SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY最新文献

{"title":"Man with the Killer Smile: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer by Mitchel P. Roth (review)","authors":"James Presley","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918124","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Man with the Killer Smile: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer</em> by Mitchel P. Roth <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> James Presley </li> </ul> <em>Man with the Killer Smile: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer</em>. By Mitchel P. Roth. ( Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2022. Pp. 352. Notes, appendix, bibliography, index, illustrations.) <p>Serial killers tend to choose special types of victims, who are usually strangers. Mass murderers prefer crowds and increased body counts. George Jefferson Hassell (1888–1928), the subject of Mitchel P. Roth's latest book, <em>Man with the Killer Smile: The Life and Crimes of a Serial Mass Murderer</em>, fits into both categories as well as a third: familicide. (\"Killer smile\" alludes to Hassell's superficial charm he used on women.) He killed thirteen—two wives and eleven stepchildren. In the annals of true crime, Hassell is part of a rare subset of killers. In our era of AR-15s, terrorists, and frequent atrocities, these long forgotten but important crimes stand out. Just as study of a rare but malignant disease may shed light on it and other <strong>[End Page 362]</strong> disorders, so may this complex case of a serial mass killer who specialized in families offer insight into criminal behavior on several levels.</p> <p>The basic facts are chilling. In Whittier, California, in 1917, Hassell killed Marie Vogel, his common law wife, and her three children, one from a previous marriage and two adopted. He strangled all four with his bare hands and stockings. He buried them under the house where the bodies remained undiscovered for years. In Farwell, Texas, near New Mexico, in 1926, Hassell's slayings <em>did</em> gain scrutiny and sent him to Death Row. He killed nine: his wife Susan–his older brother's widow whom he had married–and eight of her children. He used a variety of means to snuff out their lives, all up close and personal. He bashed in the skull of his wife with a hammer and dispatched others with an axe, a razor, his hands, and a shotgun. As in California, he buried all nine in a common pit and lied about their absences. In each instance, he killed the mother first and then her children, ages ranging from two to twenty-one, as if killing the children might eliminate possible witnesses against him or—who knows?—targeting them as proxies in revenge for some perceived slight from years before. The slayings were senseless and in cold blood. Hassell ended his life story in Huntsville's electric chair less than two years after the Texas murders. The legal process appears to have been fair. He was read a Miranda warning years before Miranda. The judge entered a plea of not guilty for him when he failed to respond.</p> <p>Professor Roth acquits himself well in the challenging task of researching old cases. In the first murders","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139580191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"William F. Buckley Sr.: Witness to the Mexican Revolution, 1908–1922 by John A. Adams Jr. (review)","authors":"Steven Collins","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918140","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>William F. Buckley Sr.: Witness to the Mexican Revolution, 1908–1922</em> by John A. Adams Jr. <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Steven Collins </li> </ul> <em>William F. Buckley Sr.: Witness to the Mexican Revolution, 1908–1922</em>. By John A. Adams Jr. ( Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2023. Pp. 320. Illustrations, map, graph, tables, notes, bibliography, index.) <p>In <em>William F. Buckley Sr.: Witness to the Mexican Revolution, 1908-1922</em>, John Adams provides a long overdue biography of an attorney and oilman from San Diego, Texas. Buckley secured his place in history as one of the leading forces behind the Tampico oil boom in Mexico, 1908. After the ouster of his friend, Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, his keen knowledge of the oil industry and ability to negotiate with politicians and bandits alike gave him and his Pantepec Oil Company a front-row seat to Mexico's long revolution. In the 1920s, when the Mexican oil and gas industry experienced a downturn, he identified new possibilities in Venezuela. He then befriended Venezuelan President Juan Gómez and provided plans for commercial facilities and gained leasing rights in the Lake Maracaibo region. During the 1930s, Buckley acknowledged the importance of diversification for the long-term viability of his company. He secured drilling contracts in Florida, Canada, and the Middle East, establishing a truly global enterprise. Adams concludes that Buckley's upbringing in South Texas and his University of Texas law degree contributed to his success as one of the most accomplished independent oilmen in the industry's history. The lasting impact of Buckley's influence helped to shape the international oil industry for decades following his death in 1958.