This thesis shows the social and economic history of the El Paso area from the time of Spanish settlers through present day.

"The history of the Spanish-speaking population of Texas, as noted throughout this study, is synonymous with this group's struggle to overcome its social and economic subordination in a society where Anglo-American culture, language, and customes predominate. Mexican-American politics during this century have included several factors, namely abolishment of predjudices against Americans of Mexican ancestry, improvement of educational facilities and opportunities, eradication of this group's social apathy, and elimination of any other inequities which plagued this ethnic group. Progress in these fields was, Mexican-American leaders believed, precursory to direct governmental participation of Texans of Mexican descent - as voters and candidates - in local, state, and national elections."--leaf 90.

The Mexican Revolution probably affected Texas more than any other state. As the Revolution intensified, Texans responded with increased efforts to shape the Mexican policies of the Woodrow Wilson administration. Some became directly involved in the Revolution and the U.S. reaction to it, but most Texans sought to influence American policy toward Mexico through pressure on their political leaders in Austin and Washington. Based primarily on research in the private and public papers of leading state and national political figures, archival sources such as the Congressional Record and the Department of State's decimal file, major newspapers of the era, and respected works, this study details the successes and failures that Texans experienced in their endeavors to influence Wilson's Mexican policies.

Historians of the prohibition movement in Texas have assumed that the state's main ethnic minorities-Germans, Mexican Americans and African Americans-strongly opposed restrictions on the production, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. This study focuses on the voting patterns in fifteen counties chosen to represent varying percentages of these ethnic minorities in their populations during three statewide anti-alcohol elections (1997, 1911, and 1919) in an effort to determine exactly the extent of opposition to prohibition on the part of ethnic minorities in Texas. It also examines the actions of the prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists in courting the vote of ethnic minority groups. This analysis and comparison of election results in fifteen counties confirms overwhelming opposition to prohibition on the part of all three of Texas's ethnic minorities.

This thesis explores the history behind the creation of Texan boundaries. The boundaries of Texas were the cause of disputes between the French, the Spanish, Mexico, and later the United States of America. The intensity of these disputes threatened to disrupt the Union itself, and caused a war between the United States and Mexico.

This dissertation is a study of the Eastern Apache nations and their struggle to survive with their culture intact against numerous enemies intent on destroying them. It is a synthesis of published secondary and primary materials, supported with archival materials, primarily from the Béxar Archives. The Apaches living on the plains have suffered from a lack of a good comprehensive study, even though they played an important role in hindering Spanish expansion in the American Southwest. When the Spanish first encountered the Apaches they were living peacefully on the plains, although they occasionally raided nearby tribes. When the Spanish began settling in the Southwest they changed the dynamics of the region by introducing horses. The Apaches quickly adopted the animals into their culture and used them to dominate their neighbors. Apache power declined in the eighteenth century when their Caddoan enemies acquired guns from the French, and the powerful Comanches gained access to horses and began invading northern Apache territory. Surrounded by enemies, the Apaches increasingly turned to the Spanish for aid and protection rather than trade. The Spanish-Apache peace was fraught with problems. The Spaniards tended to lump all Apaches into one group even though, in reality, each band …

"The purpose of this study was to show the position of Texas in the relations between the United States and Mexico from 1876 to 1910. With this thought in mind, the general problem has been to link the two countries through Texas. The Texas border relations between the United States and Mexico during this period were interesting because they showed the continued success of the efforts of the past years in building up better principles of settlement. " --leaf 129

This thesis examines the history of Jefferson, Marion County, Texas, and its cycle of prosperity and decline.

