This book contains a collection of letters written by Lieutenant Theodore Thadeus Sobieski (T. T. S.) Laidley between 1845 and 1848. The letters discuss life as a soldier during the Mexican War; most of the letters were written from various stations in Mexico. Each letter is bracketed by editorial commentary on the historical context and the collection is prefaced by a brief biography of Laidley's life prior to the first letter. Index starts on page 179.

James L. Freaner was one of America’s first war correspondents covering General Winfield Scott’s campaign during the Mexican War. His letters appeared in newspapers under the byline “Mustang,” and his reports from the front included publication of complete casualty lists (long before official reports became public), detailed battle descriptions, and observations on postwar Mexico. Freaner’s greatest contribution was persuading Nicholas P. Trist, negotiator with Mexico, to ignore his recall and conclude a peace treaty that added California, Nevada, Utah, and other territory to a growing country. From the Halls of the Montezumas is a complete compilation of Freaner’s Mexican War reporting. Editors Alan D. Gaff and Donald H. Gaff annotated the text with footnotes identifying people, places, and events, also adding pictures of key figures and maps.

Did you know that Pre-Columbian Mexican cuisine was low in fat and high in fiber and vitamins? Based on corn, squash, tomatoes, beans, and lean meats, the everyday diet of the first Americans was remarkably close to the recommendations for healthy eating we hear about every day. Now for the first time, cooks can use the secrets of the Aztecs in today’s kitchen, thanks to Kris Rudolph’s thoroughly researched cookbook. And because cooks from both sides of the border will be eager to try these recipes, Rudolph presents the recipes and text in Spanish on facing pages. The book opens with a short introduction outlining the history of Mexican cooking, followed by an overview of healthy eating habits, a description of the most common ingredients, and a useful guide to planning for parties. The fifty recipes cover everything from appetizers to after-dinner refreshers and each includes the number of calories, amounts of total fat and saturated fat, grams of carbohydrates, and amount of fiber. Rudolph suggests low-fat and low-carbohydrate alternatives, as well as ways to vary the spiciness.

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service which has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. Thirty-one Rangers, with lives spanning more than two centuries, have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 1: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1823-1861, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the seven inductees who served Texas before the Civil War. He begins with Stephen F. Austin, “the Father of Texas,” who laid the foundations of the Ranger service, and then covers John C. Hays, Ben McCulloch, Samuel H. Walker, William A. A. “Bigfoot” Wallace, John S. Ford, and Lawrence Sul Ross. Using primary records and reliable secondary sources, and rejecting apocryphal tales, The Ranger Ideal presents the true stories of these intrepid men who fought to tame a land with gallantry, grit, and guns. This Volume 1 is the first of a planned three-volume series covering all of the Texas Rangers inducted into the Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, Texas.

Historical description of military operations organized into eight chapters covering frontier Texas: [1] Tribal Warfare of Colonial Tejas, 1822-1835, [2] The War for Texian Independence, 1835-1836, [3] Conflicts of the Early Texas Republic, 1836-1838, [4] Conflicts of the Middle Texas Republic, 1838-1840, [5] Conflicts of the Late Texas Republic, 1841-1845, [6] The Mexican-American War, 1846-1848, [7] Conflicts of Antebellum Texas, 1846-1861, and [8] The War for Confederate Independence, 1861-1865. Index starts on page 393.

Tracking the Texas Rangers is an anthology of sixteen previously published articles, arranged in chronological history, covering key topics of the intrepid and sometimes controversial law officers named the Texas Rangers. Determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challenge—the actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the war with Mexico, for example, some murdered, pillaged, and raped. Yet these same Rangers eased the resultant United States victory. Even their beginning and the first use of the term “Texas Ranger” have mixed and complex origins. Tracking the Texas Rangers covers topics such as their early years, the great Comanche Raid of 1840, and the effective use of Colt revolvers. Article authors discuss Los Diablos Tejanos, Rip Ford, the Cortina War, the use of Hispanic Rangers and Rangers in labor disputes, and the recapture of Cynthia Ann Parker and the capture of John Wesley Hardin. The selections cover critical aspects of those experiences—organization, leadership, cultural implications, rural and urban life, and violence. In their introduction, editors Bruce A. Glasrud and Harold J. …

Three Decades of Engendering History collects ten of Antonia I. Castañeda's best articles, including the widely circulated article "Engendering the History of Alta California, 1769-1848," in which Castañeda took a direct and honest look at sex and gender relations in colonial California, exposing stories of violence against women as well as stories of survival and resistance. Other articles included are the prize-winning "Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History," and two recent articles, "Lullabies y Canciones de Cuna" and "La Despedida." The latter two represent Castañeda’s most recent work excavating, mapping, and bringing forth the long and strong post-WWII history of Tejanas. Finally, the volume includes three interviews with Antonia Castañeda that contribute the important narrative of her lived experience—the "theory in the flesh" and politics of necessity that fueled her commitment to transformative scholarship that highlights gender and Chicanas as a legitimate line of inquiry.