</p> <p>The book demonstrates Buckley's unparalleled business acumen and astute political mind. Following the establishment of a law office in Mexico City, he used the local Petroleum Club as a venue for negotiating contracts and securing loans, culminating in the founding of his Pantepec Oil Company. He was critical of President Woodrow Wilson's administration, which lacked appreciation for Mexican culture, politics, and social dynamics. His defense of the Catholic Church and testimony during the 1919 Fall Committee hearings led to his expulsion from Mexico in 1921. Adams explains this was a watershed for Buckley's career. He fortuitously <strong>[End Page 360]</strong> expanded Pantepec Oil to Venezuela. Then, as the Great Depression unfolded, he had the great foresight to diversify Pantepec. He gained new leases in Florida, Canada, and the Middle East to create one of the largest independently owned oil companies.</p> <p>Adams' book is more than a biography. It is a historical ride through the rough and tumble days of the Tampico oil rush and the Mexican Revolution. In the final years ","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"328 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139580005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas ed. by George Keaton Jr. and Judith Garrett Segura (review)","authors":"Makenzie A. Wiley","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918137","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas</em> ed. by George Keaton Jr. and Judith Garrett Segura <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Makenzie A. Wiley </li> </ul> <em>Our Stories: Black Families in Early Dallas</em>. Ed. By George Keaton Jr. & Judith Garrett Segura. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2022. Pp. 334. Illustrations, notes, index.) <p>This collection of stories and personal histories focuses on Dallas, but it aims to provide a deeper perspective on the lives of all African Americans in Texas. The book is a republication and expansion of two earlier works produced by Black Dallas Remembered, a non-profit history organization <strong>[End Page 355]</strong> led by Mamie L. McKnight. Entitled <em>African Families and Settlements in Dallas</em> and <em>First African American Families in Dallas</em>, these brief works appeared in 1990 and 1987, respectively. For this edition, editors George Keaton Jr. and Judith Garret Segura have added their notes and commentary throughout while updating some information to modernize the text and bring the monograph to new audiences. The monograph itself now acts as a great foundation for examining the establishment of Black settlements in the Dallas area, while also providing context regarding how those areas transformed as Dallas became the larger metroplex it is today.</p> <p>Looking at three aspects of Black life in Dallas, the authors discuss the establishment of several towns following the Civil War, the schools that served those communities, and the major families of the area. Beginning with this background on Black communities and settlements founded in the Dallas area following emancipation, the monograph provides a comprehensive narrative of the subsequent development of Black neighborhoods in Dallas. Some communities mentioned are Booker T. Washington Addition, Eagle Ford, the Fields Community, the Thomas Hill Community, Mill City, North Dallas, Oak Cliff, The Prairie, South Dallas, Upper and Lower White Rock, and the West Dallas Community, all areas that became large subdivisions in modern Dallas. While the authors discuss each town individually, they also look at similarities between the communities, like the role of churches, schools, and important families that helped to settle the area. Additionally, the authors use oral history transcripts to provide more detail concerning the settlements of the Black communities in Dallas.</p> <p>The authors do an excellent job of completing the picture of early Dallas; however, the greatest accomplishment of the book is their ability to humanize the settlers of so many of the Black communities. Despite the hardships and discrimination that plagued Black life in the period, this work shows how the first Black settlers in Dallas should be honored for the great steps they took in not only endurin","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139580187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement by Wesley G. Phelps (review)","authors":"La Shonda Mims","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918126","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement</em> by Wesley G. Phelps <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> La Shonda Mims </li> </ul> <em>Before Lawrence v. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement</em>. By Wesley G. Phelps. ( Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023. Pp. 292. Notes, index, photos.) <p>In popular opinion, social movements are often defined by major events punctuating a tidy timeline. Yet historians know that an analysis of the long game is where we uncover the true significance of a major achievement. <em>Before Lawrence v. Texas</em> is an exhaustively researched legal and political analysis to which Wesley Phelps applies the methodology of social history. Through an investigation of the complex legislative maneuvering that defined <em>Lawrence v. Texas</em>, which is sometimes viewed as a spontaneous achievement in the history of LGBTQ rights, Phelps shows that over three decades urban activists fought less successful cases that influenced the seismic <em>Lawrence</em> decision.