Texas Woman of Letters, Karle Wilson Baker

4. The State and the Writer Come of Age

chapter 4 The State and the Writer Come of Age In 1935, “Family Style” was still unpublished, but as she waited for a publisher , Karle Wilson Baker continued to write about Texas. With more time for writing after she left teaching, Baker returned to the project “A Hundred Miles of Memories,” which she had abandoned to write about the East Texas oil field. On September 25, Henry Smith, a new editor for the Southwest Review, wrote to Baker asking her to contribute to a proposed special Texas Centennial edition of the journal. Her research for “A Hundred Miles of Memories” resulted in a series of three articles for the Southwest Review. Smith sent a proposed table of contents listing the writers he hoped to include in the special issue. The list was impressive: Baker would be among such luminaries as Marquis James, Eugene C. Barker, Herbert P. Gambrell, Walter P. Webb, J. Frank Dobie, Sam Acheson, and John A. Lomax. Smith proposed that Baker write an article about Nacogdoches during the French and Spanish periods. The terms included a word length of 3,500 words and a compensation of seventy-five dollars.1 In addition, the table of contents included artists the Review intended to use as illustrators in the centennial issue. Smith had named the type of illustrations he wanted to use, noting that there would be other artists not yet selected to contribute to the issue. Baker showed the letter to her daughter, Charlotte. Baker had starred the section suggesting that other artists might be considered and added a handwritten notation: “If you’d made studies during all that time I was picking at “I had always expected to write novels.” you, you’d have something!! Maybe you have!!!”2 She was eager to include Charlotte in this important project. Smith wrote a month later and thanked Baker for sending some of Charlotte’s drawings of the East Texas oil field, but he said that the budget for artwork was limited and that the Review was already committed to other artists for pictures of the field. On the other hand, he encouraged Baker to think about illustrations for her article.3 Three days later, Baker sent Smith a progress report: . . . I’ve been having a grand time—even though a most painful one, in spots!—working on the Nacogdoches article. I now have the first draft done; I’ll get it off to you in a few more days—within a week, at most. The struggle (as is usual, with this sort of material) is due to the effort to keep it within bounds. It was good of you to remove any definite wordlimit , but I don’t want to take advantage of your indulgence. I’m going to reduce it as much as I can bring myself to, unaided, and then I’m going to ask you to return it to me with stern instruction, if it’s still too long. Or even, if there’s not time for that, to slash it yourself!4 On November 22, Smith wrote that everyone at the Review was delighted with the article on Nacogdoches and thanked Baker for sending Charlotte’s pictures as suggested illustrations to accompany the article. One of Charlotte ’s drawings was titled Paradise of the Shepherds, and the other had a large letter T surrounded by two Indians, a conquistador, and a padre.5 Both drawings seem especially well suited to the article, but in the end the published piece did not have any illustrations, probably because of the cutbacks in expenses the Review had to make. On January 27 of the next year, Smith sent the disappointing word to Baker that the State Commission of Control of the Centennial had turned down the Southwest Review’s subsidy request for the centennial issue. The Review’s modified plans meant that the editors could continue with the issue , but they now could offer the contributors only thirty-five dollars for an essay instead of the proposed seventy-five dollars. Also, the Review would have to print Baker’s article in a “belated issue.”6 In the same letter, Smith requested that Baker continue to write about Nacogdoches and to send the articles to the Review.7 She responded, It’s too bad that the centennial commission didn’t see things our way. I had surmised as much, when I didn’t hear from you earlier in the month. If you can use the second...