Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest Part 6

WOOD, RAY. _The American Mother Goose_, 1940; _Fun in American Folk Rhymes_, 1952; both published by Lippincott, Philadelphia.

9. How the Early Settlers Lived

DESPITE THE FACT that the tendency of a majority of early day rememberers has been to emphasize Indian fights, killings, and other sensational episodes, chronicles rich in the everyday manners and customs of the folk are plentiful. The cla.s.sic of them all is Noah Smithwick's _The Evolution of a State_, listed below.

See also "Backwoods Life and Humor," "Pioneer Doctors," "Women Pioneers," "Fighting Texians."

BARKER, E. C. _The Austin Papers_. Four volumes of sources for any theme in social history connected with colonial Texans.

BATES, ED. F. _History and Reminiscences of Denton County_, Denton, Texas, 1918. A sample of much folk life found in county histories.

BELL, HORACE. _On the Old West Coast_, New York, 1930. Social history by anecdote. California. OP.

BRACHT, VIKTOR. _Texas in 1848_, translated from the German by C. F.

Schmidt, San Antonio, 1931. Better on natural resources than on human inhabitants. OP.

CARL, PRINCE OF SOLMS-BRAUNFELS. _Texas, 1844-1845_. Translation, Houston, 1936. OP.

c.o.x, C. C. "Reminiscences," in Vol. VI of _Southwestern Historical Quarterly_. One of the best of many pioneer recollections published by the Texas State Historical a.s.sociation.

CROCKETT, DAVID. Anything about him.

d.i.c.k, EVERETT. _The Sod House Frontier_ (1937) and _Vanguards of the Frontier_ (1941). Both OP. Life on north-ern Plains into Rocky Mountains, but applicable to life southward.

DOBIE, J. FRANK. _The Flavor of Texas_, 1936. OP. Considerable social history.

FENLEY, FLORENCE. _Oldtimers: Their Own Stories_, Uvalde, Texas, 1939.

OP. Faithful reporting of realistic detail. Southwest Texas, mostly ranch life.

FRANTZ, JOE B. _Gail Borden, Dairyman to a Nation_. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1951. This biography of a newspaperman and inventor brings out sides of pioneer life that emphasis on fighting, farming, and ranching generally overlooks.

GERSTAECKER, FREDERICK. _Wild Sports in the Far West_, 1860. Dances are among the sports.

HARRIS, MRS. DILUE. "Reminiscences," edited by Mrs. A. B. Looscan, in Vols. IV and VII of _Southwestern Historical Quarterly_.

HART, JOHN A. _History of Pioneer Days in Texas and Oklahoma_; no date. Extended and republished under the t.i.tle of _Pioneer Days in the Southwest_, 1909. Much on frontier ways of living.

HOFF, CAROL _Johnny Texas_, Wilc.o.x and Follett, Chicago, 1950. Juvenile, historical fiction. Delightful in both text and ill.u.s.trations.

HOGAN, WILLIAM R. _The Texas Republic: A Social and Economic History_, University of Oklahoma Press, 1946. Long on facts, short on intellectual activity; that is, on interpretations from the perspective of time and civilization.

HOLDEN, W. C. _Alkali Trails_, Dallas, 1930. Pioneer life in West Texas.

OP.

HOLLEY, MARY AUSTIN. _Texas... in a Series of Letters_, Baltimore, 1833; reprinted under the t.i.tle of _Letters of an American Traveler_, edited by Mattie Austin Hatcher, Dallas, 1933. First good book on Texas to be printed. OP.

_Lamar Papers_. Six volumes of sc.r.a.ppy source material on Texas history and life, issued by Texas State Library, Austin. OP.

LEWIS, WILLIE NEWBURY. _Between Sun and Sod_, Clarendon, Texas, 1938.

OP. Again, want of perspective.

LUBBOCK, F. R. Six _Decades in Texas_, Austin, 1900.

MCCONNELL, H. H. _Five Years a Cavalryman_, Jacksboro, Texas, 1889.

Bully.

McDANFIELD, H. F., and TAYLOR, NATHANIEL A. _The Coming Empire, or 2000 Miles in Texas on Horseback_, New York, 1878; privately reprinted, 1937.

Delightful travel narrative. OP.

MCNEAL, T. A. _When Kansas Was Young_, New York, 1922. Episodes and characters of Plains country. OP.

OLMSTED, FREDERICK LAW. _A Journey Through Texas_, New York, 1857.

Olmsted journeyed in order to see. He saw.

READ, OPIE. _An Arkansas Planter_, 1896. Pleasant fiction.

RICHARDSON, ALBERT D. _Beyond the Mississippi_, Hartford, 1867. What a traveling journalist saw.

RISTER, CARL C. _Southern Plainsmen_, University of Oklahoma Press, 1938. Though pedestrian in style, good social data. Bibliography.

ROEMER, DR. FERDINAND. _Texas_, translated from the German by Oswald Mueller, San Antonio, 1935. OP. Roemer, a geologist, rode through Texas in the forties and made acute observations on the land, its plants and animals, and the settlers.

SCHMITZ, JOSEPH WILLIAM. _Thus They Lived_, Naylor, San Antonio, 1935.

This would have been a good social history of Texas had the writer devoted ten more years to the subject. Unsatisfactory bibliography.

s.h.i.+PMAN, DANIEL. _Frontier Life, 58 Years in Texas_, n.p., 1879. One of the pioneer reminiscences that should be reprinted.

SMITH, HENRY. "Reminiscences," in _Southwestern Historical Quarterly_, Vol. XIV. Telling details.

SMITHWICK, NOAH. _The Evolution of a State_, Austin, 1900. Reprinted by Steck, Austin, 1935. Best of all books dealing with life in early Texas.

Bully reading.

_Southwestern Historical Quarterly_, published since 1897 by Texas State Historical a.s.sociation, Austin. A depository of all kinds of history; the first twenty-five or thirty volumes are the more interesting.

SWEET, ALEXANDER E., and KNOX, J. ARMOY. _On a Mexican Mustang Through Texas_, Hartford, 1883. Humorous satire, often penetrating and ruddy with actuality.

WALLIS, JONNIE LOCKHART. _Sixty Years on the Brazos: The Life and Letters of Dr. John Was.h.i.+ngton Lockhart_, privately printed, Los Angeles, 1930. In notebook style, but as rare in essence as it is among dealers in out-of-print books.

WAUGH, JULIA NOTT. _Castroville and Henry Castro_, San Antonio, 1934.

OP. Best-written monograph dealing with any aspect of Texas history that I have read.

WYNN, AFTON. "Pioneer Folk Ways," in _Straight Texas_, Texas Folklore Society Publication XIII, 1937.