“There are some poets we admire for a mastery that allows them to tell a story, express an epiphany, form a conclusion, all gracefully and even memorably— yet language in some way remains external to them. But there are other poets in whom language seems to arise spontaneously, fulfilling a design in which the poet’s intention feels secondary. Books by these poets we read with a gathering sense of excitement and recognition at the linguistic web being drawn deliberately tighter around a nucleus of human experience that is both familiar and completely new, until at last it seems no phrase is misplaced and no word lacks its resonance with what has come before. Such a book is Austin Segrest’s Door to Remain.”— Karl Kirchwey, author of Poems of Rome and judge

Author Harriett Denise Joseph relates biographies of eleven notable Mexicanos and Tejanos, beginning with Santa Anna and the impact his actions had on Texas. She discusses the myriad contributions of Erasmo and Juan Seguín to Texas history, as well as the factors that led a hero of the Texas Revolution (Juan) to be viewed later as a traitor by his fellow Texans. Admired by many but despised by others, folk hero Juan Nepomuceno Cortina is one of the most controversial figures in the history of nineteenth-century South Texas. Preservationist and historian Adina De Zavala fought to save part of the Alamo site and other significant structures. Labor activist Emma Tenayuca’s youth, passion, courage, and sacrifice merit attention for her efforts to help the working class. Joseph reveals the individual and collective accomplishments of a powerhouse couple, bilingual educator Edmundo Mireles and folklorist-author Jovita González. She recognizes the military and personal battles of Medal of Honor recipient Raul “Roy” Benavidez. Irma Rangel, the first Latina to serve in the Texas House of Representatives, is known for the many “firsts” she achieved during her lifetime. Finally, we read about Selena’s life and career, as well as her tragic death and her continuing …

Higher Education in Texas is the first book to tell the history, defining events, and critical participants in the development of higher education in Texas from approximately 1838 to 1970. Charles Matthews, Chancellor Emeritus of the Texas State University System, begins the story with the land grant policies of the Spanish, Mexicans, Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas that led to the growth of Texas. Religious organizations supplied the first of many colleges, years before the Texas Legislature began to fund and support public colleges and universities. Matthews devotes a chapter to the junior/community colleges and their impact on providing a low-cost education alternative for local students. These community colleges also played a major role in economic development in their communities. Further chapters explore the access and equity in educating women, African Americans, and Hispanics.

From their founding in the 1820s up to the modern age, the Texas Rangers have shown the ability to adapt and survive. Part of that survival depended on their use of firearms. The evolving technology of these weapons often determined the effectiveness of these early day Rangers. John Coffee “Jack” Hays and Samuel Walker would leave their mark on the Rangers by incorporating new technology which allowed them to alter tactics when confronting their adversaries. The Frontier Battalion was created at about the same time as the Colt Peacemaker and the Winchester 73—these were the guns that “won the West.” Firearms of the Texas Rangers, with more than 180 photographs, tells the history of the Texas Rangers primarily through the use of their firearms. Author Doug Dukes narrates famous episodes in Ranger history, including Jack Hays and the Paterson, the Walker Colt, the McCulloch Colt Revolver (smuggled through the Union blockade during the Civil War), and the Frontier Battalion and their use of the Colt Peacemaker and Winchester and Sharps carbines. Readers will delight in learning of Frank Hamer’s marksmanship with his Colt Single Action Army and his Remington, along with Captain J.W. McCormick and his two .45 Colt pistols, …

