknown Texans who made important contributions to the state in the arts, sports, business, military service, politics—truly every area of communal life. For those who want to visit these resting places, Harvey also includes tips on finding cemeteries, locating gravesites, and taking good photographs. Spend time with him in the graveyards of Texas, and you'll soon appreciate what fascinating stories the silent stones can tell. |
| famous texans in history: Hard Scrabble John Graves, 2016-02-09 The two-time National Book Award finalist and author of Goodbye to a River ruminates over what an “unmagnificent” Texas homestead has meant to him. “A kind of homemade book—imperfect like a handmade thing, a prize. It’s a galloping, spontaneous book, on occasion within whooping distance of that greatest and sweetest of country books, Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Notebook.” —Edward Hoagland, The New York Times Book Review “His subjects are trees and brush, hired help, fences, soil, armadillos and other wildlife, flood and drought, local history, sheep and goats . . . and they come to us reshaped and reenlivened by his agreeably individual (and sometimes cranky) notions.” —The New Yorker “If Goodbye to a River was in some sense Graves’s Odyssey, this book is his [version of Hesiod’s] Works and Days. It is partly a book about work, partly a book about nature, but mostly a book about belonging. In the end John Graves has learned to belong to his patch of land so thoroughly that at moments he can sense in himself a unity with medieval peasants and Sumerian farmers, working with their fields by the Tigris.” —Larry McMurtry, The Washington Post Book World “Hard Scrabble is hard pastoral of the kind we have learned to recognize in Wordsworth, Frost, Hemingway, and Faulkner. It celebrates life in accommodation with a piece of the ‘given’ creation, a recalcitrant four hundred or so acres of Texas cedar brake, old field, and creek bottom, which will require of any genuine resident all the character he can muster.” —Southwest Review |
| famous texans in history: Forget the Alamo Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, Jason Stanford, 2022-06-07 A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . . — The New York Times Book Review Engrossing. —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark. |
| famous texans in history: Famous Trees of Texas Gretchen Riley, Peter D Smith, 2015-01-21 Famous Trees of Texas was first published in 1970 by the Texas Forest Service (now Texas A&M Forest Service), an organization created in 1915 and charged with protecting and sustaining the forests, trees, and other related natural resources of Texas. For the 100-year anniversary of TFS, the agency presents a new edition of this classic book, telling the stories of 101 trees throughout the state. Some are old friends, featured in the first edition and still alive (27 of the original 81 trees described in the first edition have died); some are newly designated, discovered as people began to recognize their age and value. All of them remain “living links” to the state’s storied past. |
| famous texans in history: Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend Ron J. Jackson, Lee Spencer White, 2015-03-02 Among the fifty or so Texan survivors of the siege of the Alamo was Joe, the personal slave of Lt. Col. William Barret Travis. First interrogated by Santa Anna, Joe was allowed to depart (along with Susana Dickinson) and eventually made his way to the seat of the revolutionary government at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Joe was then returned to the Travis estate in Columbia, Texas, near the coast. He escaped in 1837 and was never captured. Ron J. Jackson and Lee White have meticulously researched plantation ledgers, journals, memoirs, slave narratives, ship logs, newspapers, personal letters, and court documents to fill in the gaps of Joe's story. Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend provides not only a recovered biography of an individual lost to history, but also offers a fresh vantage point from which to view the events of the Texas Revolution-- |
| famous texans in history: The Texanist David Courtney, Jack Unruh, 2017-04-25 A collection of Courtney's columns from the Texas Monthly, curing the curious, exorcizing bedevilment, and orienting the disoriented, advising on such things as: Is it wrong to wear your football team's jersey to church? When out at a dancehall, do you need to stick with the one that brung ya? Is it real Tex-Mex if it's served with a side of black beans? Can one have too many Texas-themed tattoos?--Amazon.com. |
| famous texans in history: The Handbook of Texas Walter Prescott Webb, Eldon Stephen Branda, 1952 Vol. 3: A supplement, edited by Eldon Stephen Branda. Includes bibliographical references. |
