Oil in Texas: The Gusher Age, 1895-1945 (review)

With Oil in Texas, Diana Davids Olien and Roger M. Olien add to their already considerable reputation as the leading scholars of the history of the oil industry in Texas. Oil in Texas is grander in scope than their first five monographs, which focused on particular facets of the petroleum world, such as wildcatters or investors. Here they seek to chart the growth and impact of the Texas oil industry from its birth in the late nineteenth century to its maturation in the mid-twentieth.

Adhering to a topical approach defined by geography, Olien and Olien first take their readers to the cradle of the Texas petroleum industry, the Corsicana area of east Texas. The search for oil spread from there throughout the region, down the Gulf Coast plains and into the piney woods. The money and power that followed the oil-slicked flats of land led to an accelerated and expanded push to discover new fields in each and every part of the state. Rig-transporting crews marched into the cross timbers of north Texas, the hill country of central Texas, the brushlands of south Texas, and the windswept plains of the Panhandle and its western reaches.

Tattooed with puncture marks from one end of the state to the other, the skin of earth that stretched across Texas oozed the liquid that would become the mainstay of the state's economic and political life. Much as early physicians contended that the bleeding of a patient often led to an eventual increase in strength and stamina, Olien and Olien cite the growth of the Texas oil industry as the primary reason for the state's national and international rise in stature. They write that the petroleum industry, more than any other factor, was responsible for transforming Texas from a sparsely populated, poor, rural, agrarian state into a teeming, thriving, urban-industrial power.

By 1940 the proud inhabitants of Texas had more to boast about than the size of their state. Because Lone Star oil fields produced more than one-third of the United States's oil, and more than double the amount produced by California, the nearest rival, Texas politicians and businessmen wielded considerable influence. Olien and Olien contend that the Texas Railroad Commission, the state's petroleum regulatory agency, actually manipulated crude oil prices to greater effect at midcentury than did the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at the end of the century.

While Olien and Olien argue that their monograph refutes and revises some traditional views of the American West—in particular, Walter Prescott Webb's contention that the exploitation of the western states' natural resources by eastern capitalists relegated the West, including Texas, to colonial status—in many ways their work represents a continuation of the traditional emphasis in Texas history. Texas is unique; Texas stands alone, independent; Texas is bigger and better; "don't mess with Texas!" There may be much truth in such statements, but they have become a mantra to Texans and a symbol of chauvinism to those who reside beyond the Red, the Sabine, and the Rio Grande. While the research for Oil in Texas appears to be meticulous and exhaustive, the authors' proximity to their subject (both hold positions at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin) and the cele-bratory tone of their book may lead to assertions that it is not without bias.

This reviewer, however, found the work to be authoritative, engaging, and stimulating. Oil in Texas is primarily an economic and political history. There are social and cultural elements to the narrative, but for an expanded look at the social and cultural impact of the oil industry readers should consult one or more of the Oliens' previous works, such as Oil and Ideology: The Cultural Construction of the Petroleum Industry (2000), Life in the Oil Fields (1986), or Oil Booms: Social Changes in Five Texas Towns (1993). Oil in Texas evaluates the...