Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907806
Alicia M. Dewey
Reviewed by: Border Water: The Politics of U.S. –Mexico Transboundary Water Management, 1945–2015 by Stephen Paul Mumme Alicia M. Dewey Border Water: The Politics of U.S. –Mexico Transboundary Water Management, 1945–2015. By Stephen Paul Mumme. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2023. Pp. 432. Notes, bibliography, index.) In Border Water, Stephen Paul Mumme, professor of political science at Colorado State University, has produced the first comprehensive study of water management and diplomacy along the U.S.–Mexico border in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book explores the context, historical development, and implementation of the 1944 U.S.–Mexico Treaty on the Utilization of the Waters of the Colorado, the Tijuana, and the Rio Grande (the 1944 Treaty). It also details the operation of the International Water and Boundary Commission (IWBC) and the involvement of other organizations in a variety of water issues along the border, especially those relating to sanitation and river ecology. The book traces the evolution of border water politics "from a relatively closed system of reclamation-driven policies and stakeholders" designed to spur agricultural expansion to a system with a variety of goals, participants, and practices, including a focus on sanitation, provision of municipal water, and maintenance of ecological health in the region (5). Mumme argues that the story of developing and negotiating allocation of border water since 1945 has been "an epic tussle" between the United States and Mexico over perhaps the most crucial natural resource in some of the most arid lands in North America (4). Throughout the book, Mumme pays attention to international and domestic [End Page 239] politics in both countries as well as social movements, such as the late nineteenth-century irrigation movement in the United States and various environmental movements later in the twentieth century, which have influenced water diplomacy and management. Notably, he found that the countries have generally not viewed the border as an integrated watershed but rather have focused on their own national interests and thus negotiated from that standpoint. This has been somewhat problematic for Mexico due to that country's weaker political and economic position vis á vis its more powerful northern neighbor, but Mumme points out that the existence of "downstream dependencies" in both countries (especially Mexico on the Colorado and the U.S. on the Rio Grande) have given Mexico more leverage in negotiating over water allocation (11). Politics within each country have influenced and sometimes complicated water diplomacy. Mexico's approach to water management is highly centralized within the federal government, with most authority vested in the Comisión Nacional de Agua. By contrast, water management in the United States is decentralized, with overlapping and shared jurisdiction among local irrigation districts, municipalities, states, and federal agencies lik
《边界水:美国-墨西哥跨界水管理的政治，1945-2015》作者:Stephen Paul Mumme Alicia M. Dewey作者:Stephen Paul Mumme。(图森:亚利桑那大学出版社，2023)432页。注释、参考书目、索引。)科罗拉多州立大学(Colorado State University)政治学教授斯蒂芬·保罗·穆姆(Stephen Paul Mumme)在《边境水资源》(Border Water)一书中，首次对20世纪和21世纪美墨边境的水资源管理和外交进行了全面研究。这本书探讨的背景，历史发展，并实施1944年美国-墨西哥条约对科罗拉多，蒂华纳和格兰德河的水域的利用(1944年条约)。报告还详细说明了国际水和边界委员会的运作情况，以及其他组织参与边界各种水问题，特别是与卫生和河流生态有关的问题的情况。这本书追溯了边境水政治的演变，“从一个由开垦驱动的政策和利益相关者组成的相对封闭的系统”，旨在刺激农业扩张，到一个拥有各种目标、参与者和实践的系统，包括关注卫生、提供市政用水、和维持该地区的生态健康(5)。Mumme认为，自1945年以来，开发和谈判边界水资源分配的故事一直是美国和墨西哥之间关于北美一些最干旱土地上可能最重要的自然资源的“史诗般的争斗”(4)。在整本书中，Mumme关注两国的国际和国内政治以及社会运动。例如19世纪后期美国的灌溉运动和20世纪后期的各种环境运动，这些运动影响了水资源外交和管理。值得注意的是，他发现这些国家普遍没有将边界视为一个综合分水岭，而是专注于自己的国家利益，因此从这个角度进行谈判。这对墨西哥来说有些问题，因为该国的政治和经济地位相对于其更强大的北方邻国而言较弱，但Mumme指出，两国存在“下游依赖关系”(特别是墨西哥对科罗拉多河和美国对格兰德河)，这使墨西哥在水资源分配谈判中具有更大的影响力(11)。每个国家内部的政治都影响并有时使水外交复杂化。墨西哥的水资源管理方法高度集中在联邦政府内部，大部分权力被赋予Comisión国家水资源管理局(national de Agua)。相比之下，美国的水资源管理是分散的，地方灌区、市、州和联邦机构(如美国陆军工程兵团和内政部)之间重叠和共享管辖权。开发商、环保人士、能源公司、银行家和市民团体在历史上也影响着水资源政策，通常在美国比在墨西哥影响更大。重要的是，Mumme发现，这些国家将水问题与其他双边问题(如移民、毒品、贸易和能源政策)分离开来，这些领域的冲突对水外交的影响有限。这本书是按时间顺序组织的，部分主题主要是作为一个叙述，解释了1945年至2015年美墨边境的水政策是如何演变的。Mumme明确指出，这本书不是“对美墨水关系的正式分析”(19)。它分为三个部分:(1)“发展和巩固跨界水管理”(从1944年条约开始至1973年结束);(2)“环境时代”(涵盖1973年至2015年);和(3)“美国-墨西哥跨界水资源管理的经验教训和未来”第一和第二部分的每一章首先讨论“元政治”，即两国关系在水政策以外领域的地位，然后探讨两国在每个时期就各种与水有关的问题产生的主要冲突和达成的协议，以及元政治的更广泛背景如何影响水政策。在第三部分，Mumme概述了从1945年到…