| famous texans in history: A Single Star and Bloody Knuckles Bill Minutaglio, 2021-05-04 Finalist, 2021 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award For John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, there was one simple rule in politics: “You’ve got to bloody your knuckles.” It’s a maxim that applies in so many ways to the state of Texas, where the struggle for power has often unfolded through underhanded politicking, backroom dealings, and, quite literally, bloodshed. The contentious history of Texas politics has been shaped by dangerous and often violent events, and been formed not just in the halls of power but by marginalized voices omitted from the official narratives. A Single Star and Bloody Knuckles traces the state’s conflicted and dramatic evolution over the past 150 years through its pivotal political players, including oft-neglected women and people of color. Beginning in 1870 with the birth of Texas’s modern political framework, Bill Minutaglio chronicles Texas political life against the backdrop of industry, the economy, and race relations, recasting the narrative of influential Texans. With journalistic verve and candor, Minutaglio delivers a contemporary history of the determined men and women who fought for their particular visions of Texas and helped define the state as a potent force in national affairs. |
| famous texans in history: Cult of Glory Doug J. Swanson, 2021-06-08 “Swanson has done a crucial public service by exposing the barbarous side of the Rangers.” —The New York Times Book Review A twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression, and corruption The Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers. Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight. Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made. |
| famous texans in history: The Raven Marquis James, 1988-08 A portrait of Houston's diverse careers that sheds light upon his heroism, romanticism, and contributions to the Republic of Texas |
| famous texans in history: A History of Texas and Texans Francis White Johnson, 1914 |
| famous texans in history: A History of Texas and Texans Frank White Johnson, 1916 |
| famous texans in history: Famous Affinities of History Lyndon Orr, 1914 |
| famous texans in history: Lone Star T. R. Fehrenbach, 2014-04-01 The definitive account of the incomparable Lone Star state by the author of Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico. T. R. Fehrenbach is a native Texan, military historian and the author of several important books about the region, but none as significant as this work, arguably the best single volume about Texas ever published. His account of America's most turbulent state offers a view that only an insider could capture. From the native tribes who lived there to the Spanish and French soldiers who wrested the territory for themselves, then to the dramatic ascension of the republic of Texas and the saga of the Civil War years. Fehrenbach describes the changes that disturbed the state as it forged its unique character. Most compelling is the one quality that would remain forever unchanged through centuries of upheaval: the courage of the men and women who struggled to realize their dreams in The Lone Star State. |
| famous texans in history: Remember Goliad! Craig H. Roell, 2014-01-30 When Sam Houston's revolutionary soldiers won the Battle of San Jacinto and secured independence for Texas, their battle cry was Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Everyone knows about the Alamo, but far fewer know about the stirring events at Goliad. Craig Roell's lively new study of Goliad brings to life this most important Texas community. Though its population has never exceeded two thousand, Goliad has been an important site of Texas history since Spanish colonial days. It is the largest town in the county of the same name, which was one of the original counties of Texas created in 1836 and was named for the vast territory that was governed as the municipality of Goliad under the Republic of Mexico. Goliad offers one of the most complete examples of early Texas courthouse squares, and has been listed as a historic preservation district on the National Register. But the sites that forever etched this sleepy Texas town into historical consciousness are those made infamous by two of the most controversial episodes of the entire Texas Revolution—the Fannin Battleground at nearby Coleto Creek, and Nuestra Señora de Loreto (popularly called Presidio La Bahía), site of the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. This book tells the sad tale of James Fannin and his men who fought the Mexican forces, surrendered with the understanding that they would be treated as prisoners of war, and then under orders from Santa Anna were massacred. Like the men who died for Texas independence at the Alamo, the nearly 350 men who died at Goliad became a rallying cry. Both tragic stories became part of the air Texans breathe, but the same process that elevated Crockett, Bowie, Travis, and their Alamo comrades to heroic proportions has clouded Fannin in mystery and shadow. In Remember Goliad!, Craig Roell tells the history of the region and the famous battle there with clarity and precision. This exciting story is handsomely illustrated in a popular edition that will be of interest to scholars, students, and teachers. |