</p> <p>From the 1860 sodomy law in Texas, Phelps travels the winding legal road to the <em>Lawrence</em> decision, demonstrating the importance of \"ordinary citizens\" to a \"thriving democracy.\" This book centers on Texas cities because that is where political action and community organizing happens. When the Texas penal code was revised starting in 1965, it resulted in the 1974 adoption of Section 21.06, which criminalized same-sex sexual activity. Phelps argues that this \"homosexual conduct law served as a rationale for denying queer Texans the rights and freedoms of first-class citizenship.\" (p. 81) The results were devastating. For example, when two lesbians joined their families together in Garland, Texas, including children from prior marriages, they quickly faced a brutal custody case. In 1975, one of the women lost custody of her biological children because of 21.06. Placing individual stories like this in the larger narrative of Texas's legal history is imperative in order to understand how daily queer life exposed a culture of inequality in the state.</p> <p>At the heart of the book, Phelps focuses on queer resistance in the 1970s and 1980s. Phelps asserts that cases like <em>Baker v. Wade</em> in 1985 represented a \"turning point\" because they created a national storyline for the legislative fight against sodomy laws. (p. 12) Even though Baker's claims to privacy rights were unsuccessful, and the plaintiffs were \"battle worn and scarred\" at the end, Phelps argues that the case was \"critical\" <strong>[End Page 365]</strong> to initiating the \"legal strategy\" necessary to overturn the state's sodomy statute. (pp. 160-161) Following the <em>Baker</em> decision, two cases brought by women plaintiffs highlight the diversity of those arguing against the state's sodomy laws. As a lesb","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139580032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Texas Secessionists Standoff: The 1997 Republic of Texas \"War\" by Donna Marie Miller (review)","authors":"Darren L. Ivey","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918125","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>Texas Secessionists Standoff: The 1997 Republic of Texas \"War\"</em> by Donna Marie Miller <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Darren L. Ivey </li> </ul> <em>Texas Secessionists Standoff: The 1997 Republic of Texas \"War.\"</em> By Donna Marie Miller. ( College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2023. Pp. 336. Photographs, bibliography, index.) <p>For more than fifty years, sustained political violence has been plaguing American society. Throughout this time period, disaffected groups, who range the ideological spectrum, have attacked property and people, even to the point of murder, to further their radical goals. Austin-based freelance journalist Donna Marie Miller's well-researched <em>Texas Secessionists Standoff</em> chronicles one episode in this tragic historical trend. The book examines the Republic of Texas (ROT) secessionist militia and its taking of hostages in the Davis Mountain Resort (DMR) near Fort Davis in April 1997. Miller has organized her twenty-five chapters into three parts: Before the ROT War, The ROT War, and After the ROT War.</p> <p>Part I lays the foundation for the events that occurred in the Davis Mountains. Much of this portion relies on interviews Miller conducted with participants between 2017 and 2019. Richard McLaren, the self-appointed \"ambassador\" of the ROT, was convinced that Texas had been illegally annexed in 1845 and disputed the legitimacy of the state government. To further his ambitions, McLaren exploited the legal system to prosecute a \"paper war\" and challenge land titles in the DMR. He also began abusing adverse possession laws and filing liens against banks, churches, businesses, politicians, and even neighbors.</p> <p>Even as she ably weaves various threads together to explain subsequent events, Miller focuses much of the first part on telling the story of Jo Anne Canady Turner, a wife, mother, and businesswoman who was floundering financially and anxious to escape the threat of foreclosure. Her desperation led to the fateful decision to aid the ROT in their endeavors. Although she was not in the Davis Mountains during the standoff, Turner is central to Miller's narrative.</p> <p>Part II chronicles the seven-day confrontation in the DMR where several members of the ROT held Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe captive in their own home. Three hundred law enforcement officers responded, and Texas Ranger Captain Barry Caver served as the on-scene commander. He, Rangers David Duncan and Joe Malone, and FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner (who wrote the book's foreword) were instrumental in saving the Rowes. As this incident followed other altercations with extremists at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, both of which ended badly, Caver and his colleagues were especially eager to resolve the crisis without bloodshed. Ultimately, the ROT","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139580200","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant and Industrial Mobilization During World War II by Terrance Furgerson (review)","authors":"Richard Selcer","doi":"10.1353/swh.2024.a918131","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2024.a918131","url":null,"abstract":"<span><span>In lieu of</span> an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:</span>\u0000<p> <span>Reviewed by:</span> <ul> <li><!