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907799
Peter B. Dedek
Reviewed by: Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road by T. Lindsay Baker Peter B. Dedek Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road. By T. Lindsay Baker. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2022. Pp. 409. Notes, indexes, illustrations, recipes.) Readers may know author T. Lindsay Baker from his several books on the material culture of Texas. Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road, finds him exploring territory well beyond the Lone Star State. In its introduction, Eating Up Route 66 provides a brief description of the development of twentieth-century American highways and Route 66 and gives a cursory history of American roadside food from the 1920s to the 1950s. What follows are commentaries on each state Route 66 passed through (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California) and an extensive collection of detailed histories and descriptions of individual historic restaurants, cafes, fast food joints, and the like that existed along the entire route during its period as an official U.S. highway from 1926 to 1985 (Route 66 was gradually replaced by interstate highways from the 1960s to the 1980s). The book is arranged geographically from east to west, from Chicago to Los Angeles, and includes a number of recipes from historic Route 66 eateries. Although the author clearly did a tremendous amount of research to write this book, it offers limited insights. The histories of American roadside food and Route 66 in the introduction are too abbreviated, and the many descriptions of individual eateries, while interesting, do not come together to support any overall focus or themes. For these reasons, it is difficult to understand the book's intended audience. Is it a history of foodways? The title indicates a focus on the history of food served on Route 66, however, the book tells the reader too little about American twentieth-century food and provides no historical argument or theoretical framework. There is a rich academic body of literature concerning the history of food and foodways, which the author appears not have consulted in depth. Is it a history of Route 66? It is not clear why the author chose Route 66 to begin with and did not just write a history about the food served on all major U.S. highways. We are never told whether the food on Route 66 was significantly different than the food found on other long distance U.S. highways such as U.S. 30, U.S. 40 or U.S. 90 during the same period. [End Page 229] Route 66 went through areas with distinct regional cuisines, but so did the other highways. Baker tells us that the fast-food chain Steak 'n Shake started on Route 66, but this is one of very few examples of a business or type of food cited in the book as being particularly linked to U.S. 66. Is it a guidebook of Route 66? The book is arranged like a guidebook; however, it does not include the directions required to function as one, and many of the landmarks described with
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907804
Jonathan Cortez
Reviewed by: In Defense of My People by Alonso S. Perales Jonathan Cortez In Defense of My People. By Alonso S. Perales. Edited and English translated by Emilio Zamora. (Houston: Arte Público Press, University of Houston, 2021. Pp. 350.) Alonso S. Perales was one of the foremost thinkers and forces of Mexican American civil rights in the United States in the twentieth century. His two-volume collection of documents entitled En Defensa de Mi Raza, published in 1936 and 1937, respectively, features his Spanish writings as he struggled to make clear to his community of ethnic Mexicans in Texas and government officials that U.S. citizens of Mexican descent deserved humanity, dignity, and