| famous texans in history: The Texas Navy United States. Naval History Division, 1968 |
| famous texans in history: Texans in Revolt Alwyn Barr, 2010-07-05 The first comprehensive history and analysis of the Siege of Béxar in early nineteenth-century Texas. While the battles of 1836—the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto—are well-known moments in the Texas Revolution, the battle for Béxar in the fall of 1835 is often overlooked. Yet this lengthy siege, which culminated in a Texan victory in December 1835, set the stage for those famous events and for the later revolutionary careers of Sam Houston, James Bowie, and James W. Fannin. Drawing on extensive research and on-site study around San Antonio, Alwyn Barr completely maps the ebbs and flows of the Béxar campaign for the first time. He studies the composition of the two armies and finds that they were well matched in numbers and fighting experience—revising a common belief that the Texans defeated a force four times larger. He analyzes the tactics of various officers, revealing how ambition and revolutionary politics sometimes influenced the Texas army as much as military strategy. And he sheds new light on the roles of the Texan and Mexican commanders, Stephen F. Austin and Martín Perfecto de Cos. As this excellent military history makes clear, to the famous rallying cry “Remember the Alamo!” “Remember Goliad!” should be added: “And don't forget San Antonio!” “Will most likely remain for some time the standard work on this battle. Outstanding scholarship and research are reflected in the book, including on-site study of the locale. . . . This is an important military history, and as such, it should be in all Texana collections.” —Review of Texas Books “This is a significant contribution to the study of Texas history. Texans in Revolt will be the standard work on this campaign.” —Ralph A. Wooster, Associate Vice President and Regents Professor, Lamar University |
| famous texans in history: Famous Texans John Allison Rickard, 2012-10-01 Action Packed Stories For Boys And Girls Based Upon Texas History. |
| famous texans in history: The Great Plains Walter Prescott Webb, 1959-01-01 A study of the changes initiated into the systems and culture of the plain dwellers |
| famous texans in history: Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson the Famous Texan William Martin Walton, 1884 |
| famous texans in history: Tejano Patriot Art Martínez de Vara, 2020-05-01 Art Martínez de Vara’s Tejano Patriot: The Revolutionary Life of José Francisco Ruiz, 1783–1840 is the first full-length biography of this important figure in Texas history. Best known as one of two Texas-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Ruiz’s significance extends far beyond that single event. Born in San Antonio de Béxar into an upwardly mobile family, during the war for Mexican independence Ruiz underwent a dramatic transformation from a conservative royalist to one of the staunchest liberals of his era. Steeped in the Spanish American liberal tradition, his revolutionary activity included participating in three uprisings, suppressing two others, and enduring extreme personal sacrifice for the liberal republican cause. He was widely respected as an intermediary between Tejanos and American Indians, especially the Comanches. As a diplomat, he negotiated nearly a dozen peace treaties for Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas, and he traveled to the Imperial Court of Mexico as an agent of the Comanches to secure peace on the northern frontier. When Anglo settlers came by the thousands to Texas after 1820, he continued to be a cultural intermediary, forging a friendship with Stephen F. Austin, but he always put the interests of Béxar and his fellow Tejanos first. Ruiz had a notable career as a military leader, diplomat, revolutionary, educator, attorney, arms dealer, author, ethnographer, politician, Indian agent, Texas ranger, city attorney, and Texas senator. He was a central figure in the saga that shaped Texas from a remote borderland on New Spain’s northern frontier to an independent republic. |
| famous texans in history: Why Stop? Betty Dooley Awbrey, 2013 This guide to more than 2,500 Texas roadside markers features historical events; famous and infamous Texans; origins of town, churches, and organizations; battles, skirmishes, and gunfights; and settlers, pioneers, Indians, and outlaws. This Sixth edition includes more than 100 new historical roadside markers with the actual inscriptions. With this book, travelers relive the tragedies and triumphs of Lone Star history. |
