Texas-big, rugged, independent, rebellious--few states evoke such immediate reactions with the mention of their names. Texas--gun toting, maverick spirited, patriotic. But why did those images become part of the legend that surrounds Texas and how did the word spread?
Between 1821-1836, Texas belonged to the state of Coahuila and Texas, Mexico; fought for independence from Mexico; established itself as an independent country; and became the twenty-eighth state of the United States of America. In the middle of this turbulent period, in 1829, Godwin Brown Cotton established the first permanent press in Texas. The Texas Gazette was a largely promotional press used to communicate Stephen F. Austin's reports of the status of Texas to the Mexican government, to recruit new settlers, and to provide news and entertainment to the people of Texas.
Nine days after the first shot of the Texas Revolution was fired in October 1835, the "unsinkable" Telegraph and Texas Register went to print. Established with the intention to promote the "accumulation of wealth and consequent aggrandizement of the country," the paper quickly became the news source for the events of the revolution.
Contained in these early newspapers are the images that continue to define our perception of Texas. Author Carol Lea Clark delves into how the settlers, fragmented, independent, competitive, and the publishers of the papers "wrote Texas" into existence. Read the original "tall tales," accounts of life on the "highly favored . . . earth, where the God of nature has scattered choicest blessings," as well as news of the surrender of the Spanish army in Mexico and the seeds of the revolution through the introduction of Mexican troops into Texas.
This is the birth of mythic Texas.
Carol Lea Clark's interest in early Texas newspapers comes from her family heritage. Her great-grandfather, Montgomery Lafayette Hair, published a weekly newspaper beginning in 1886 in Cornhill, Texas, now a ghost town near Austin. Her grandmother, grandfather, father, and mother also published weekly newspapers in Texas. Clark's earliest memories feature printing presses, linotypes, and typewriters at her parents' newspaper in Pilot Point, Texas. In addition to her academic career, Clark has written for newspapers and magazines, making her a fourth-generation Texas journalist/writer.
Clark holds a Ph.D. in rhetoric and composition from Texas Christian University and is an associate professor at The University of Texas at El Paso.
Southwestern Studies Series No. 109
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ISBN 0-87404-281-4 Paper $18.00
6 x 9, approx. 193 pp., biblio., paper, 2002