Tag Archives: Texas history
The Ghosts of Jefferson
This East Texas tourist town calls itself “the most haunted town in Texas,” but its whitewashed ghost stories elide a complex racial history.
This East Texas tourist town has an economy built on nostalgia tourism, but its whitewashed ghost stories elide a complex racial history. * by Asher Elbein Octo...Read More
Up From the Desert
As a child, I hunted for fossils in the Chihuahuan Desert beyond my backyard. Those afternoons shaped the way I think about my fronteriza identity today.
I spent many childhood afternoons searching for sea fossils in the Chihuahuan Desert, finding geologic history strewn throughout the brown and dusty land. My ne...Read More
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Valianty Fits Much of Texas History Into a Single Book
Stephen Harrigan forgoes a sweeping narrative and instead opts for finely etched anecdotes to explain the state’s epic history.
Alaska leads in area, California in population, but Texas surpasses all other states in swagger, strut, and self-regard. This (partly) explains why the catalo...Read More
What the UAW Strike Looks Like, From Deep in the Heart of Anti-Union Texas
GM autoworkers from the Arlington plant, one of the company’s most profitable, are part of the largest strike against a U.S. business since 2007.
The sprawling General Motors Assembly Plant in Arlington, Texas, is a long way from Detroit and the Rust Belt, where both the modern American auto industry and ...Read More
Where the Bodies are Buried
In 1910, East Texas saw one of America’s deadliest post-Reconstruction racial purges. One survivor’s descendants have waged an uphill battle for generations to unearth that violent past.
In 1910, East Texas saw one of America’s deadliest post-Reconstruction racial purges. One survivor’s descendants have waged an uphill battle for generations...Read More
Women’s Work
Lessons from my great-aunt, an East Texas original.
Women’s Work Lessons from my great-aunt, an East Texas original. I was a child in a magical place, in a house my father built in the piney woods of East T...Read More
In San Antonio, ‘The Other Side of the Alamo’ Turns Whitewashed Texas History on Its Head
Open through July 20 at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, the show ranges in tone from playful to serious, celebratory to mournful.
When a young Texan reaches the fourth grade, she shuffles onto a bus and prepares for a rite of passage: a visit to the Alamo. The trip is paired with a full ye...Read More
Boom and Bust in Big Spring
"The Kings of Big Spring" conveys the difficulties and deprivations stared down by the Depression era's 99 percent.
Profundity alert: when a book’s subtitle contains the word “American,” never mind the phrase “American Dream,” you know you’re dealing with an autho...Read More
A Century After the Porvenir Massacre, Remembering One of Texas’ Darkest Days
Most Texans still don’t know about one of the cruelest atrocities in their state’s history.
On January 28, 1918, a band of Texas Rangers and ranchers raided the tiny Presidio County village of Porvenir in the middle of the night. The rangers were angry...Read More