| famous texans in history: Springs of Texas Gunnar M. Brune, 2002 This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna. |
| famous texans in history: A Busy Week in Texas, 27 Edward Terrel Cotham, 2021 In the spring of 1880, Ulysses S. Grant, former general-in-chief and two-term president of the United States, stepped ashore at Galveston and began what turned out to be a seven-day whirlwind visit to Texas. Because of his past accomplishments and the chance that he might be nominated to serve an unprecedented third presidential term, Grant was the most famous and eagerly awaited celebrity ever to visit the Lone Star State. The general visited Galveston, San Antonio, and Houston, where he was greeted by thousands of cheering Texans. Grant's visit to Texas was the subject of extensive coverage in newspapers across the nation, providing a unique time capsule for modern readers. The detailed reports of parades, banquets, receptions, and social activities not only document what Grant did at these functions, but also provide a record of what the thousands who came to see him said and did. The elaborate banquet menus and the word-by-word transcriptions of after-dinner toasts and speeches provide a fascinating window into social activities that are no longer an active part of modern life. This book tells the story of Grant's busy week in Texas, allowing the reader to see Texas the way Grant experienced it. The book also includes a tour guide that will allow readers to literally retrace the general's footsteps to the sites of many historic buildings that still exist today. |
| famous texans in history: A Texan's Story Walter Prescott Webb, 2020-09-24 Walter Prescott Webb (1888–1963), a towering figure in Texas and western history and letters, published an abundance of books—but for decades the autobiography he’d written late in life sat largely undisturbed among his papers. Webb’s remarkable story appears here in print for the first time, edited and annotated by Michael Collins, an authority on Texas history. This firsthand account offers readers a window on the life, the work, and the world of one of the most interesting thinkers in the history, and historiography, of Texas. Webb’s narrative carries us from the drought-scarred rim of West Texas known as the Cross Timbers, to the hardscrabble farm life that formed him, to the bright lights of Austin and the University of Texas, where he truly came of age. Fascinating for the picture it summons of the Texas of his youth and the intellectual landscape of his career, Webb’s autobiography also offers intriguing insights into the way his epic work, The Great Plains, evolved. He also describes the struggle behind his groundbreaking history of that storied frontier fighting force the Texas Rangers. Along the way, Webb reflects on the nature of historical research, the role that Texas and the West have played in American history, the importance of education, and the place of universities in our national culture. More than a rare encounter with a true American character’s life and thought, A Texan’s Story is also a uniquely enlightening look into the understanding, writing, and teaching of western American history in its formative years. |
| famous texans in history: George T. Ruby Carl H. Moneyhon, 2020 This is the biography of George T. Ruby, an African American statesman who was active in Texas politics and fought for equal rights for black freedmen in Reconstruction Texas-- |
| famous texans in history: Branding Texas Leigh Clemons, 2013-05-15 Ask anyone to name an archetypal Texan, and you're likely to get a larger-than-life character from film or television (say John Wayne's Davy Crockett or J. R. Ewing of TV's Dallas) or a politician with that certain swagger (think LBJ or George W. Bush). That all of these figures are white and male and bursting with self-confidence is no accident, asserts Leigh Clemons. In this thoughtful study of what makes a Texan, she reveals how Texan identity grew out of the history—and, even more, the myth—of the heroic deeds performed by Anglo men during the Texas Revolution and the years of the Republic and how this identity is constructed and maintained by theatre and other representational practices. Clemons looks at a wide range of venues in which Texanness is performed, including historic sites such as the Alamo, the battlefield at Goliad, and the San Jacinto Monument; museums such as the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum; seasonal outdoor dramas such as Texas! at Palo Duro Canyon; films such as John Wayne's The Alamo and the IMAX's Alamo: The Price of Freedom; plays and TV shows such as the Tuna trilogy, Dallas, and King of the Hill; and the Cavalcade of Texas performance at the 1936 Texas Centennial. She persuasively demonstrates that these performances have created a Texan identity that has become a brand, a commodity that can be sold to the public and even manipulated for political purposes. |