Prostitution was a rampant and thriving industry in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Texas. Due to the arrival of the M.K. and T. Railroad, the city of Denison became a frontier boomtown and prostitution as well as other vice elements grew alongside the town. Skiddy Street was one road south of Main Street in Denison and housed the most notorious brothels and saloons in the city. In the late nineteenth century, few national laws were present to regulate red-light districts and those that existed were largely ignored. Economically, prostitution was an important addition to the coffers of cities such as Denison, and through taxing and licensing of prostitutes, city leaders profited off of the vice industry. The early decades of the twentieth century led to changes in the toleration of prostitution and red-light districts on the national level. Progressive reform movements, temperance, World War I, and the National Railroad Shopmen’s strike, each contributed to the dissolution of Skiddy Street in Denison as toleration and open acceptance of prostitution waned. This study attempts to understand how and why prostitution thrived during Denison’s early frontier days, who some of the prostitutes were that plied their trade on Skiddy Street, and how …

This thesis is a study of the history of the education of Spanish-speaking people in Texas. The study covers a long period of time, from the middle of the seventeenth century to the present time.

"This thesis analyzes the impact of the Mexican-American voters in south Texas on the 1960 presidential election. During that election year, this ethnic minority was strong enough to merit direct appeals from the Democratic presidential candidate, and subsequently, allowed to conduct a unique campaign divorced from the direct control of the conservative state Democratic machinery...The study of the Mexican-American political behavior in 1960 proceeds in three stages. The first chapter examines the political factionalism within the state Democratic Party suggest the conservative solution to the problem of liberal splinter groups, and evaluates Lyndon Johnson's contribution to the Democratic ticket in south Texas. Chapter II probes into the importance of imagery and indentity in politics, challenges the possibility of a religiously-based bloc vote in south Texas, but postulates the probability of a sub-conscious religious identification with the Democratic candidate. The last chapter describes the Valley 'Viva Kennedy' clubs, their origin, organization, activities, and contributions. To substantiate the author's hypothesis, oral interviews, club reports, personal files, letters, and contemporary newspapers were extensively used."-- leaf 1.

Early general history up to 1900. "I have listened to the stories told about it by the old time cowboys, by the old settlers, and by some of the old Fort Concho soldiers themselves. As a result of this experience, I have wanted to go into its past more carefully and search for more facts regarding the region, its first inhabitants, and its early history in general."-- leaf iii.

This dissertation describes the various military outposts on the Texas frontier between 1866 and 1886. It is arranged geographically, with each chapter covering a major fort or geographical area and the smaller posts associated with it. Official military records and government reports serve as the primary sources of data. In 1866 when the United States Army returned to the defense of Texas after four years of civil war, the state's frontier lay open to depredations from several Indian tribes and from lawless elements in Mexico. The army responded to those attacks by establishing several lines of major forts to protect the various danger areas of the frontier. To extend its control and protection to remote, vulnerable, or strategically important points within its jurisdiction, each major fort established outposts. Two main categories of outposts existed in Texas, subposts and picket stations. Subposts served as permanent scouting camps or guarded strategic points or lines of communication. Picket stations protected outlying locations, such as stage stations, that were particularly vulnerable to attack. Because Indians raiding in Texas usually operated in fairly small groups, garrisons at outposts were similarly small. Company-sized detachments generally garrisoned subposts, and picket stations seldom held more than a dozen …

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the ramifications of Taft's policy extending "all proper support to every legitimate and beneficial enterprise." One must note particularly the Mexican attitude toward Americans and the United States government because the uprising which began with the overthrow of Diaz was a repudiation of foreigners and foreign domination, especially American.

Beauford Halbert Jester, thirty-sixth governor of Texas, had served nearly six months of his second term when he died on July 11, 1949. He tends to be remembered as the only Texas governor to die in office, but his accomplishments deserve greater recognition. Elected as the Establishment candidate in a bitter campaign against a liberal opponent, Jester had a surprisingly progressive administration. During his tenure the state generally expanded its services, began a prison reform program, reorganized the public school system, began an ambitious farm-to-market road program, attempted a new approach to juvenile delinquency, expanded educational opportunities for blacks, created a legislative redistricting board, and established a building fund for state-supported colleges and universities.

