Glen Sample Ely - Where the West begins : debating Texas identity

PLAINS HISTORIES

John R. Wunder, Series Editor

EDITORIAL BOARD

Durwood Ball
Peter Boag
Pekka Hmlinen
Jorge Iber
Todd M. Kerstetter
Clara Sue Kidwell
Patricia Nelson Limerick
Victoria Smith
Donald E. Worster

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Copyright 2011 by Glen Sample Ely

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes are excepted.

This book is typeset in Monotype Haarlemmer. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (R1997).

Designed by Lindsay Starr

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Ely, Glen Sample.
Where the West begins: debating Texas identity / Glen Sample Ely; foreword by Alwyn Barr.
p. cm.(Plains histories)
Summary: Examines the historical debate surrounding Texas's identity: investigates whether Texas, with its heritage of slavery, segregation, and cotton production, is Southern or, with its cowboys, cattle drives, mountains, and desert, is WesternProvided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-89672-724-3 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. TexasCivilization. 2. TexasSocial life and customs. 3. Group identityTexas. 4. TexasRelationsSouthern States. 5. TexasRelationsWest (U.S.) 6. Southern StatesRelationsTexas. 7. West (U.S.)RelationsTexas. I. Title.
F386.E57 2011
976.4dc22 2010051912

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY PRESS
Box 41037, Lubbock, Texas 794091037 USA
800.832.4042 |

ISBN-13: 978-0-89672-818-9 (electronic)

MAPS

Numerous people and institutions generously assisted the author over the last seven years. Without their help, this work would not have been possible. The author extends his gratitude to Plains Histories Series Editor John R. Wunder; Todd M. Kerstetter; Ben Johnson; Gregg Cantrell; Pecos County Clerk's Office; Noel Parsons, Robert Mandel, Judith Keeling, Karen Medlin, and Joanna Conrad at Texas Tech University Press; Fort Stockton Public Library; Pat McDaniel and Jim Bradshaw at the Haley Library; John Anderson and Donaly Brice at the Texas State Library and Archives; Joan Kilpatrick, Doug Howard, John Molleston, Bobby Santiesteban, and Susan Dorsey at the Texas General Land Office Archives; Kit Goodwin, Cathy Spitzenberger, and Brenda McClurkin at University of TexasArlington Special Collections Library; Kay Edmonson and Jill Kendle at TCU Interlibrary Loan Department; Jim Ed Miller; Joe Primera; M. R. Gonzlez; Betty Hargus; Colonel Thomas Ty Smith; Fort Stockton ISD; City Manager's Office, City of Fort Stockton; Suzanne Campbell and the West Texas Collection Staff at Angelo State University; Dave Kuhne, Cynthia Shearer, and Harry Antrim at the TCU Writing Center; Janet Neugebauer and Randy Vance at the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University; University of TexasEl Paso Special Collections Library; Patrick March Dearen; Donald Worster; and Texas A&M Agricultural Extension Service, Fort Stockton. Appreciation also goes to Tom Beard, Jess F. de la Teja, Clara Duran, Bruce Glasrud, Charles Hart, Skeet Lee Jones, Robert J. Kinucan, Bill Leftwich, Bill Moody, Pete Terrazas, Jerry D. Thompson, Rick McCaslin, Robert Wooster, Mike Foster, Gary Williams, Mike Mecke, Gordon Morris Bakken, Paul Carlson, Alwyn Barr, Byron Price, Arnoldo De Len, Oscar Martnez, Sherry Smith, Bob Righter, Quendrid and Ralph Veatch, David Weber, Martha King, Holle Humphries, Bill Phillips, Glynda Reynolds, Cathie and Len Jackson, Dan Penner, Sally Sample, Roland Taylor Ely, Melinda Ann Veatch, Janice Whittington, and Howard Lamar.

Western images came to dominate the popular memory and mythology of Texas and Texans in the twentieth century, and continue to hold sway in the twenty-first. For a striking example, one need look no further than the names of most professional sports teams created in the state during the late 1900sCowboys, Texas Rangers, Spurs, and Mavericks. Movies, and later television shows, about cattle drives and ranching helped create, then reinforce, popular perception of Texas as part of the West. Even as film and television portrayals of the Battle of the Alamo seemed to generate Anglo American and Anglo Texan nationalism or exceptionalism, the battle's frontier setting lent its story a western theme.

In part those dramatizations rested upon the works of nineteenth-century historical writers, who often combined a romantic style with the concept of manifest destiny. Professional historians of the late 1800s and early 1900s provided more research as a basis for their studies, while continuing to reinforce ideas of Anglo dominance. Some prominent historians of the early to mid-twentieth century, including Eugene C. Barker and Walter Prescott Webb, emphasized Texas in its nineteenth-century frontier period. Popular writers even in the early 2000s continue to devote much of their attention to lively tales of that era.

Other Texas historical writers in the late 1800s and early 1900s focused attention on the southern and Confederate heritage of most Anglo Texans. These views led to romantic images about the antebellum South and the Confederacy, reflected in numerous statues and memorials in East and Central Texas. One monument, however, in Comfort, in the Hill Country west of Austin, honors Texans of that area who died fighting for the Union. Beginning with Charles Ramsdell, professional historians began to examine the cultural and economic interest of Anglo Texans in cotton production based on slavery and later sharecropping.

According to historian Walter Buenger, that southern and Civil War mythology of a Lost Cause began to be replaced in Texas during the early to mid-twentieth century by more positive accounts of the Texas Revolution and a frontier that advanced westward. Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson provided a practical example when he emphasized his western ranching background, allowing him to more easily establish an appealing national image as a presidential candidate in the 1960s.