| famous texans in history: Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas Donald E. Chipman, Harriett Denise Joseph, 2010-01-01 Winner, Presidio La Bahia Award, Sons of the Republic of Texas, 2000 Texas Old Missions and Forts Restoration Association Book Award, the Texas Old Missions and Fort Restoration Association and the Texas Catholic Historical Society, 2001 The Spanish colonial era in Texas (1528-1821) continues to emerge from the shadowy past with every new archaeological and historical discovery. In this book, years of archival sleuthing by Donald E. Chipman and Harriett Denise Joseph now reveal the real human beings behind the legendary figures who discovered, explored, and settled Spanish Texas. By combining dramatic, real-life incidents, biographical sketches, and historical background, the authors bring to life these famous (and sometimes infamous) men of Spanish Texas: Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca Alonso de León Francisco Hidalgo Louis Juchereau de St. Denis Antonio Margil The Marqués de Aguayo Pedro de Rivera Felipe de Rábago José de Escandón Athanase de Mézières The Marqués de Rubí Antonio Gil Ibarvo Domingo Cabello José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara Joaquín de Arredondo The authors also devote a chapter to the women of Spanish Texas, drawing on scarce historical clues to tell the stories of both well-known and previously unknown Tejana, Indian, and African women. |
| famous texans in history: God Save Texas Lawrence Wright, 2018-04-17 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all. |
| famous texans in history: The Gates of the Alamo Stephen Harrigan, 2017-01-24 A New York Times bestselling novel, modern historical classic, and winner of the TCU Texas Book Award, The Spur Award and the Wrangler Award for Outstanding Western Novel It’s 1836, and the Mexican province of Texas is in revolt. As General Santa Anna’s forces move closer to the small fort that will soon be legend, three people’s fates will become intrinsically tied to the coming battle: Edmund McGowan, a proud and gifted naturalist; the widowed innkeeper Mary Mott; and her sixteen-year-old son, Terrell, whose first shattering experience with love has led him into the line of fire. Filled with dramatic scenes, and abounding in fictional and historical personalities—among them James Bowie, David Crockett, William Travis, and Stephen Austin—The Gates of the Alamo is a faithful and compelling look at a riveting chapter in American history. |
| famous texans in history: All God's Children Aaron Gwyn, 2020-10-20 This sweeping novel set in the province of Texas is “a powerful depiction of the rough realities of frontier life [and] the vicious influence of racism” (The New York Times). Finalist for the Reading the West Book Award for Fiction In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, sets out to join the American army in the province of Texas, hoping that here he may live—and love—as he pleases. That same year, Cecelia, a young slave in Virginia, runs away for the first time. Soon infamous for her escape attempts, Cecelia continues to drift through the reality of slavery—until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans. In spite of her mistrust, Cecelia senses an opportunity for freedom, and travels with Sam to Texas, where he has a homestead. In this new territory, where the law is an instrument for the cruel and the wealthy, they begin an unlikely life together, unaware that their fates are intertwined with those of Sam’s former army mates, including Duncan Lammons, a friend—and others who harbor dangerous dreams of their own. This “swift and skillful Western” takes its place among the great stories that recount the country’s fight for freedom—one that makes us want to keep on with the struggle (The Wall Street Journal). “Gwyn creates an overwhelmingly visceral and emotionally rich narrative amid Texas’s complex path to statehood . . . This is a masterpiece of western fiction in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “It’s always a pleasure to discover another superb writer who had not been on my radar . . . many scenes pulse with tension, tenderness or both.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune |
| famous texans in history: Texas Tough Robert Perkinson, 2010-03-11 A vivid history of America's biggest, baddest prison system and how it came to lead the nation's punitive revolution In the prison business, all roads lead to Texas. The most locked-down state in the nation has led the way in criminal justice severity, from assembly-line executions to isolation supermaxes, from prison privatization to sentencing juveniles as adults. Texas Tough, a sweeping history of American imprisonment from the days of slavery to the present, shows how a plantation-based penal system once dismissed as barbaric became the national template. Drawing on convict accounts, official records, and interviews with prisoners, guards, and lawmakers, historian Robert Perkinson reveals the Southern roots of our present-day prison colossus. While conventional histories emphasize the North's rehabilitative approach, he shows how the retributive and profit-driven regime of the South ultimately triumphed. Most provocatively, he argues that just as convict leasing and segregation emerged in response to Reconstruction, so today's mass incarceration, with its vast racial disparities, must be seen as a backlash against civil rights. Illuminating for the first time the origins of America's prison juggernaut, Texas Tough points toward a more just and humane future. |
| famous texans in history: Courageous People from Washington Who Changed the World Heidi Poelman, 2019 From the creative vision of Merce Cunningham to the brave voice of Bernie Whitebear, Courageous People from Washington Who Changed the World is a young child's first introduction to the brave people from their home state who made a difference. Simple text and adorable illustrations tell the contributions of more than a dozen courageous Washingtonians: Chief Seattle, George Washington, Catherine Montgomery, Bertha Knight Landes, Dixie Lee Ray, Merce Cunningham, Bernie Whitebear, Gary Locke, Bill & Melinda Gates, and Pearl Jam (of course). A quote from each hero is included on each spread along with colorful, delightful artwork. |
| famous texans in history: The Governor and the Colonel Don Carleton, 2020-12-11 William P. “Will” Hobby Sr. and Oveta Culp Hobby were one of the most influential couples in Texas history. Both were major public figures, with Will serving as governor of Texas and Oveta as the first commander of the Women’s Army Corps and later as the second woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. Together, they built a pioneering media empire centered on the Houston Post and their broadcast properties, and they played a significant role in the transformation of Houston into the fourth largest city in the United States. Don Carleton’s dual biography details their personal and professional relationship—defined by a shared dedication to public service—and the important roles they each played in local, state, and national events throughout the twentieth century. This deeply researched book not only details this historically significant partnership, but also explores the close relationships between the Hobbys and key figures in twentieth-century history, from Texas legends such as LBJ, Sam Rayburn, and Jesse Jones, to national icons, including the Roosevelts, President Eisenhower, and the Rockefellers. Carleton's chronicle reveals the undeniable impact of the Hobbys on journalistic and political history in the United States. |
| famous texans in history: Lone Star Nation H. W. Brands, 2005-02-08 The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War emythologizes Texas’s journey to statehood and restores the genuinely heroic spirit to a pivotal chapter in American history. • “A balanced, unromanticized account [of] America’s great epic.” —The New York Times Book Review From Stephen Austin, Texas’s reluctant founder, to the alcoholic Sam Houston, who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory, to President Andrew Jackson, whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background, here is the story of Texas and the outsize figures who shaped its turbulent history. Beginning with its early colonization in the 1820s and taking in the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad, its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches, and its day of liberation as an upstart republic, Brands’ lively history draws on contemporary accounts, diaries, and letters to animate a diverse cast of characters whose adventures, exploits, and ambitions live on in the very fabric of our nation. |
| famous texans in history: Boys' Book of Border Battles Edwin L. Sabin, 2013-02-08 A classic of historical war literature, Boys' book of border battles puts you at the scene of some of the most important and storied battles in the history of North America. From George Washington's charges against the French in the mid-1700s to the lengthy and drawn-out wars in the western territories between the ever-advancing white frontier settlers and Native American tribes, Sabin's book is an important record of American history. This Skyhorse reprint of the 1920 text faithfully reproduces Boys' book of border battles in its original state, complete with high-quality replicas of the illustration plates that accompany the book. |
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