This study examines the efforts of the Union and Confederate diplomatic agents to influence the events along the Rio Grande during the Civil War. The paper compares the successful accomplishments of Confederate agent Jose Quintero to the hindered maneuverings of the Union representatives, Leonard Pierce and M. M. Kimuey. Utilizing microfilmed sources from State Department records and Confederate despatches, the paper relates the steps Quintero took to secure the Confederate-Mexico border trade, obtain favorable responses from the various ruling parties in northern Mexico, and hamper the Union agents' attempts to quell the border trade.

Throughout the colonial period, the Spanish attempted to Hispanicize the Indians along the northern frontier of New Spain. The conquistador, the missionary, the civilian settler, and the presidial soldier all took part in this effort. At La Junta de los Rios, a fertile area inhabited by both sedentary and semi-sedentary Indians, each of these institutions played a part in fundamentally changing the region and its occupants. This research, relying primarily on published Spanish source documents, sets the effort to Hispanicize La Junta in the broader sphere of Spain's frontier policy.

The purpose of this monograph is to study the early Texas Republican party within the framework of well-known political party functions, i.e., to provide political leadership, recruit governmental personnel, generate public policy, and propagate ideology.

Traditional histories of the Texas frontier overlook a crucial component: efforts to defend Texas against Indians would have been far less successful without the contributions of Indian allies. The government of Texas tended to use smaller, nomadic bands such as the Lipan Apaches and Tonkawas as military allies. Immigrant Indian tribes such as the Shawnee and Delaware were employed primarily as scouts and interpreters. Texas, as a result of the terms of her annexation, retained a more control over Indian policy than other states. Texas also had a larger unsettled frontier region than other states. This necessitated the use of Indian allies in fighting and negotiating with hostile Indians, as well as scouting for Ranger and Army expeditions.

This study is devoted to the activities of the urban liberals and their rural allies in their attempt to wrest control of the state party from the conservative Democrats.

This study examines the relations of white Baptists with racial and ethnic minorities in Texas from the beginning of organized Baptist work in Texas in the mid-nineteenth century, through the United States Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Topeka case in 1954, Emphasizing the role of attitudes in forming actions, it examines the ideas of various leaders of the chief Baptist bodies in Texas: the artist General Convention of Texas, the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas and the American Baptist Convention. The minorities included in the work are the Negroes, the Mexican-Americans, non-Anglo-Saxon Europeans, American Indians, Orientals, and Jews. Several factors tend to justify a study of this subject. First, there is the prominence of race relations in the nation which has aroused interest in the effect which race relations have had upon affairs in Texas, Second, the widespread changes which have taken place in Texas during, the last two decades suggest the feasibility of a study of that phenomenon, and the fact that many consider the race problem to be a moral and religious issue indicates the relevance of the churches' relationships to these changes. As the largest religious denomination in the state, the Baptists offer a viable …

"At the present time the textile industry in Texas is seeking to normalize itself after running at a peak production for the last ten years. It is one of the most competitive of our industries. The mills in Texas have always had to compete with the large mills located in the Eastern states, which have many advantages over the Texas mills. ... It has been only recently since the manufacture of synthetic fibers began in Texas, and it has not yet been fully completed. At the present time only the ingredients for synthetic fibers are produced in Texas. ... Cotton and wool manufacturing may develop gradually, but in the field of synthetics appears the greatest opportunity for a future textile industry in Texas."

"This work examines the fundamentalist controversy in Texas from 1920 until 1929. Stressing the role of J. Frank Norris as the state's fundamentalist leader, it studies the manifestations of the controversy in both the religious and the secular institutions of the state. Since the movement met little organized resistance in Texas, the fundamentalists won significant victories. The study is organized topically. The first part is a general introduction to the controversy on both the state and national level. The second part portrays Norris as the leader of fundamentalist forces. The third and fourth parts examine the conflict within the Protestant denominations especially among the Baptists and Methodists and its impact upon secular institutions. "-- leaf 1

This study analyzes the prisoner of war program in Texas and evaluates the Army's role in carrying out this assignment. Additional questions were, how were POWs treated? What problems did they create? How did civilians react to the presence of 50,000 prisoners?