-- html_title --> <em>The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant and Industrial Mobilization During World War II</em> by Terrance Furgerson <!-- /html_title --></li> <li> Richard Selcer </li> </ul> <em>The Dallas Story: The North American Aviation Plant and Industrial Mobilization During World War II</em>. By Terrance Furgerson. ( Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2023. Pp. 403. Illustrations, notes, appendix, index). <p>The title says it all: This is a book about the North American Aviation (NAA) plant set up in Dallas (actually Grand Prairie) at the beginning of World War II to manufacture a bomber, a fighter, and a trainer for the Army Air Corps. If you are looking for a book on air combat or the capabilities of various World War II aircraft, this is not it. Instead, this is economic and social history with a wealth of statistics gleaned from government records leavened with reporting from Dallas newspapers of the time. The author is an instructor at Collin County College. This is his debut book, which began as a graduate research project at the University of North Texas. It is a worthy first book.</p> <p>For Fort Worth residents who thought all bombers built in North Texas during World War II came from Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft (Convair), this book is an eye-opener. The Convair plant was larger and built only bombers (the B-24 Liberator and B-32 Dominator). NAA built B-24s, but also the magnificent P-52 Mustang and the AT-6 Texan trainer by the thousands. Furgerson's book thus makes a nice companion work to J'Nell Pate's <em>Arsenal of Defense: Fort Worth's Military Legacy</em> (2011), which has three chapters on Convair.</p> <p>Furgerson's story begins in 1938 with Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's push for American mobilization for what he recognized as the coming war against Germany. Air power was going to be crucial. The plan for expanding was to build manufacturing plants with government money and turn them over to private enterprises like NAA and Consolidated Aircraft (the forerunner of Consolidated-Vultee). Plants were placed in Fort Worth and Grand Prairie for strategic reasons; they would be harder to attack and/or sabotage than plants on either coast. The rapid buildup that followed did not just create a muscular American air force but also supplied friendly countries in Europe with aircraft to counter the <em>Luftwaffe</em>. Foreign contracts drove production for the first two years. After <strong>[End Page 372]</strong> the fall of France in 1940, Washington wanted to ramp up production to 50,000 airplanes per year, an incredible number considering the few hundred aircraft then being built. That level of production demanded an unprecedented mobilization of resources and manpower that expanded upon the programs of the New Deal.</p> <p>Furgerson's is a two-part story driven by decisions in","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139579897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Strikers of Coachella: A Rank-and-File History of the UFW Movement by Christian O. Paiz (review)","authors":"Terrell Orr","doi":"10.1353/swh.2023.a907805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2023.a907805","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: The Strikers of Coachella: A Rank-and-File History of the UFW Movement by Christian O. Paiz Terrell Orr The Strikers of Coachella: A Rank-and-File History of the UFW Movement. By Christian O. Paiz. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Pp. 412. Illustrations, appendix, notes, index.) While he was growing up in the Coachella Valley of California in the 1990s, Christian O. Paiz saw few traces remaining of the efforts made by farmworkers and activists just two decades earlier to make the Valley into a place of social and racial justice, one \"dominated by farm workers and not by [ranchers]\" (255). In The Strikers of Coachella, Paiz returns to his home county to recover the \"freedom dreams\" and \"utopian futures\" of those [End Page 237] who worked and struggled to remake the Valley and to understand why, ultimately, their visions went unrealized (255, 265). Paiz's The Strikers of Coachella is a rank-and-file history of the farmworker movement in the Coachella Valley. Paiz draws from a \"field of stories\" painstakingly gathered and beautifully retold from oral history interviews with sixty-eight participants. Paiz's central claim is that the successes, difficulties, and failures of the Valley's farmworker movement—from the strikes of the mid- and late 1960s, to the contract battles of 1970, the strike of 1973, and the 1975 passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA)—are better understood when seen as the result of countless \"contingent meetings\" of its members' often conflicting desires, expectations, and actions (10). This account is counterposed to histories of the farmworker movement that portray an undifferentiated, or passive, membership that lived or died by leadership decisions. Paiz minutely examines the fissures both within the United Farm Workers, between Mexican, Mexican American, and Filipino workers, between women and men, between younger and older members, and without, between union and nonunion members of the community, and between the union and the larger Chicana/o movement. The book's subtitle barely does it justice. In the first section, Paiz roots the field of stories in a social