Oran Milo Roberts was at the center of every important event in Texas between 1857 and 1883. He served on the state supreme court on three separate occasions, twice as chief justice. As president of the 1861 Secession Convention he was instrumental in leading Texas out of the Union. He then raised and commanded an infantry regiment in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Roberts was a delegate to the 1866 Constitutional Convention and was elected by the state legislature to the United States Senate, though Republicans in Congress refused to seat him. He served two terms as governor from 1879 to 1883. Despite being a major figure in Texas history, there are no published biographies of Roberts. This dissertation seeks to examine Roberts's place in Texas history and analyze the factors that drove him to seek power. It will also explore the major events in which he participated and determine his historical legacy to the state.

The subject of this manuscript is the Texas Rangers “clean-up” of San Augustine, which was undertaken between late January 1935 until approximately July 1936 at the direction of then newly-elected Governor James V. Allred, in response to the local “troubles” that arose from an near decade long “crime wave.” Allred had been elected on a platform advocating dramatic reform of state law enforcement, and the success of the “clean-up” was heralded as validation of those reforms, which included the creation of – and the Rangers’ integration into – the Texas Department of Public Safety that same year. Despite such historic significance for the community of San Augustine, the state, and the Texas Rangers, no detailed account has ever been published. The few existing published accounts are terse, vague, and inadequate to address the relevant issues. They are often also overly reliant on limited oral accounts and substantially factually flawed, thereby rendering their interpretive analysis moot in regard to certain issues. Additionally, it is a period of San Augustine’s history that haunts that community to this day, particularly as a result of the wide-ranging myths that have taken hold in the absence of a thoroughly researched and documented published account. Concerns …

Joaquín de Arredondo was the most powerful and influential person in northeastern New Spain from 1811 to 1821. His rise to prominence began in 1811 when the Spanish military officer and a small royalist army suppressed Miguel Hidalgo’s revolution in the province of Nuevo Santander. This prompted the Spanish government to promote Arredondo to Commandant General of the Eastern Internal Provinces, making him the foremost civil and military authority in northeastern New Spain. Arredondo’s tenure as commandant general proved difficult, as he had to deal with insurgents, invaders from the United States, hostile Indians, pirates, and smugglers. Because warfare in Europe siphoned much needed military and financial support, and disagreements with New Spain’s leadership resulted in reductions of the commandant general’s authority, Arredondo confronted these threats with little assistance from the Spanish government. In spite of these obstacles, he maintained royalist control of New Spain from 1811 to 1821, and, in doing so, changed the course of Texas, Mexican, and United States history. In 1813, he defeated insurgents and American invaders at the Battle of Medina, and from 1817 to 1820, his forces stopped Xavier Mina’s attempt to bring independence to New Spain, prevented French exiles from establishing a colony …

The Texas Constitution of 1876 set aside three million acres of Texas public land in exchange for construction of the monumental red granite Capitol that continues to house Texas state government today. The Capitol project and the land went to an Illinois syndicate led by men influential in business and politics. Austin's statehouse is a recognizable symbol of Texas around the world. So too, the massive Panhandle tract given in exchange -- what became the "fabulous" XIT Ranch -- has come to, for many, symbolize Texas and its role in the nineteenth century cattle boom. After finding sales prospects for the land, known as the Capitol Reservation, weak at the time, backed by British capital, the Illinois group, often called the Capitol Syndicate, turned their efforts to cattle ranching to satisfy investors until demand for the land increased. The operation included a satellite ranch in Montana to which two-year-old steers from Texas were sent for fattening, often "over the trail" on a route increasingly blocked by people and settlement. Rather than a study focused on ranching operations on the ground -- the roundups, the cattle drives, the cowboys -- this instead uncovers the business and political side of the Syndicate's …

This dissertation examines the gay rights movement occurring in Dallas, Texas, from the mid-twentieth century to present day by focusing on the work of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance (DGLA), previously known as the Dallas Gay Political Caucus and the Dallas Gay Alliance. Members of that group utilized a methodology they called "the Dallas Way" that minimized mass protests and rallies in favor of using backroom negotiations with the people who could make the changes sought by the movement. The fact that most of the members of the DGLA were white, professional men aided in the success of their methodology. Particularly useful in this type of effort is the use of legal action. The Dallas community supported several lawsuits that attempted to overthrow various versions of sodomy laws in the Texas Penal Code that criminalized an entire population of gay men and lesbians in the state.

During the Progressive Era in the United States, social hygiene reformers underwent a fundamental change in their stance toward women accused of prostitution or promiscuous behavior. Rather than viewing such women as unfortunate victims of circumstance who were worthy of compassion, many Progressives deemed them as predatory villains who instead deserved incarceration, forced rehabilitation, and non-consenting medical interference. Texas, due to the many military bases within its borders, became a key battleground in this moral crusade against women as the carriers and proliferators of VD. "Promiscuous" women were seen as not only dangerous to the soldiers but also as a threat to the nation's security, creating an environment that led Texas Progressives to suppress women's civil liberties in the name of protecting soldiers. The catalyst for this change in attitude was World War I. The Great War brought to the forefront an unpleasant reality facing a significant percentage of America's fighting men: venereal disease. While combating sexually transmitted diseases was a serious medical and manpower concern for the military in the era before penicillin, the sole focus on women as the carriers and proliferators of VD led to a nationwide campaign against the "social evil" that demonized women and led …

This dissertation analyzes Fort Worth's Mexican community from 1960 to 2000 while considering the idea of citizenship through representation in education and politics. After establishing an introductory chapter that places the research in context with traditional Chicano scholarship while utilizing prominent ideas and theories that exist within Modern Imperial studies, the ensuing chapter looks into the rise of Fort Worth's Mexican population over the last four decades of the twentieth century. Thereafter, this work brings the attention to Mexican education in Fort Worth beginning in the 1960s and going through the end of the twentieth century. This research shows some of the struggles Mexicans encountered as they sought increased representation in the classroom, on the school board, and within other areas of the Fort Worth Independent School District. Meanwhile, Mexicans were in direct competition with African Americans who also sought increased representation while simultaneously pushing for more aggressive integration efforts against the wishes of Mexican leadership. Subsequently, this research moves the attention to political power in Fort Worth, primarily focusing on the Fort Worth city council. Again, this dissertation begins in the 1960s after the Fort Worth opened the election of the mayor to the people of Fort Worth. No …