Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Bob Feldman : The Rise of the Texas 'Big Rich,' 1930-1940
Charles Marsh, owner of the Austin American and Austin Statesman (later merged as the Austin American-Statesman), also made big money in the oil business. Image from the Public Welfare Foundation.

The hidden history of Texas
Part 11: 1930-1940/2 -- The rise of the Texas 'Big Rich'
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / January 28, 2013

In his 2009 book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, Vanity Fair magazine correspondent Bryan Burrough indicated how ultra-rich Texas folks like Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, Sid Richardson, and former Austin American and Austin Statesman (they merged into the American-Statesman) owner Charles Marsh were, despite the Great Depression, apparently still able to make big money from Texas’s oil industry between 1930 and 1940:

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14 January 2013

Bob Feldman : Texas During the Great Depression, 1930-1940

Jobless men picket at San Antonio City Hall, c. 1932. Image from the San Antonio Light Collection, UT Institute of Texan Cultures.

The hidden history of Texas
Part 11: 1930-1940/1 -- Economic survival difficult during Great Depression
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / January 14, 2013

[This is the first section of Part 11 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

The oil industry of Texas continued to produce a lot of wealth for out-of-state Eastern investors, some local Texas businessmen, politicians, and investors, and the “non-profit” University of Texas during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But for most people who lived in Texas as farmers or workers between 1930 and 1940, economic survival continued to be difficult.

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27 December 2012

Bob Feldman : Race, Unions, and the Booming Texas Oil Business, 1920-1930

Burkburnett oil field, Burkburnett, Texas, circa 1920. Image from Texas in the 1920s.

The hidden history of Texas
Part 10: 1920-1930/2 -- Race, exploitation of workers, and the booming oil business
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / December 27, 2012

[This is the second section of Part 10 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

In 1920 over 741,000 African-Americans lived in Texas. But given the level of KKK influence in Texas and the limited political and economic opportunities that white supremacist and institutionally racist Texas society generally provided most African-Americans between 1920 and 1930, “a good many African-Americans,” not surprisingly, “left the state in the 1920s,” according to Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas.

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12 December 2012

Bob Feldman : The Rise of the Klan in Texas, 1920-1930

Flyer for "Ku Klux Klan Day," October 24, 1923. Image from The Portal to Texas History.

The hidden history of Texas
Part 10: 1920-1930/1 -- The rise of the Klan in Texas
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / December 12, 2012

[This is the first section of Part 10 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Between 1920 and 1930, the number of people living in Texas increased from over 4.6 million to over 5.8 million, and the percentage of Texas residents who now lived in urban towns and cities with populations above 2,500 people increased from 34 to 41 percent.

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29 May 2012

Bob Feldman : Socialism, Women's Suffrage, and the NAACP in Texas, 1890-1920

Socialist Eugene V. Debs, top center, visited Texas Socialists. Photo courtesy of Marty Boswell, a descendent of E.O. Meitzen of Hallettsville, who helped organize the Farmers' Alliance. Image from labordallas.org.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/6 -- Socialism, women's suffrage, and the NAACP
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / May 28, 2012

[This is the sixth section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

During the period between 1890 and 1920 there was much dissatisfaction among Texas workers and farmers with how capitalist society treated them. So it’s not surprising that political support for an anti-corporate electoral alternative third-party to the pro-corporate Democrats and Republicans -- the Socialist Party -- began to develop in Texas by the beginning of the 20th century. As F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South noted:
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09 April 2012

Bob Feldman : Labor and Farmer Activism in Texas, 1890-1920

Southern Pine Lumber Company workers at the company store, Diboll, Texas, about 1907. Photo courtesy of The History Center, Diboll. Image from Texas Beyond History.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/5 -- Labor and farmer activism
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / April 9, 2012

[This is the fifth section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

During the 1890-1920 period of Texas history a post-1900 revival of Texas labor and farmer activism developed into a worker-farmer political alliance which produced some pro-labor laws between 1900 and 1915 in Texas.

