During World War II the United States mobilized its industrial assets to become the great “Arsenal of Democracy” through the cooperation of the government and private firms. The Dallas Story examines a specific aviation factory, operated by the North American Aviation (NAA) company in Dallas, Texas. Terrance Furgerson explores the construction and opening of the factory, its operation, its relations with the local community, and the closure of the facility at the end of the war. Prior to the opening of the factory in 1941, the city of Dallas had practically no existing industrial base. Despite this deficiency, the residents quickly learned the craft of manufacturing airplanes, and by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack the NAA factory was mass-producing the AT-6 trainer aircraft. The entry of the United States into the war brought about an enlargement of the NAA factory, and the facility began production of the B-24 Liberator bomber and the famed P-51 Mustang fighter. By the end of the war the Texas division of NAA had manufactured nearly 19,000 airplanes, making it one of the most prolific U.S. factories.

Joe Olexa enlisted in the US Army in December 1940, figuring that if he was going to be in a war, he might as well start training. Assigned to the 1st Infantry Division, nicknamed “The Big Red One,” he served in Company L of its 26th Infantry Regiment for the next four years. Along the way he trained with the division in maneuvers in the United States; shipped to England in 1942; landed at Oran, Algeria, in the Operation Torch landings of November 1942; and fought in Tunisia, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium, and Germany. Olexa was one of the first group of enlistees that brought the division up to full strength in the buildup prior to Pearl Harbor, and was a sergeant by the time he went overseas. He served as a squad leader, platoon sergeant, and acting platoon leader, outlasting nearly all the men in his company. His memoir features accounts of unusual adventures in Tunisia when his battalion was detached from the rest of the division, and presents a detailed and intense account of his platoon’s experiences at El Guettar. Later, Olexa became a “Sea Scout,” going ashore on Sicily the night before the invasion to provide signals to …

Identified with Texas is the first published biography of Texas Governor Elisha Marshall Pease (1812-1883), presented by historian Elizabeth Whitlow as a dual biography of Pease and his wife, Lucadia Niles Pease (1813-1905). Pease volunteered to fight in the first battle of the Revolution at Gonzales, and he served with the Texan Army at the Siege of Bexar. Pease served in the first three state legislatures after Texas joined the Union in 1845, was elected governor in 1853 and re-elected in 1855, and returned to the governorship as an interim appointee from 1867 to 1869 during Reconstruction. His achievements in all these positions were substantial. Lucadia Niles Pease was known as the Governor’s “Lady.” Moreover, her early, independent travel and her stated position as a “woman’s rights woman” in the 1850s, as well as her support for sending a daughter away to college in the 1870s to earn a degree, all serve as markers of her intelligence and the strength of her convictions. To tell their story, Whitlow mined thousands of letters and papers saved by the Pease family and housed in the Austin History Center of the Austin Public Library, as well as in the Governor’s Papers at the …

Changing Perspectives charts the pivotal period in Houston’s history when Jewish and Black leadership eventually came together to work for positive change. This is a story of two communities, both of which struggled to claim the rights and privileges they desired. Previous scholars of Southern Jewish history have argued that Black-Jewish relations did not exist in the South. However, during the 1930s to the 1980s, Jews and Blacks in Houston interacted in diverse and oftentimes surprising ways. The distance between Houston’s Jews and Blacks diminished after changing demographics, the end of segregation, city redistricting, and the emergence of Black political power. Allison Schottenstein shows that Black-Jewish relations did exist during the Long Civil Rights Movement in Houston.

Much of the history written about the Vietnam War overlooks the U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Platoons. These CAPs lived in the Vietnamese villages, with the difficult and dangerous mission of defending the villages from both the National Liberation Front guerrillas and the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. The CAPs also worked to improve living conditions by helping the people with projects, such as building schools, bridges, and irrigation systems for their fields. In War in the Villages, Ted Easterling examines how well the CAPs performed as a counterinsurgency method, how the Marines adjusted to life in the Vietnamese villages, and how they worked to accomplish their mission. The CAPs generally performed their counterinsurgency role well, but they were hampered by factors beyond their control. Most important was the conflict between the Army and the Marine Corps over an appropriate strategy for the Vietnam War, along with weakness of the government of the Republic of South Vietnam and the strategic and the tactical ability of the North Vietnamese Army. War in the Villages helps to explain how and why this potential was realized and squandered. Marines who served in the CAPs served honorably in difficult circumstances. Most of these …

Dataset of words collected from newspapers and magazines from twenty different countries; the individual files include concordance information, parts-of-speech, and other arrangements of the data.

Official, quarterly journal of the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association (NRCA) containing articles, opinions, and research in professional rehabilitation counseling regarding the needs of individuals employed in a wide variety of work settings and with wide-ranging professional interests.