Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine


Book Description

Sixteen women tell their stories, providing a personal history of the state of Texas.




Frontier Blood


Book Description

A must read for anyone with an interest in the far Southwest or Native American history.




Women in Texas History


Book Description

Winner, 2019 Liz Carpenter Award, sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) In recent decades, a small but growing number of historians have dedicated their tireless attention to analyzing the role of women in Texas history. Each contribution—and there have been many—represents a brick in the wall of new Texas history. From early Native societies to astronauts, Women in Texas History assembles those bricks into a carefully crafted structure as the first book to cover the full scope of Texas women’s history. By emphasizing the differences between race and ethnicity, Angela Boswell uses three broad themes to tie together the narrative of women in Texas history. First, the physical and geographic challenges of Texas as a place significantly affected women’s lives, from the struggles of isolated frontier farming to the opportunities and problems of increased urbanization. Second, the changing landscape of legal and political power continued to shape women’s lives and opportunities, from the ballot box to the courthouse and beyond. Finally, Boswell demonstrates the powerful influence of social and cultural forces on the identity, agency, and everyday life of women in Texas. In challenging male-dominated legal and political systems, Texan women shaped (and were shaped by) class, religion, community organizations, literary and artistic endeavors, and more. Women in Texas History is the first book to narrate the entire span of Texas women’s history and marks a major achievement in telling the full story of the Lone Star State. Historians and general readers alike will find this book an informative and enjoyable read for anyone interested in the history of Texas or the history of women.




Inside Texas


Book Description

“Inside Texas: Culture, Identity and Houses, 1878–1920” is a 464 page book with 296 photos that tests and rejects the notion that Texas homes, like all things Texan, were unique and different. Over the 40 year time span covered by the book, decorating ideas nationally and in Texas went from the era of Victorianism with “all that stuff” to the spare, clean lines of the arts and crafts movement. By 1920, like Americans across the country, many Texans, especially the wealthier, were taking their decorating ideas from the new professionals – architects and designers – and their homes reflected less their own identity than the taste and eye of the decorator. In seven years of research, Brandimarte traveled the state, collecting photographs of interiors of Texas homes – rare in comparison to exterior views. The images reprinted here are arranged neither in chronological order nor according to decorating style but by identities –occupation, family, ethnicity, social group, region, culture and refinement, class and style. Brief biographical information about the homeowners is incorporated into the text. “Inside Texas” is about people and houses. It is social history, a significant contribution to scholarship, an invaluable resource for preservationist, docents, architects and designers as well as a book to be treasured by anyone who loves old houses.




The Long, Hot Texas Summer


Book Description

Heating Up in Texas! When Justin McCabe hires a master carpenter to help build his ranch for troubled teens, tall, gorgeous blonde Amanda Johnson isn't quite what he'd imagined. But not only can she do the job, she has a thing or two to teach him about judging by appearances. And, more important, she has a knack for reaching the kind of kid Justin wants to help. Amanda hadn't counted on her new boss—all strapping six foot five of him—being so utterly irresistible. Working side by side under the scorching Texas sun, the two of them make a great team—in every way possible. The heat of summer is no match for the sizzle they generate whenever they're together. But when a crisis forces Amanda to face her past, she'll need to make a heart-wrenching decision about her future…whether Justin is in it or not.




Texas Cowboys


Book Description

A collection of twenty-three Depression-era interviews in which Texas cowhands describe their everyday responsibilities and experiences.




Forgotten Texas Leader


Book Description

He fought at the Battle of the Neches, wrote the official report of the Council House Fight, helped spur Galveston's growth into a city, and at the time of his death was next in line to command the Confederate regiment that became known as Hood's Brigade."--BOOK JACKET.




Death on the Lonely Llano Estacado


Book Description

In the winter of 1901, James W. Jarrott led a band of twenty-five homesteader families toward the Llano Estacado in far West Texas, newly opened for settlement by a populist Texas legislature. But frontier cattlemen who had been pasturing their herds on the unfenced prairie land were enraged by the encroachment of these “nesters.” In August 1902 a famous hired assassin, Jim Miller, ambushed and murdered J. W. Jarrott. Who hired Miller? This crime has never been solved, until now. Award-winning author Bill Neal investigates this cold case and successfully pieces together all the threads of circumstantial evidence to fit the noose snugly around the neck of Jim Miller’s employer. What emerges from these pages is the strength of intriguing characters in an engrossing narrative: Jim Jarrott, the diminutive advocate who fearlessly champions the cause of the little guy. The ruthless and slippery assassin, Deacon Jim Miller. And finally Jarrott’s young widow Mollie, who perseveres and prospers against great odds and tells the settlers to “Stay put!”




Empire of the Summer Moon


Book Description

*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award* *A New York Times Notable Book* *Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award* This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation…will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review). Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Hailed by critics, S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.




Experiences of Men and Women in Texas


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,5 (A), Dresden Technical University (Institute for American Studies), course: Seminar: Community, Race, & Gender on the 19th-Century American Frontier, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper carries the title "Experiences of men and women in Texas" and is closely related to the subject of the Nineteenth Century American Frontier, the Voices of Frontier Women in specific. The westward expansion connected to the different frontiers in North America brought along new opportunities, of which making a fortune and leading a better life can be mentioned. According to Frederick Jackson Turner′s "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", the frontier life many people sought furnished them with traits that dominate the American character today: "That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom - these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier." In the seminar this paper refers to, several frontiers were mentioned and discussed. Among them the Hispanic and the Indian Frontiers as well as the Ranching and Cattle Frontier, all of which seem to play a role in Jo Ella Powell Exley′s Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine. This book forms the basis of the findings following this foreword. In it, sixteen Frontier Women describe parts of their lives, whether it be conflicts with Indians and Yankee soldiers or struggles against natural forces. It covers a time frame from about 1821 until about 1905, thus, of course, including the year 1890 when the Bureau of the C