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13 March 2012

Bob Feldman : Texas Oil Industry Emerges; O. Henry Publishes, 1890-1920

William Sydney Porter (later to be known as O. Henry) in Austin, circa 1880's. Image from Austin History Center, Austin Public Library / Wikimedia Commons.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/4 -- Oil business emerges; O. Henry publishes
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / February 28, 2012

[This is the fourth section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

It was during the 1890-1920 historical period that an oil industry first began to develop in Texas. As Randolph Campbell recalled in his book, Gone To Texas, “significant commercial production [in Texas] did not begin until 1894, when well drillers seeking water near Corsicana struck oil instead,” and “production in the Spindletop field [near Beaumont], which reached 17,500,000 barrels in 1902, created the state’s first great oil boom.”

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28 February 2012

Bob Feldman : Disenfranchising Black Voters in Texas, 1890-1920

Poll Tax Receipt, January 30, 1908; digital image from the University of North Texas Libraries.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/3 -- Disenfranchising black voters in Texas
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / February 28, 2012

[This is the third section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Between 1900 and 1910, in an effort to make it more difficult for dissatisfied African-American and poor white small farmers in Texas to express their discontent and their desire for radical democratic political and economic change, politicians intensified their efforts to more permanently disenfranchise African-American voters in the state and to create a poll tax in Texas.

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06 February 2012

Bob Feldman : The Rise and Fall of the Populist Party in Texas, 1890-1920

Negro Populist organizer J. P. Rayner, early 1890's. Image from Vangobot.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/2 -- The Rise and Fall of the Populist Party
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / February 6, 2012

[This is the second section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

In the decade before the then-Democratic Party-oriented white power structure in Texas solidified its early 20th century system of legalized racial segregation and institutionalized white supremacy and white racism, large numbers of politically dissatisfied Texas farmers of different racial backgrounds had thrown their electoral support to an alternative, populist third-party: the People’s Party of America.

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24 January 2012

Bob Feldman : Segregation and Lynchings in Texas, 1890-1920

Unidentified African-American man lynched in Texas, 1910. Image from Legends of America.

The hidden history of Texas
Part IX: 1890-1920/1 -- Segregation and lynchings in Texas
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / January 24, 2012

[This is the first section of Part 9 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Between 1890 and 1920, the number of people who lived in Texas increased from 2,235,000 to 4,663,000. Yet 66 percent of Texans still lived in rural towns with populations below 2,500. But by 1920, over 100,000 people now lived in Dallas, in Fort Worth, in San Antonio, and in Houston -- although only 34,800 people yet lived in Austin and only 77,500 people in El Paso.

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04 January 2012

Bob Feldman : Populism, Labor Organizing, and White Chauvinism in Texas, 1876-1890

Flag of the Texas Farmers Alliance. Image from HHS AP US History.

The hidden history of Texas
Part VIII: Populism, labor organizing, and white chauvinism in Texas, 1876-1890
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / January 4, 2012

[This is Part 8 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Between 1870 and 1890 the number of people who lived in Texas increased from 818,000 to 2,235,000 and most of the people residing in Texas in 1890 had previously lived in the southeastern United States.

Although the number of Texas residents who were of African descent increased from 253,000 to 488,000 during these same 20 years, the percentage of all Texas residents who were African-American decreased from 32 to 22 percent during this period. And by 1890, 125,000 people of German descent now also lived in Texas. The number of people of Mexican descent then living in Texas was only 105,000.

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28 December 2011

Bob Feldman : Reconstruction in Texas/2

African-Americans voting in 1867. Image from the Texas Liberal.

The hidden history of Texas
Part VII: Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1876/2
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / December 26, 2011

[This is the second section of Part 7 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

According to Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans, after the Civil War “the vast majority of ex-slaves” in Texas “settled down to become sharecroppers or tenant farmers" by 1870, and only “a few had saved enough to buy their own farms.” Yet by 1870 a significant proportion of the residents in urban Texas cities like Galveston, San Antonio, Houston, and Austin were also now African-American.

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29 November 2011

Bob Feldman : Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1876



The hidden history of Texas
Part VII: Reconstruction in Texas, 1865-1876/1
By Bob Feldman / The Rag Blog / October 26, 2011

[This is the first section of Part 7 of Bob Feldman's Rag Blog series on the hidden history of Texas.]

Just before the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865, “the Confederate troops in Texas got out of hand and began rebelling and looting [in] towns like Houston [which] were burned,” according to W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction.

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