history of the hostile \"Rancher Nation,\" Paiz's name for the world of strict hierarchy cultivated by the Coachella Valley's white farmers. These farmers ruled as \"kings\" atop a non-White \"peasantry,\" which was itself divided hierarchically between contractors and workers, between women and men, and between workers of different legal statuses (35). In subsequent sections, Paiz looks at the challenges to the Rancher Nation, alternating between chapters on farmworker organizing and the efforts of the Coachella Valley's Chicana/o movement in education, police reform, community outreach, and local electoral politics. Paiz draws an insightful parallel between the UFW's fight for labor contracts and the Chicana/o movement's fight for citizenship rights, both of which offered radical new visions for life in the valley that str","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135368277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Boston Elite to Tragic Texas Filibuster: Augustus Magee and his Republican Army of the North","authors":"James Aalan Bernsen","doi":"10.1353/swh.2023.a907796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2023.a907796","url":null,"abstract":"From Boston Elite to Tragic Texas Filibuster:Augustus Magee and his Republican Army of the North James Aalan Bernsen (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Augustus Magee's grave marker, La Bahía, Texas. Courtesy of Presidio La Bahía. [End Page 172] In June 1812, with war on the horizon between the United States and England, Augustus William Magee, a young U.S. Army lieutenant on the Louisiana frontier, threw away a promising military career and cast his lot with a Mexican revolutionary, José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, in a bold attempt to liberate Texas from the Spanish Empire. The Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, which resulted from this partnership, has long been neglected by historians, and no aspect more so than the background of its first commander. Onto this blank canvas, historians have painted assumptions, illusions, and fantasies that have led to far more generalized—and equally incorrect—dogmas about the origins and motivations of the largest and most successful filibuster in early Texas history. Stripping away these inventions and provable errors, and considering newly discovered family and army records among other sources, we can piece together Magee's route to Texas and throw important light on the broader question of what motivated Americans to fight in a war of choice on the side of Mexican revolutionaries. Augustus Magee has long been mired in obscurity. Previous histories have uncovered scant biographical information; they have noted that he was from Boston and had graduated from West Point, but not much more. [End Page 173] The one attempt at a biography of the officer reduces his entire pre-expedition background to a mere sentence. Furthermore, these accounts are riddled with errors. Magee is variously described as second or third in his class at West Point despite the fact that class rankings were not implemented until seven years after his graduation (his \"rank,\" therefore, was a mere coincidence of the calendar). Various accounts state emphatically that he was stationed at Fort Jessup on the Louisiana frontier, even though this fort was not established until 1822—nine years after Magee had died.1 These inaccuracies are compounded by the paltry historical footprint of a man who left few letters, has no known likeness, and died young. What has previously been known about him came from the pen of American special envoy William Shaler, who described Magee as \"very tall, very robust, of a handsome person, and countenance, a very commanding appearance as an officer, and of prepossessing manners.\" Shaler also said Magee was \"one of the best-informed officers of his age in the American army, and as far as I have been able to judge of his acquirements he is qualified to add lustre to the American name in the cause he has chosen.\" Newly discovered family and army records, among other sources, can expand on this otherwise paltry account of a man so crucial to the history of early Texas.2 Augustus Magee was born in Boston in 1789","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135368278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism by Mason Kamana Allred (review)","authors":"Benjamin E. Park","doi":"10.1353/swh.2023.a907801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2023.a907801","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism by Mason Kamana Allred Benjamin E. Park Seeing Things: Technologies of Vision and the Making of Mormonism. By Mason Kamana Allred. