Calico Chronicle is the source book for teachers, students, historians, customers, re-enactors, of history buffs searching for custom history of the Texas frontier and the American West - an area which has had scarce priceless pieces of the past found in excerpts from letters, diaries, oral histories, historic journals, and even police blotters, to compile and account that reveals much about the lifestyles of frontier women.
Using a wide array of evidence drawn from poetry, fiction, diaries, letters, and examples of hairwork, Love Entwined traces the widespread popularity of the craft from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century.
This is the best of the Society's papers over the past three years—from lynchings to el pato boat building; from sunbonnets to hammered dulcimers; from jokes about droughts and lawyers to tales of folk, gospel and blues music; from gravemarkers to bottle trees, and more.
Timeless and beautiful shawls from Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in an array of shapes with openwork, textured stitches, and lace edgings. Everything you need to know to design and knit your own shawls is provided, including detailed instructions for eight shawls.
Of the spinning wheel and the clatter of the loom provided regular accompaniment to the lives of many Texas women immigrants and their families. Producing much-needed garments and cloth also provided an escape from the worries and isolation of frontier life. One early chronicler, Mary Crownover Rabb, kept her spinning wheel whistling all day and most of the night because the spinning kept her "from hearing the Indians walking around hunting mischief." Through the stories.
There are certain things every Texan should know how to do and say, whether your Lone Star roots reach all the way back to the 1836 Republic or you were just transplanted here yesterday. Some of these may be second nature to you, but others . . . well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a few handy hints if, say, branding the herd or hosting a tamalada aren’t your usual pastimes. That’s where How to Be a Texan can help. In a friendly, lighthearted style, Andrea Valdez offers illustrated, easy-to-follow steps for dozens of authentic Texas activities and sayings. In no time, you’ll be talking like a Texan and dressing the part; hunting, fishing, and ranching; cooking your favorite Texas dishes; and dancing cumbia and two-step. You’ll learn how to take a proper bluebonnet photo and build a Día de los Muertos altar, and you’ll have a bucket list of all the places Texans should visit in their lifetime. Not only will you know how to do all these things, you’ll finish the book with a whole new appreciation for what it means to be a Texan and even more pride in saying “I’m from Texas” anywhere you wander in the world.
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.
Focused on an early twentieth-century home in Texarkana, Arkansas, Doris Douglas Davis’s The Ahern Home of Texarkana offers not only a discussion of the architecture of a Classical Revival dwelling but also provides a closely observed account of the material culture and social structures of a particular time and place in the American South. Built in 1905–1906 by Patrick Ahern, who immigrated to the United States from Dungarvan, Ireland, in 1881, the house at 403 Laurel Street was home to Ahern, his wife Mary, their six children, and a variety of descendants for over a century before its acquisition by the Texarkana Museums System in 2011. Today, the house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, serves as a writing retreat, music center, and venue for historical presentations and educational activities. Based on archival materials, interviews with members of the family and those who knew them, and other research, Davis’s examination of the home and its inhabitants also includes a discussion of the complex relationship between persons of privilege such as the Aherns and the domestic servants, predominantly African American, whose often-arduous work made possible the smooth functioning of the household within its social context in the Jim Crow South. Describing the “fraught” relationships in the South between Black domestic servants and their white employers, Davis presents evidence of “the inevitable despair wrought by inequality and the tremendous capacity of the human heart to love.” This detailed tour of the home, its construction and furnishings, and the socio-historical context of its day-to-day activities provides readers a window of understanding and appreciation that will inform students and scholars of material culture as well as those interested in historical preservation.
Berlandier: A French Naturalist on the Texas Frontier tells the history of Jean Louis Berlandier (1805-1851), remembered as one of the most enlightened naturalists of the American Southwest. He was one of the first to investigate the natural history of the Gulf Coastal Plain, the Rio Grande Valley, the Balcones Escarpment and the Edwards Plateau. Students of Texas biology have learned about Berlandier through such species as the Texas Green-Eyed Sunflower, Texas Windflower, Texas Tortoise, and the Rio Grande Leopard Frog. Between 1826 and 1828, Berlandier collected these species for the Academy of Natural Sciences, Geneva, and studied the Indians of Texas for the Mexican Ministry of the Interior, resulting in his scholarly treatise, The Indians of Texas, in 1830. Berlandier's plant collections are in twenty-seven world herbaria, and many hundreds of his insects, mollusks, reptiles, birds, and mammals are in prestigious institutions such as the Smithsonian and the United States National Museum. Most of the Indian material collected by Berlandier is in the Gilchrest Museum, and the wealth of his writing resides in the libraries of Yale, Harvard, Texas A&M, and the University of Texas. His diary, the most important of his writings, consists of more than 1,500 pages, currently housed in the Library of Congress; it serves as the basis of this history of his life and work.