respect. Perales penned his first entry on May 15, 1923, when he wrote to the editor of the Washington Post urging the removal of a review about a western satirical comedy entitled The Bad Man arguing that "such exhibitions tend to create the wrong impression that all Mexicans are bandits" (17). Perales proceeded to highlight the number of Black and Brown people lynched in the United States at the hands of White law enforcement and vigilantes as a rhetorical device, and he asked, "Suppose that Mexicans . . . would represent you in their theaters as the typical 'Daring American Bank Robber' or 'The American Lyncher.' Would this not make your blood boil" (18)? Employing the same vigor with which Ida B. Wells authored "Lynching, Our National Crime" in 1909, Perales held up a mirror to American history. Now, one hundred years later, the mirror has resurfaced in the form of the English translation of Perales's work by Dr. Emilio Zamora. As part of the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project, In Defense of My people was published by Arte Público Press in 2021 and offers new opportunities and possibilities for Perales's work. The articles, letters, and speeches that make up the two volumes in Spanish have been condensed into one book and updated with a new introduction by Zamora. Alonso S. Perales wrote predominantly in Spanish. However, English held dominance in the United States over Spanish in the early twentieth century. A 1918 "English-Only" statute in Texas, for instance, made it a misdemeanor for any teacher or administrator to use a language other than English in school or to prescribe textbooks not printed in the English language. The law remained active until 1968. Zamora's translation itself maintains the message, rhythm, and passion of Perales's words. Especially when it comes to Perales's South Texas colloquialisms, Zamora's own upbringing allows for a deep understanding of nuance. Zamora's English translation revitalizes Perales's work and expands the possibilities for its inclusion in K–12 and university classrooms. Envision an assignment where each student uses one issue that Perales wrote about as an entry point into a research project about Mexican American civil rights; or perhaps a teacher could bring together the original Spanish publicat
书评:《捍卫我的人民》作者:阿隆索·s·佩拉莱斯乔纳森·科尔特斯《捍卫我的人民》阿隆索·s·佩拉莱斯著。由Emilio Zamora编辑和翻译。(休斯顿:Arte Público出版社，休斯顿大学，2021。350页。)阿隆索·s·佩拉莱斯是二十世纪美国墨西哥裔民权运动的重要思想家和力量之一。他分别于1936年和1937年出版了两卷本名为《为我的拉扎辩护》(En Defensa de Mi Raza)的文集，其中以他的西班牙语作品为特色，因为他努力向德克萨斯州的墨西哥裔社区和政府官员表明，墨西哥裔美国公民应该得到人性、尊严和尊重。1923年5月15日，佩拉莱斯写了他的第一篇文章，当时他写信给《华盛顿邮报》的编辑，要求删除一篇关于西方讽刺喜剧《坏人》的评论，他认为“这样的展览往往会造成所有墨西哥人都是强盗的错误印象”(17)。佩拉莱斯接着强调了美国黑人和棕色人种在白人执法人员和治安维持者手中被私刑处死的数量，作为一种修辞手段，他问道，“假设墨西哥人……在他们的影院里，你会扮演典型的“勇敢的美国银行抢劫犯”或“美国私刑犯”。这难道不会让你热血沸腾吗?”与艾达·b·威尔斯(Ida B. Wells)在1909年撰写的《私刑，我们的国罪》(Lynching, Our National Crime)一样，佩拉莱斯用同样的活力，为美国历史树立了一面镜子。一百年后的今天，这面镜子以埃米利奥·萨莫拉博士翻译的佩拉莱斯作品的形式重新出现。作为“恢复美国西班牙文学遗产”项目的一部分，《保卫我的人民》于2021年由Arte Público出版社出版，为佩拉莱斯的工作提供了新的机会和可能性。这两卷西班牙文的文章、信件和演讲被浓缩成一本书，并由萨莫拉作了新的介绍。阿隆索·s·佩拉莱斯主要用西班牙语写作。然而，在二十世纪早期，英语在美国比西班牙语占据主导地位。例如，1918年德克萨斯州的一项“仅限英语”法规规定，任何教师或行政人员在学校使用英语以外的语言，或规定使用非英语印刷的教科书，都将被视为轻罪。这项法律一直有效到1968年。萨莫拉的翻译本身保持了佩拉莱斯文字的信息、节奏和激情。尤其是当谈到佩拉莱斯的南德克萨斯俗语时，萨莫拉自己的成长经历让他对细微差别有了深刻的理解。萨莫拉的英文翻译使佩拉莱斯的作品焕发了活力，并扩大了将其纳入K-12和大学课堂的可能性。设想一个作业，每个学生用一个佩拉莱斯写的问题作为切入点，进入一个关于墨西哥裔美国公民权利的研究项目;或者老师可以把西班牙语原版和英语翻译结合在一起，创造一个动态的西班牙语课程，同时触及语言习得和内容。墨西哥裔美国人研究课程、西班牙语课程、民族研究课程、美国历史课程等都将受益于这本书。萨莫拉的贡献在注释和参考书目部分最为耀眼。由于佩拉莱斯的大部分作品都是由备忘录、演讲、信件和其他不面向学术读者的文件组成的，它们缺乏上下文、定义、身份和其他重要和必要的标记，这些标记对于将他的作品置于20世纪30年代墨西哥裔美国人的民权运动中是至关重要的。在注释部分，萨莫拉解决了矛盾，为佩拉莱斯的著作提供了引用，并提供了必要的背景，以理解佩拉莱斯在20世纪上半叶关于墨西哥裔美国公民权利的论点的推理。萨莫拉一边做历史学家的工作，一边做翻译家的工作。这一战略举措为这本书的重要性提供了另一个论据:这本翻译版的《捍卫我的人民》不仅为21世纪的读者复兴了佩拉莱斯的著作，而且这本出版物还将一位过去的公共知识分子(佩拉莱斯)与一位来自……
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907800
Wesley G. Phelps
