The Confederates of Chappell Hill, Texas

The Confederates of Chappell Hill, Texas

Author: Stephen Chicoine

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2011-12-15

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 0786464186

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Texas was the South's frontier in the antebellum period. The vast new state represented the hope and future of many Southern cotton planters. As a result, Texas changed tremendously during the 1850s as increasing numbers of Southern planters moved westward to settle. Planters brought with them large numbers of slaves to plant, cultivate and pick the valuable cash crop; by 1860, slaves made up 30 percent of the total Texas population. No state in the South grew nearly as fast as Texas during this decade, and as the booming economy for cotton led the economic development, the state became increasingly embroiled in the national debate about whether slavery should exist within a democratic republic dedicated to the freedom and independence of man. This work is centered on the role played by the town of Chappell Hill during this portion of Texas history. It offers details about the area's pre-war prosperity as a center of wealth, influence and aristocracy and describes the angry fervor of the period leading up to the war. Men of this small town played a role in many of the major campaigns and battles of the war, and their motivations for enlisting and their tales of duty are included here. Through excerpts from their correspondence and journals, the book emphasizes personal experiences of the soldiers. Post-war adventures are also offered as the author explores Texas resistance to Federal occupation, the town's yellow fever epidemic and a period of reconciliation as aging veterans gather at Blue-Gray reunions to reunite the nation.


Sacred Memories

Sacred Memories

Author: Kelly McMichael

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2013-01-30

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 0876112998

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

War memorials are symbols of a community’s sense of itself, the values it holds dear, and its collective memory. They inform us more, perhaps, about the period in which the memorials were erected than the period of the war itself. Kelly McMichael, in her book, Sacred Memories: The Civil War Monument Movement in Texas, takes the reader on a tour of Civil War monuments throughout the state and in doing so tells the story of each monument and its creation. McMichael explores Texans’ motivations for erecting Civil War memorials, which she views as attempts during a period of turmoil and uncertainty—“severe depression, social unrest, the rise of Populism, mass immigration, urbanization, industrialization, imperialism, lynching, and Jim Crow laws”—to preserve the memory of the Confederate dead, to instill in future generations the values of patriotism, duty, and courage; to create a shared memory and identity “based on a largely invented story”; and to “anchor a community against social and political doubt.” Her focus is the human story of each monument, the characters involved in its creation, and the sacred memories held dear to them.


Women, Culture, and Community

Women, Culture, and Community

Author: Elizabeth Hayes Turner

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997-12-11

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0198028059

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did middle- and upper-class southern women-black and white-advance from the private worlds of home and family into public life, eventually transforming the cultural and political landscape of their community? Using Galveston as a case study, Elizabeth Hayes Turner asks who where the women who became activists and eventually led to progressive reforms and the women sufferage movement. Turner discovers that a majority of them came from particular congregations, but class status had as much to do with reofrm as did religious motivation. The Hurricane of 1900, disfranchisement of black voters, and the creation of city commission government gave white women the leverage they needed to fight for a women's agenda for the city. Meanwhile, African American women, who were excluded from open civic association with whites, created their own organizations, implemented their own goals, and turned their energies to resisting and alleviating the numbing effects of racism. Separately white and black women created their own activist communities. Together, however, they changed the face of this New South city. Based on an exhaustive database of membership in community organizations compiled by the author from local archives, Women, Culture, and Community will appeal to students of race relations in the post-Reconstruction South, women's history, and religious history.


Lone Star Pasts

Lone Star Pasts

Author: Gregg Cantrell

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Texas' pasts are examined in this groundbreaking volume, featuring chapters by a wide range of scholars.