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Pp. 254. Notes, bibliography, index.) Mormonism has been, as summarized in Mason Allred's useful conclusion, \"fashioned by looking at stuff to see things\" (185). Starting with [End Page 231] Joseph Smith, the faith's founder, believers in this diverse and evolving tradition have adapted to new media, which in turn has shaped the religion and its sense of the divine. Steeped in theoretical literature but often grounded in digestible case studies, Seeing Things is a remarkable contribution to the histories of media, post-secular religion, and Mormon studies. Allred begins his analysis with Smith's use of seer stones and the resulting revelatory texts. The Book of Mormon, which the book provocatively places within the gothic genre, commenced a tradition of creating works that both utilized print resources while also prompting supernatural repetition. Members embraced this collapse between material and spirit in order to utilize a series of media meant to connect the mundane and divine. But such modalities had the potential to produce chaos. Allred's second chapter examines how two sets of panoramic paintings, one by Philo Dibble in Nauvoo and another by C. C. A. Christensen in Utah, promoted unity and centralization. This shared imagery was necessary to correlate authority in a quickly growing faith. Then, by the late-nineteenth century, Mormons turned to developing media like typewriters and photography to explore the boundaries of their faith's patriarchy and gender roles, the subject of the third chapter. The second half of the book centers on themes of cultural assimilation as the Mormon faith moved from the margins of American society to the mainstream. Faced with the threat of anti-Mormon films becoming embedded within the new genre of cinema—what Allred calls \"Mormonsploitation\" films—Latter-day Saints were forced to use the new medium to present a narrative rooted in their past while still appealing to the world at large. This included playing with innovative tools like double exposure in order to incorporate angels and ghosts. Then, in the fifth chapter, the book turns to the advent of microphotography as the mechanism through which Saints could preserve their cherished, and sacred, records. These new methods were especially crucial in their newfound obsession: genealogy work. And finally, the book closes with a chapter on the rise of television, and particularly the notion of \"standards\": for consumer appetite, for cultural morality, and, importantly, for White patriotism. Television enabled the church to present a wholesome, if whitewashed, image designed to unify an increasingly global church. Portions of Allred's analysis are more convincing than others. In chapter 3, for ins","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135368282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Capitalism's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century by Chad E. Pearson (review)","authors":"Michael Botson","doi":"10.1353/swh.2023.a907803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/swh.2023.a907803","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Capitalism's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century by Chad E. Pearson Michael Botson Capitalism's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century. By Chad E. Pearson. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022. Pp. 324. Notes, bibliography, index, illustrations.) Chad Pearson's latest book, Capitalism's Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century, is the third book in his trilogy that critically examines the interaction of employers and capitalism with the study of workers' movements. In this third volume he expands his focus of capital's oppression of working-class movements in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries. This study's major strength is Pearson's identification of three specific groups with overlapping interests that collaborated in crushing workers' efforts to organize unions, establish the closed shop, and create a humane workplace. After identifying them, he fiercely takes them to task. Much like in his other books, Pearson's enthusiasm for his subject here nearly jumps off every page. The first part of his triumvirate is made up of \"the terrorists,\" organized [End Page 234] businessmen and industrialists. \"The Enablers,\" those in governmental positions who routinely used the full force of government to suppress working-class activism, come second. The third group consists of \"the narrative creators,\" newspaper editors and novelists who molded public opinion to oppose working-class reforms. Pearson acknowledges that some readers might take exception with his use of the word \"terrorists\" when referring to businessmen, but he reminds us that Jay Gould was a thuggish \"railroad investor responsible for the firing and blacklisting [of] thousands of workers\" (9). An important underlying theme throughout the book is the bitter disagreement between employers and workers over the definition of free labor. As defined by employers, the free labor system allowed workers dissatisfied with a company's working conditions and pay to freely quit and find suitable employment elsewhere. On the other hand, workers defined free labor as a basic human right. That included the right to organize unions and use their collective strength to agitate for improved working conditions, and pay without having to quit and seek employment elsewhere. Pearson describes the fallacy of employers' definition of free labor. He points out that, in regions where one industry dominated the economy, workers could not go to a different mine or railroad and expect to find better wages and working conditions. Employers often banded together in establishing uniform wage rates and working conditions that prevented workers from escaping totalitarian control. Pearson offers as an example the mine owners in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. There, mine owners banded together and established the Mine Owners Protective Association (MOPA). Members colluded together in","PeriodicalId":42779,"journal":{"name":"SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135368287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}