Reviewed by: Wide-Open Desert: A Queer History of New Mexico by Jordan Biro Walters Wesley G. Phelps Wide-Open Desert: A Queer History of New Mexico. By Jordan Biro Walters. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2023. Pp. 286. Notes, index.) Does New Mexico have a queer history? And if so, what can it tell us about both New Mexico history and U.S. queer history more broadly? In Wide-Open Desert, historian Jordan Biro Walters offers intriguing answers to these questions through a remarkable and important exploration of the Land of Enchantment's queer past. Expertly combining political and cultural history, Biro Walters argues that queer cultural production laid the groundwork for civil rights activism in the state. Centering the voices of Pueblo, Navajo, Neuvomexicanx, and White LGBTQ people, the book offers significant new insights into the role that cultural activism has played in the struggle for queer equality and should become required reading for anyone interested in U.S. queer history. Wide-Open Desert begins at the end of World War I when Taos and Santa Fe began their journeys to becoming internationally recognized artist communities. During the following two decades, queer artists put down roots in these locales and created an environment of sexual freedom. At the same time, new migrants often forced their own gender and sexual [End Page 230] ideologies on people native to those places, an imperialist project that many Indigenous residents resisted. In 1929, queer artist communities and their allies began an unsuccessful battle against a censorship provision included in the proposed Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that prohibited sexually explicit material from entering the country. Although Congress included a modified version of the provision in the final bill, cultural activists were able to develop an ideology of sexual privacy that would prove useful in subsequent battles. The national security state created during World War II, much of which was physically located in New Mexico because of the Manhattan Project, disrupted many of the queer communities that had formed since 1920. An ideology of sexual privacy, which emphasized personal agency in choosing what to keep to oneself and what to make public, quickly gave way to an ideology of secrecy, which mandated that queer individuals stay in the closet to avoid severe consequences. The new secrecy regime of the war years, which extended into the Cold War period, forced New Mexico's queer culture underground and weakened whatever political clout it had established. The consequences were immediate as queer communities, weakened by the imposition of a heteronormative brand of citizenship, failed to persuade the New Mexico legislature to repeal its discriminatory sodomy statute in 1963. Yet queer migration to New Mexico continued through the 1960s, and by the end of the decade these new migrants had established strong queer communities all over the state in both urban and rural areas. The 1970
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907795
Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Charles H. Ford
Race and Recreation in East Texas:A History of Huntsville's Municipal Swimming Pool and Emancipation Park Jeffrey L. Littlejohn (bio) and Charles H. Ford (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Female swimmer in a one-piece suit at Huntsville's Municipal Pool, c. 1950, from the I. J. Walden Collection. Courtesy of the Walker County Historical Commission. [End Page 144] After six years of planning and construction, the residents of Huntsville, Texas, celebrated the opening of their new municipal swimming pool on May 18, 1939. At 7:30 that evening, local officials sponsored a grand party to commemorate the occasion. The Huntsville High School Band presented a thirty-minute concert, and Mayor Robert C. Stiernberg welcomed families to the new facility. Then, the city's swimming pool committee offered a brief recitation of its efforts before a group of young men from Sam Houston State Teachers College put on a stunt show.1 The scouts followed next with their own pool exercises for boys and girls. Finally, the night's main attraction took place: a "mammoth bathing revue . . . sponsored by all the civic and service clubs in Huntsville." As was common at the time, a "bevy of the best-looking girls" in town were requested to strut their stuff in bathing suits to "compete for the honor of being named 'Miss Huntsville.'" Wanda Grogan, a freshman at Sam Houston State Teachers College, defeated thirteen other [End Page 145] entrants in the contest, winning the title "Miss Huntsville" and the right to represent the city at the Tomato Festival in Jacksonville, Texas, that June.2 Huntsville's new pool proved to be incredibly popular. Open daily from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 10:00 p.m., it offered affordable entertainment in a relaxing environment. Adult tickets cost just twenty-five cents, while children under twelve years of age were admitted for ten cents. In addition, local adults who intended on swimming regularly could buy a season ticket for $7.50. College students paid only $5.00, and high school students paid just $3.75. Within the first week alone, the Huntsville Item reported, "nearly 2,000 [people] . . . paid admission fees." Helen Bowden, the city council's appointed property manager, said that "attendance ha[d] increased each day," and that "many of the swimmers ha[d] come from other cities in the area."3 This last statement proved remarkably revealing. Although White residents from Trinity, New Waverly, Willis, and other nearby towns could travel to Huntsville and swim in the city's new pool, local African Americans, who made up 25 percent of Huntsville's population, were barred from enjoying the new facility.4 Racial protocols established by White Texans required that men and women of different races be separated in public spaces such as pools, movie theaters, train cars, and restaurants. Although the state of Texas had no specific law requiring segregation of swimming pools, White officials applied a 1915 statute to the new form of
种族和娱乐在东德克萨斯:亨茨维尔市的市政游泳池和解放公园的历史杰弗里·利特尔约翰(传记)和查尔斯·h·福特(传记)点击查看更大的视图查看全分辨率在亨茨维尔市的市政游泳池，c. 1950年，女游泳运动员在一件西装，从I. J.瓦尔登收集。由沃克县历史委员会提供。经过六年的规划和建设，1939年5月18日，德克萨斯州亨茨维尔的居民庆祝了他们新的市政游泳池的开放。当晚7:30，当地官员举办了一个盛大的晚会来纪念这一时刻。亨茨维尔高中乐队演奏了一场30分钟的音乐会，市长罗伯特·c·斯蒂恩伯格欢迎家庭来到新设施。然后，该市的游泳池委员会对他们所做的努力进行了简短的陈述，然后一群来自萨姆休斯顿州立师范学院的年轻人进行了特技表演接下来，侦察员们为男孩和女孩们进行了他们自己的泳池练习。最后，当晚最吸引人的节目开始了:一场“巨大的沐浴表演”。由亨茨维尔所有的公民和服务俱乐部赞助。”当时很常见的是，镇上“一群最漂亮的女孩”被要求穿着泳衣炫耀自己的身材，“竞争被命名为”亨茨维尔小姐的荣誉。’”萨姆·休斯顿州立师范学院的一名新生旺达·格罗根在比赛中击败了其他13名参赛者，赢得了“亨茨维尔小姐”的称号，并有资格代表这座城市参加6月2日在德克萨斯州杰克逊维尔举行的西红柿节。每天早上7点至9点和下午3点至10点开放，在轻松的环境中提供负担得起的娱乐。成人票只要25美分，而12岁以下的儿童只要10美分。此外，打算经常游泳的当地成年人可以花7.5美元购买季票。大学生只需支付5美元，高中生只需支付3.75美元。据《亨茨维尔项目》报道，仅在第一周内，“近2000人……付了入场费。”市议会指定的物业经理海伦·鲍登(Helen Bowden)说，“出席人数每天都在增加”，而且“许多游泳者来自该地区的其他城市”。最后这句话很能说明问题。虽然来自Trinity、New Waverly、Willis和其他附近城镇的白人居民可以到亨茨维尔的新游泳池游泳，但占亨茨维尔人口25%的当地非裔美国人却被禁止使用新设施德州白人制定的种族规则要求不同种族的男女在游泳池、电影院、火车车厢和餐馆等公共场所分开。尽管德克萨斯州没有具体的法律要求游泳池隔离，但白人官员将1915年的一项法规应用于这种新的娱乐形式。正如历史学家布鲁斯·格拉斯鲁德(Bruce Glasrud)所指出的，“一项规定黑人和白人煤矿工人必须有单独的洗浴和储物柜设施的州法律，最终被解释为包括为所有人提供游泳池和洗手间。”事实上，格拉斯鲁德指出，“在20世纪上半叶，没有一个德州黑人可以使用白人的游泳池或厕所。”这篇文章考察了20世纪亨茨维尔和更广阔的东德克萨斯地区的种族和娱乐的交集。根据学者David G. McComb的说法，“[c]overage of…德州的娱乐历史…是参差不齐的。”事实上，麦库姆表明，“只有一个不完整的、无组织的、未被认可的关于娱乐历史的文集……存在于德州。“为了解决这一重要的文献空白，我们借鉴了全国性的娱乐研究，如维多利亚·沃尔科特的《种族、骚乱和过山车:美国对隔离娱乐的斗争》，以及深入的档案、报纸和法律研究，来呈现这个特别的德克萨斯人关于隔离市政游泳池的故事，以及它与杰夫·威尔茨的书《有争议的水域》中出现的北方叙述的不同之处……”
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907794
Claudia DeLaughter Stravato
A Personal Reminiscence of Bob Bullock Claudia DeLaughter Stravato (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 138] He's been called a character, a maverick, a liberal, a conservative, an incredibly charitable man, a cruel man, a man's man, a woman's man, a hard ass, a crack shot, a compassionate man, a softie, a difficult man, a drunk, a visionary, a crude man, a politically incorrect man, the most politically savvy man Texas ever produced, and a man who believed in fundamental fairness. He was all these things and more, and everyone knew not to mess with him. Thank you for inviting me to speak at your President's Dinner here in El Paso. I'm from Amarillo, the windiest city anywhere, according to Wikipedia. I am honored to speak before this august organization, established in 1897—before Amarillo was chartered as a city in 1914! The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is critical to Texas history because of its critically