ustxtxb_obs_1986_12_19_50_00018-00000_000.pdf

tale deals with family relationships in this instance a mother’s need to influence the son to her way of thinking. The conflict for the boy comes when he is asked by his mother, who intends to leave her husband, to choose between her vision of life and his father’s. As a witness to his mother’s loss of beauty as a rancher’s wife and the father’s disregard for her feminine desires, the boy is moved deeply but unable to abandon either one. The situation is both realistic and artfully presented. The good news all around is that both of these collections contain stimulating stories which are readily accessible not only for the sesquicentennial but for the years to come, assuming a William Harrison story in South by Southwest is unrealistic in painting a future Texas in which books are taboo. THE IMAGE OF A. Texan: a cowboy riding the range, a Dallas businessman negotiating oil and gas rights, or a Houston programmer huddled in front of his CRT screen as another missile soars toward the sky. Texas is the state of the gunslinging, wheeling and dealing good ol’ boys, who don’t take kindly to governmental interference in their affairs and who can’t be bothered with bleeding-heart liberals and their social causes. But a different, more intriguing image of our state and its people emerges from Ruthe Winegarten’s latest book, Texas Women: A Pictorial History. Winegarten’s book gives us new images Anna Hertzberg, for one, who established the first night school in San Antonio through the San Antonio Council of Jewish Women, founded the city’s first symphony orchestra, and founded the San Antonio Women’s Club, which started the city’s first public library. Libraries and symphonies? And a caring, humane vision for what Texas could be? Often it has been the state’s women who have shown the way. Growing out of the popular exhibit, “Texas Woman: A Celebration of History,” which toured the state for two years, this book has been organized more like a scrapbook with sections roughly chronological, beginning with pioneer women and ending with the political movers and shakers of the last 20 years. There are many brief biographical entries for hundreds of women, along with hundreds of photographs. Some women of Texas have used conventional means to insure that the social conscience of the state remained intact. Many of the institutions which we take for granted grew directly out of the efforts of denominational women. Dee Seligman is an Austin freelance writer. The firgt hospital in Texas was founded by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word in Galveston in 1866; forty-one other hospitals, including Santa Rosa in San Antonio, were founded by orders of Catholic women. The first rabbi was brought to the state by a Galveston woman, Rosanna Osterman, who helped establish a synagogue by holding the first religious services in her home. Dr. Maud A.B. Fuller, a national black TEXAS WOMEN: A Pictorial History, From Indians to Astronauts By Ruthe Winegarten Austin, Eakin Press, 1986 200 pages, $24.95 Baptist leader from Austin, was director and president of the Women’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention of America, founded a newspaper, raised money for teachers’ salafies, student scholarships, and a home for the aged, and helped establish missionaries abroad. Other institutions were founded by women in civic clubs. Olga Kohlberg led the El Paso Women’s Club to establish the first private kindergarten in Texas in 1892, while others in the Texas Congress of Mothers \(later the successfully for public kindergarten, a state child welfare commission, pure food inspection, a juvenile court system, child labor and compulsory school attendance laws, a bureau of child hygiene, and funds for a division of child welfare. Clara Driscoll singlehandedly saved the Alamo with a personal check for $25,000, but later became embroiled in a controversy with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Other women, especially through the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, organized 85 per cent of the state’s public libraries. Even the common water fountain was not available in public schools until the work of the Texas Congress of Mothers; before this legislation, children had to share a drinking cup from the school’s well or they brought their own cups. Individual women of every race and ethnic group have fought to make Texas a livable state which responds to the needs of all its citizens. Jovita Iddr organized La Liga Femenil Mexicanista as early as 1911 to promote the rights of Mexican Americans and women. She and Leondr Villegas de Magnon organto nurse soldiers during the Mexican Revolution. Kate Ripley, a Dallas woman, and her husband founded Texas’ first Family. Planning and Birth Control Center in 1935 and smuggled the illegal contraceptives into the state in the empty shirt packing boxes of the Ripley cleaning business. Emma Tenayuca, a San Antonio Mexican American, led 10,000 pecan shellers out on strike in 1938 for better working conditions, and persisted in the struggle against discrimination despite official harassment. Ima Hogg used her family wealth to benefit Houston, founding the Houston Symphony, establishing the Houston Child Guidance Clinic, funding the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, and ‘donating her home, Bayou Bend, to the City of Houston. This book provides glimpses into the formidable forces with which Texas women have had to contend in order to make their way in the world. A pioneer woman gardener hoists aloft a rattlesnake at least twice her height. A list of “Rules for Pioneer Teachers” notes that “teachers will not dye her hair under any circumstances,” nor will they keep company with men nor marry, and they “will attend church each Sunday and will not leave town at any time without permission of the Chairman’ of the School Board.” Others, like Jane Y. McCallum, Texas Secretary of State from 1927 to 1933, mother of five, leader of the Petticoat Lobby \(a coalition of women’s organizations who lobbied person responsible for, the restoration of the original document of the Texas Declaration of Independence, had to contend with senators who asked “why she wasn’t home darning stockings for A Her-story of Texas By Dee Seligman 18 DECEMBER 19, 1986