Southwestern Collection
Rent from DeepDyveThe cartoon history Texas History Movies introduced many students to Texas history, including graphic artist Jack Jackson. The TSHA is proud to announce that a completely new version of the book is now available, with images and text by Jackson. The TSHA also has issued copies of the book with an educator guide for teachers to use in their classrooms as they introduce a new generation to the tradition of Texas History Movies. This panel is part of the book's discussion of the Civil War years in Texas, during which the frontier line was pushed back when Federal troops left the state at the start of the war, which led to an increase in Indian attacks on the unprotected settlements. The changing frontier line, as well as other developments in West Texas during the Civil War, are detailed in an article by Glen Sample Ely, "Gone from Texas and Trading with the Enemy: New Perspectives on Civil War West Texas," which begins on page 439 of this issue.
Click for larger view | Figure 1 "The settlement line was pushed back 100 miles, with burned out homes and hastily dug graves a common sight," drawing by Jack Jackson, from The New Texas History Movies, published earlier this year by the Texas State Historical Association Press. |
Click for larger view | Figure 2 Jesús Frank de la Teja, president, 2007–2008 |
How does a fellow from New Jersey become a Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, much less its president and the first Texas State Historian? In some respects I share a career path quite similar to Robert Wooster's, beginning with our overlapping time at the University of Texas at Austin to pursue our doctorates. (Later we would serve as chairmen of our respective university departments, serve on the same TSHA committees, become fellows and presidents of the Association.) We both served as research assistants for James Michener between 1982 and 1984. Robert already had experience working for the Association, but I became directly involved when John Wheat asked me to coauthor an article for the Texas sesquicentennial volume of the Quarterly. I was about to become a research assistant on the New Handbook in fall 1984 when I got a call late one evening from then TSHA director Tuffly Ellis asking if I would like a dissertation fellowship that had just been created in the Department of History in the field of Texas and Southwestern studies; I jumped at the opportunity.
I had not arrived in Texas to do Texas history, but learning about the early history of the state to better serve Michener and becoming fascinated with early San Antonio proved an irresistible combination. My journey toward a career in Texas was cemented when I went to work at the Texas General Land Office in fall 1985. There, under the tutelage of a wonderful reference staff and the extremely knowledgeable Galen Greaser, I really learned my Texas history. By the time I moved on to what is now Texas State University-San Marcos in 1991, I had published in the Quarterly and the East Texas Historical Review, was getting A Revolution Remembered ready for publication with State House Press, and had taken on the role of [End Page 536] managing editor for the journal of the Texas Catholic Historical Society.
Over the last decade my service to the Texas State Historical Association has reached a new level. In 1997 I agreed to become book review editor for the Quarterly. Working closely with George Ward until his retirement, I reorganized the way the book review section operated, streamlining the process and making it as Internet based as possible. In the last few years I have served on the Board of Directors, the Editorial Advisory Board of the Quarterly, and on a couple of special assignments.
I see the State Historian position, to which Gov. Rick Perry appointed me in February 2007, as an extension of my service to the TSHA. My predecessor Larry McNeill, who...