Américo Paredes (1915-1999) was a folklorist, scholar, and professor at the University of Texas at Austin who is widely acknowledged as one of the founding scholars of Chicano Studies. Born in Brownsville, Texas, along the southern U.S.-Mexico Border, Paredes grew up between two worlds—one written about in books, the other sung about in ballads and narrated in folktales. After service in World War II, Paredes entered the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1956. With the publication of his dissertation, “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and Its Hero in 1958, Paredes soon emerged as a challenger to the status quo. His book questioned the mythic nature of the Texas Rangers and provided an alternative counter-cultural narrative to the existing traditional narratives of Walter Prescott Webb and J. Frank Dobie. For the next forty years Paredes was a brilliant teacher and prolific writer who championed the preservation of border culture and history. He was a soft-spoken, at times temperamental, yet fearless professor. In 1970 he co-founded the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and is credited with introducing the concept of Greater Mexico, decades before its …

Adolphe Gouhenant tells the story of artist, revolutionary, and early North Texas resident Francois Ignace (Adolphe) Gouhenant (1804-1871). Gouhenant was selected by well-known Icarian communist Etienne Cabet to lead an advance guard from France to settle a utopian colony in North Texas. The community, beset by hardships, ultimately scapegoated Gouhenant, accused him of being a French agent, and expelled him. He then journeyed first to Fort Worth to teach the federal soldiers French and art, and next to Dallas, where he founded the town’s first arts establishment in the 1850s. Gouhenant set up shop as a daguerreotypist and photographed the town’s early residents. His Arts Saloon was the scene of many exhibitions and dances but ultimately became the high stake in a nasty battle among Dallas’s leading citizens, setting legal precedent for Texas homestead law.

This volume includes information about the play-party in Oklahoma, folklore of Texas birds, tall tales, folk anecdotes, Texas folk songs and ballads, and other folklore (back cover). The index begins on page 185.

Collection of Tex-Mex folklore and related essays, including papers presented at Texas Folklore Society meetings. The book is organized into four topical categories: I. Remembering Our Ancestors, II. Texas-Mexican Folklore, III. Miscellaneous Memorabilia, and IV. The Family Saga (Cont'd).

This fourth and final volume of the Savage Frontier series completes the history of the Texas Rangers and frontier warfare in the Republic of Texas era. During this period of time, fabled Captain John Coffee Hays and his small band of Rangers were often the only government-authorized frontier fighters employed to keep the peace. Author Stephen L. Moore covers the assembly of Texan forces to repel two Mexican incursions during 1842, the Vasquez and Woll invasions. This volume covers the resulting battle at Salado Creek, the defeat of Dawson’s men, and a skirmish at Hondo Creek near San Antonio. Texas Rangers also played a role in the ill-fated Somervell and Mier expeditions. By 1844, Captain Hays’ Rangers had forever changed the nature of frontier warfare with the use of the Colt five-shooter repeating pistol. This new weapon allowed his men to remain on horseback and keep up a continuous and deadly fire in the face of overwhelming odds, especially at Walker’s Creek. Through extensive use of primary military documents and first-person accounts, Moore sets the record straight on some of Jack Hays’ lesser-known Comanche encounters. “Moore’s fourth and final volume of the Savage Frontier series contains many compelling battle narratives, …

Authors Bob Alexander and Donaly E. Brice grappled with several issues when deciding how to relate a general history of the Texas Rangers. Should emphasis be placed on their frontier defense against Indians, or focus more on their role as guardians of the peace and statewide law enforcers? What about the tumultuous Mexican Revolution period, 1910-1920? And how to deal with myths and legends such as One Riot, One Ranger? Texas Rangers: Lives, Legend, and Legacy is the authors’ answer to these questions, a one-volume history of the Texas Rangers. The authors begin with the earliest Rangers in the pre-Republic years in 1823 and take the story up through the Republic, Mexican War, and Civil War. Then, with the advent of the Frontier Battalion, the authors focus in detail on each company A through F, relating what was happening within each company concurrently. Thereafter, Alexander and Brice tell the famous episodes of the Rangers that forged their legend, and bring the story up through the twentieth century to the present day in the final chapters.

Book providing.a biographical account of Frank M. Brandstetter, documenting his life and work as a hotelier, corporate executive, and U. S. Army intelligence officer. The text is based on Brandstetter's own recollections and corroborated with source documents and other published accounts. Index starts on page 367.

Memoir of Sharon Hudgins and her husband, Tom, describing their time in Siberia, Russia, with extensive recipes that relate to their anecdotes. It includes a bibliography (p. 345), a recipe index (p. 349) and a subject index (p. 363).

This book gives an overview of the city of Dallas, Texas including statistics about the people and businesses as well as background information regarding the government, businesses, and social aspects of the city. The book also gives information about tourism and points of interest in the city and in Dallas County. Index starts on page 421.