Cotton supplied the Native Americans with clothing fibers before the Spanish ever entered Texas. It drew Southern settlers fleeing U.S. antislavery trends during the Mexican Republic in the 1820s. By the early 1930s, cotton was produced in 223 of the 254 counties in Texas and was a central element in the Texas economy. The Great Depression created a major disruption that threatened to destabilize the entire Lone Star State.
In this book, Keith J. Volanto relates the story of the New Deal s efforts to aid Texas cotton farmers, specifically with the production-control policies introduced...

In 1871, newly freed slaves established the community of Tamina then called Tammany north of Houston, near the rich timber lands of Montgomery County. Located in proximity to the just-completed railroad from Conroe to Houston, the community benefited from the burgeoning local lumber industry and available transportation. The residents built homes, churches, a one-room school, and a general store.
Over time, urban growth has had a powerful impact on Tamina. The sprawling communities of The Woodlands, Shenandoah, Chateau Woods, and Oak Ridge have encroached, introducing both opportunity...

Ten Dollars to Hate tells the story of the massive Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s--by far the most "successful" incarnation since its inception in the ashes of the Civil War--and the first prosecutor in the nation to successfully convict and jail Klan members. Dan Moody, a twenty-nine-year-old Texas district attorney, demonstrated that Klansmen could be punished for taking the law into their own hands--in this case, for the vicious flogging of a young World War I veteran.

The 1920s Klan numbered in the millions and infiltrated politics and law enforcement across the United States, not...

The twentieth century has seen two great waves of African American migration from rural areas into the city, changing not only the country's demographics but also black culture. In her thorough study of migration to Houston, Bernadette Pruitt portrays the move from rural to urban homes in Jim Crow Houston as a form of black activism and resistance to racism.

Between 1900 and 1950 nearly fifty thousand blacks left their rural communities and small towns in Texas and Louisiana for Houston. Jim Crow proscription, disfranchisement, acts of violence and brutality, and rural poverty pushed...

Tells the story of the massive Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s - by far the most ""successful"" incarnation since its inception in the ashes of the Civil War - and the first prosecutor in the nation to successfully convict and jail Klan members. Dan Moody, a twenty-nine-year-old Texas district attorney, demonstrated that Klansmen could be punished for taking the law into their own hands.