For
many residents in many states, a sense of state history often is left behind when the high school
diploma meets the outstretched palm. In Texas, that’s different. Anyone taking
a quick walk through downtown or West Campus, for instance, will see a number
of silver-and-black plaques marking buildings as historical sites.
It’s that inherent awareness of state history that makes a group like the
Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) so rich with avenues of exploration
— and scholars willing to explore those avenues in writing, research, and
photo essay projects.
“What makes this organization interesting and fun is the broad mix of people
involved,” said George Ward, assistant director of the University of
Texas-based, 99-year-old association. “We get a healthy share of academics, yet
we have people from all walks of life involved. There are many members who
aren’t from traditional academic backgrounds, yet turn out first-rate
scholarship. Us Texans are uniquely interested in our own history. There’s an
immediate interest for the average citizen, for many have grandparents or
great-grandparents who were involved in that history.”
Although the group is largely Texan in composition, there are affiliates
throughout the Southwest and Mexico intrigued in how the various collision of
cultures and national interests have impacted the entire region. Ward notes the
group’s 3,500 members include doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, and the
presentations at the group’s annual spring meetings range from traditional
looks at history to more revisionist perspectives.
One of the primary missions of the group is publishing, and Jack Jackson’s
Imaginary Kingdom, offering new perspectives on Spanish military
expeditions in Texas through the 18th-century diaries of expedition leaders
Pedro de Rivera and Marqu�s de Rub�, is only one example of the
breadth of THSA’s vision of Texas. Ward sees the book as valuable on several
different counts. Not only did the book unveil Rub�’s diary, a
previously unknown work found by Jackson among THSA archives, but it offered a
chance, as Ward put it, “to see what would become Texas through the eyes of
very different people.”
“Texas, to the Spaniards, was important as a buffer,” Ward said. “But it
became clear that it was so remote and unsettled that it was a kingdom in name
only, peopled by various native Indians, and not easily controlled.” Ward sees
connections between this book and one of THSA’s most recent reprints,
Emory’s U.S. Mexican Boundary Survey, which was researched by
mid-19th-century U.S. military expeditions. Ward characterizes the Emory book
as “one of the great sourceworks in Western U.S. history,” for it details
ethnologists’ and biologists’ observations on Texas specific to that period.
Both books are similar in that they give the perspective of nations who had
their own designs on, and ideas of, what Texas was and could potentially be for
them.
One of the association’s most ambitious projects, completed this past May, is
the New Handbook of Texas, a six-volume encyclopedia intended to be a
comprehensive guide to Texas past and present. Ward said “every county and
every creek,” as well as a number of influential people and events, were
covered by 2,000 contributing authors, many of whom volunteered their time,
energy, and research skills to assemble the project. The association published
its first version of the encyclopedia in 1952, yet it only encompasses a mere
fraction of the New Handbook’s size and scope.
The association also places great emphasis on books which explore the
intersections of art and history. Sam Chamberlain’s Mexican War,
authored by UT history professor William Goetzmann, examines the paintings and
associated tall tales of Chamberlain, a painter and veteran of both the Mexican
and Civil Wars, historically seen as both a scoundrel and legend. A follow-up
book by Goetzmann, to be released later this year, My Confession:
Recollections of A Rogue, focuses on Chamberlain’s personal writings, and
reminds Ward of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Several of the
association’s recent notables include photo essays on the everyday lives of
notable individuals and communities. The award-winning Watt Matthews of
Lambshead, by Laura Wilson, looks at life at the Lambshead ranch along
the Clear Fork of the Brazos River; Behold the People, by Dallas
photographer R.C. Hickman, focuses on the black community in south Dallas
during the late 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s; and Picturing Texas, a
collection culled from the Library of Congress’ Farm Security Administration
and Office of War Information archives, features photos by noted 1930s and ’40s
photographers Dorothea Lange and Alfred Rothstein, including but not limited to
their famed documentation of the Dust Bowl years.
In addition to the six to eight book titles the association releases each
year, TSHA also publishes the Southwest Historical Quarterly, an
academic journal which has gained a niche among noted scholarly historical
publications. The journal, published since the association’s founding in 1897,
deals with the same wide range of historical topics and authorial perspective
as the group’s publishing wing.
Ward sees the organization, gearing up for its centennial next year, as
committed to the group’s original mission of collecting, preserving, and
researching Texas history. What makes the organization current and pertinent,
in Ward’s view, is the desire to find valuable and original views on Texas
history. “When looking at proposals for articles and books, I always come back
to the `So what?’ question,” Ward said. “We look for a meaning as well as
story, something that will illuminate and tell us something significant. We
look beyond what will give us just another detailed look at a piece of
history.” n Frequent Chronicle contributor Phil West is also a member of Austin’s
nationally ranked Poetry Slam Team.
This article appears in November 15 • 1996 and November 15 • 1996 (Cover).