acclaimed Texas publications, like the Texas Almanac and the Handbook of Texas, which gather, maintain, and preserve information and legends that make Texas extraordinary. I had the great privilege of working for Bob Bullock for twenty-five years, serving as a regional field manager, deputy comptroller, coordinator of his campaign for lieutenant governor, transition coordinator to the office of lieutenant governor when he won, and his chief of staff when he took office. Your outgoing president, Lance Lolley, also had the privilege of working for Bullock, as he was called by everyone, when he was a student, and he never forgot it. He asked me to "tell it like it was" about Bullock. I can't do that, but I can certainly tell you more than you knew before. [End Page 139] When Lance worked for Bullock, he was a "must hire," who, as he says, "fetched" a lot of cigarettes and Crown Royal whisky for Bullock. I too, was a "must hire." Being a "must hire" meant you knew someone who was in good stead with Bullock. As you may or may not know, Texas does not have a civil service system, so elected officials and state officials can hire anyone they wish. Bullock hired friends, friends of friends, and children of friends. I was hired because my husband was a friend of Bullock's speechwriter. At the time I was hired by Bullock, I was president of the Amarillo Republican Women's Club. A few days after I started working at the comptroller's office in Amarillo, I received a call from Bullock himself. He said, "I hired you because Glen [Castlebury] asked me to, but if I catch you making a single call on my phones for Republicans, I'll fire your ass!" He knew everything about everyone who worked for him, and he used it. Thank God I had a master's degree in government and had a lot of experience running nonprofits. He defined his philosophy about hiring "friends" this way: "Why would I hire someone who simply made a passing grade on a test, but who might turn out not be loyal to me and my goals?" I hire friends because they will
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907797
Daniel Hale
"We the Ladies":Collective Petitioning by Women in Antebellum and Civil War Texas Daniel Hale (bio) On June 20, 1862, Colonel Thomas Carothers, the superintendent of the Texas State Penitentiary, was visited by an apparently tearful Frederika Riebeling, who successfully urged him to change his mind and follow the example of his two predecessors in supporting her campaign to secure a pardon for her husband, Charles. Frederika had been pardoned from the penitentiary a few years earlier for the same crime as her husband. Her release had been secured, in part, by a collective petitioning campaign by women of the Texas social elite. Frederika Riebeling subsequently gained the support of some of the most influential Texan men for the clemency application on behalf of Charles, including former governor Sam Houston. Thomas Carothers explained his volte-face in a letter to Governor Lubbock as a chivalrous response to Mrs. Riebeling's distress. The case of Frederika and Charles Riebeling provides a vantage point from which to explore the role of women in petitioning for clemency in early statehood Texas, revealing new insights into collective campaigning by women from the social elite in the antebellum South. This article will show that some women in antebellum Texas, enabled by their social standing, did engage in collective petitioning on certain public matters and that their ability to intervene in that sphere might not have been so limited as formerly believed. Its argument is derived from wider research on the discourse employed in petitions for executive clemency sent to the governors of Texas during the period of early [End Page 199] statehood and the Civil War. Central to this research were the petitions made on behalf of people convicted of offenses against the criminal code of Texas, and this study explores the language employed by petitioners in their clemency applications to provide new perspectives on Texas and its development as a society during this period.1 A robust culture of petitioning