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 classic 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.
COX, C. C. "Reminiscences," in Vol. VI of _Southwestern Historical
Quarterly_. One of the best of many pioneer recollections published by
the Texas State Historical Association.
CROCKETT, DAVID. Anything about him.
DICK, 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 title of _Pioneer Days in the
Southwest_, 1909. Much on frontier ways of living.
HOFF, CAROL _Johnny Texas_, Wilcox and Follett, Chicago, 1950. Juvenile,
historical fiction. Delightful in both text and illustrations.
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 title 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 scrappy 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.
SHIPMAN, 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 Association, 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 Washington 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.