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Twentieth-Century Texas:
A Social and Cultural History

John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley, eds.

((Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2008.)
Illustrated. 480 pages. Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-57441-246-8


Book Review by Dr. Kirk Bane
"By the outset of the twenty-first century Texas had essentially shed its frontier heritage, but Hollywood films, local rodeos, state fairs, urban cowboys, dance halls, and museum exhibits still provide nostalgic snapshots into its storied past. Even so, the image of a rural, male-dominated, homogeneous society no longer rings true with the reality of an urban, diverse, heterogeneous state. The social and cultural changes of the twentieth-century-ethnic, racial, and religious diversity, changing gender roles, environmental concerns, urban sprawl, high-tech industries, expanding educational and philanthropic opportunities, and cultural and artistic expression-have transformed the state, making it more like other cosmopolitan parts of the nation. For the near future these trends will likely continue as Texans of all stripes and backgrounds put their stamp on the Lone Star State." So assert John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley in this valuable collection of essays on recent Texas history.

Comprised of an insightful introduction and fifteen solidly researched chapters, this is a superb anthology, scholarly, inclusive, and readable. Lamar University professors Storey and Kelley have recruited an impressive team of contributors. Chapters include Gerald Betty's "Manifestations of the Lone Star: The Search for Indian Sovereignty," Anthony Quiroz's "The Quest for Identity and Citizenship: Mexican Americans in Twentieth-Century Texas," Cary D. Wintz's "The Struggle for Dignity: African Americans in Twentieth-Century Texas," Angela Boswell's "From Farm to Future: Women's Journey through Twentieth-Century Texas," Storey's "Pagodas amid the Steeples: The Changing Religious Landscape," Ralph A. Wooster's "Over Here: Texans on the Home Front," Gary Hartman's "From Yellow Roses to Dixie Chicks: Women and Gender in Texas Music History," Mark Busby's "Goodbye Ol' Paint, Hello Rapid Transit: Texas Literature in the Twentieth-Century," Don Graham's "Lone Star Cinema: A Century of Texas in the Movies," Michael R. Grauer's "Wider Than the Limits of Our State: Texas Art in the Twentieth-Century," Bill O'Neal's "The Games Texans Play," Kelley's "Private Wealth, Public Good: Texans and Philanthropy," Gene B. Preuss' "Public Schools Come of Age," Tai Kreidler's "Lone Star Landscape: Texans and Their Environment," and "The Second Texas Revolution: From Cotton to Genetics and the Information Age" by Kenneth E. Hendrickson and Glenn M. Sanford. What a splendid collection of articles.

While every essay deserves reading, the contribution on movies and Texas by Dr. Graham, J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American and English Literature at the University of Texas, is especially enlightening, opinionated, and entertaining. (I suppose this betrays my intense interest in motion pictures!) The first films shot in the state were Edison newsreels which captured the devastation of the Great Storm at Galveston in September 1900. "Oddly," Graham observes, "the image of Texas in the movies began with a documentary of a disaster, not with the soundless puffs of smoke from blazing six-guns." Moreover, he offers perceptive commentary on early western movies and films about the Alamo, the first of which, The Immortal Alamo, was shot at San Antonio's Star Film Ranch in 1911. Assessing John Wayne's 1960 version, Graham declares that "nobody is likely to argue that this film is remarkable in any sense except its great running time and Wayne's presence-which is considerable. The film is didactic and filled with historical bloopers." The most "iconic" Texas pictures, "the ones that most powerfully defined the state as a mythic site," he contends, are Red River (1948), Giant (1956), Hud (1963), and The Last Picture Show (1971), which acted "as a coda on the Big Three." According to Professor Graham, "no Texas films before or afterwards, are as rich as these, though some academics would plump for John Sayles' Lone Star (1996)." He points out, however, that "in a century of Texas in the movies the state has changed drastically, and many of its regional characteristics seem to have largely disappeared…With 82 percent of its population residing in cities and suburbs, and with its steady influx of citizens from other parts of the U.S., the Texas that is seen in films like Red River, Giant, and The Last Picture Show seems to belong to another age." Also intriguing is Dr. Graham's consideration of the movies released in the aftermath of the JFK assassination in Dallas. These include Dr. Strangelove (1964), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), and Executive Action (1973), which portrayed Texans "as dangerous buffoons, rightwing fanatics, and threats to American democracy."

Every student of Lone Star history should read Twentieth-Century Texas; it is a commendable compilation, skillfully assembled and thoughtfully written.



Review by Dr. Kirk Bane (Blinn College, Bryan campus)

October 3, 2014
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