existed among Texan men during early statehood and large numbers could be mobilized to sign a clemency petition.2 While the citizens who organized petition campaigns were often members of the state's professional or farming elite, their fellow petitioners were drawn from all strata of society. In some cases, they sought clemency for an errant scion of an elite family, but oftentimes the object of their compassion was a poor laboring man, a widow, and even a slave. Some petitioners sought clemency out of blatant self-interest (for example, the planter seeking the return of his convicted slave "property"), but often, their words evinced a simple human compassion and the desire to establish a just and civilized society on a new frontier.3 The deployment of petitions and the language of clemency texts in the frontier state of Texas reveals that attitudes to the rule of law differed in some respects from those in more easterly states, such as described by Laura
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Pub Date : 2023-10-01DOI: 10.1353/swh.2023.a907802
Jesús F. de la Teja
Reviewed by: La República de Texas (1836–1845): Escisión y anexión by Jaime Cárdenas Gracia Jesús F. de la Teja Jaime Cárdenas Gracia, La República de Texas (1836–1845): Escisión y anexión (Mexico: Universidad Autónoma de México, 2022. Pp. Xii, 214. Notes, bibliography.) As the author of this book on the Texas republic era informs us various times, Mexican scholars have shown only limited interest in Texas history, mostly in connection to the two issues noted in the book's subtitle: excision and annexation. As a legal scholar, Cárdenas takes a distinct approach, and he gamely attempts to tell the story of the Republic, particularly in juridical terms. The resulting work in the end continues the very tradition of Mexican scholarship on Texas that he critiques; yet, it does so in an updated way that takes into consideration the direction in which recent Texas historiography of the period has been headed while not engaging it as thoroughly as possible. Perhaps because he is a legal scholar, Cárdenas attempts to present the story of Texas's separation from Mexico and eventual annexation to the United States within the broad framework of the law of nations. The first chapter presents the argument that under today's international legal framework, the movement of Texas from Mexican sovereignty to United States acquisition would be illegal. Crimea, Scotland, and Catalonia are used as examples of how the modern system works. In contrast, what happened with Texas falls under the tradition prevailing in the early nineteenth century that recognition merely required three elements: population, territory, and government. His bottom line is that what happened with Texas was a case of "might makes right." Mexico certainly made its share of mistakes, but these did not rise to the level of deserving to have its territory dismembered, as eventually came to pass following the Mexican War. There follow chapters on the Constitution of 1836, what the author calls the "years of the Republic," and on the annexation process. None of these offer much that is not well known to a Texas audience, although they would fill in a great deal of detail for a Mexican audience unfamiliar [End Page 233] with how the Texas constitution diverged from that of the United States. That audience will also benefit from understanding that the differences between Texas presidents Sam Houston and Mirabeau Lamar were substantial and impactful on both relations with Mexico and the annexation process. The book ends with a chapter on slavery, the major conclusion of which follows the recent trend of rejecting the traditional view that the peculiar institution was not a direct cause of the Revolution. To the contrary, following in the steps of Andrew Torget (whom he does not cite) and Alice Baumgartner (whom he does), the author concludes that slavery was not only the most important factor in bringing about the Texas revolt, given the growing antipathy of Mexico's political classes with the instituti
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