The Handbook of Texas is a digital state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) that is freely accessible for students, teachers, scholars, and the general public. The Handbook consists of overview, general, and biographical entries focused on the entire history of Texas from the indigenous Native Americans and the Prehistoric Era to the state's diverse population and the Modern Age. These entries emphasize the role Texans played in state, national, and world history.
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On June 19 ("Juneteenth"), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order Number 3, which read, "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freed are advised to remain at their present homes, and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts; and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere." The tidings of freedom reached the approximately 250,000 slaves in Texas gradually as individual plantation owners informed their slaves over the months following the end of the war. The news elicited an array of personal celebrations, some of which have been described in The Slave Narratives of Texas (1974). The first broader celebrations of Juneteenth were used as political rallies and to teach freed African Americans about their voting rights. Within a short time, however, Juneteenth was marked by festivities throughout the state, some of which were organized by official Juneteenth committees.
The Old San Antonio Road was also known as the Camino Real, the King's Highway, and the San Antonio-Nacogdoches Road. The blazing of the trail came about as the result of three expeditions. In 1690 Alonso De León led his fourth expedition into Texas, this time with the objective to establish San Francisco de los Tejas Mission in East Texas (in the future Houston County). In 1691 Domingo Terán de los Ríos, first provincial governor of Texas, crossed the Rio Grande taking additional missionaries to the East Texas missions. Up to the Río Hondo, Terán followed much the same course as traveled by De León. During the journey he diverted his path to send a party to Matagorda Bay to meet supply ships. In 1693 Gregorio de Salinas Varona became the first man to proceed directly from the Rio Grande to the East Texas missions, in an expedition to bring relief supplies; he thus further defined the course of the road as a direct route from Monclova, then capital of the province, to the Spanish missions. In 1714 Louis Juchereau de St. Denis probably followed at least part of the road from Natchitoches to San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande. In Spanish Texas the Old San Antonio Road was a major artery for travel into Texas. It served as a lifeline for the missions by enabling the transport of freight supplies and military protection, and it facilitated trade. During the eighteenth century Spanish ranchers conducted cattle drives along the route from points in Texas to the annual fair in Saltillo, Coahuila. In addition to being an avenue of commerce, the road enabled immigration. Moses Austin traversed the trail en route to San Antonio to request an empresario grant from the Spanish government in 1820, and many Anglo-American colonists entered Texas at Gaines Ferry on the Sabine and arrived at Nacogdoches and the interior of Texas over the road.
Quintanilla Perez, Selena [Selena]
Singer Selena Quintanilla Perez, known simply as Selena, the daughter of Abraham and Marcella (Perez) Quintanilla, Jr., was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. She married Christopher Perez, guitarist and member of the band Selena y Los Dinos (slang for "the Boys") on April 2, 1992. They had no children. Selena attended Oran M. Roberts Elementary School in Lake Jackson and West Oso Junior High in Corpus Christi, where she completed the eighth grade. In 1989 she finished high school through the American School, a correspondence school for artists, and enrolled at Pacific Western University in business administration correspondence courses.
The Texas Revolution began in October 1835 with the battle of Gonzales and ended on April 21, 1836, with the battle of San Jacinto, but earlier clashes between government forces and frontier colonists make it impossible to set dogmatic limits in terms of military battles, cultural misunderstandings, and political differences that were a part of the revolution. The seeds of the conflict were planted during the last years of Spanish rule (1815–21) when Anglo Americans drifted across the Neutral Ground and the eastern bank of the Red River into Spanish territory, squatted on the land, and populated Spanish Texas. More alarming than these illegal residents, who only wanted to "settle and stay," were filibusters such as Philip Nolan, who commandeered portions of Spanish lands for personal gain and political capital. During the fading years of New Spain, its ruling council, the Cortes, worried about securing their far northern frontier and began to encourage foreign immigration to Texas, including Anglo American colonization. One who was eager to take advantage of a change in Spanish policy was Moses Austin, who received a commission from the Spanish governor of Texas to bring 300 families and establish a colony, thereby rebuilding some of his lost fortune associated with the Panic of 1819. Upon his death in 1821, his son and heir Stephen Fuller Austin fulfilled his father's vision and became the first empresario of Texas.
The Comanches, exceptional horsemen who dominated the Southern Plains, played a prominent role in Texas frontier history throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Anthropological evidence indicates that they were originally a mountain tribe, a branch of the Northern Shoshones, who roamed the Great Basin region of the western United States as crudely equipped hunters and gatherers. Both cultural and linguistic similarities confirm the Comanches' Shoshone origins. The Comanche language is derived from the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family and is virtually identical to the language of the Northern Shoshones. Sometime during the late seventeenth century, the Comanches acquired horses, and that acquisition drastically altered their culture. The life of the pedestrian tribe was revolutionized as they rapidly evolved into a mounted, well-equipped, and powerful people. Their new mobility allowed them to leave their mountain home and their Shoshone neighbors and move onto the plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas, where game was plentiful.
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McCallum, Jane Legette Yelvington
Jane McCallum, suffragist leader and Texas secretary of state, was born to Alvaro Leonard and Mary Fullerton (LeGette) Yelvington in La Vernia, Texas, on December 30, 1877. Yelvington was a pioneer sheriff of Wilson County in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Jane attended schools in Wilson County and Dr. Zealey's Female College in Mississippi in 1892–93. She studied at the University of Texas from 1912 to 1915 and in 1923–24 but never received a degree. On October 29, 1896, she married Arthur Newell McCallum, Sr., a North Carolina native who had ventured to Texas in 1895. She moved with him from La Vernia to Kenedy, then Seguin, and finally Austin, where he served as school superintendent from 1903 to 1942. The couple had a daughter and four sons. Jane McCallum first entered politics by campaigning for prohibition and woman suffrage. On October 22, 1915, the Austin Woman Suffrage Association elected her president. She also teamed with Minnie Fisher Cunningham, president of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, in leading statewide campaigns for suffrage; she served as state manager of press and publicity for the state constitutional amendment on full suffrage and state chairman of the ratification committee for the federal, or nineteenth, amendment. To further promote suffrage, Jane McCallum delivered public speeches and wrote a suffrage column that appeared in the Austin American and later the Austin Statesman (see AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN). During World War I, as women's chairman of the fourth Liberty Loan Drive, she led Austin women in raising nearly $700,000 for the war effort.
William Barret Travis, Texas commander at the battle of the Alamo, was the eldest of eleven children of Mark and Jemima (Stallworth) Travis. At the time of his birth the family lived on Mine Creek near the Red Bank community, which centered around the Red Bank Baptist Church in Edgefield District, near Saluda, Saluda County, South Carolina. There is some confusion regarding the date and circumstances of his birth. Many sources give the date as August 9, others as August 1, 1809. The family Bible, however, records the former date. Others have confused the date of his birth with that of his elder, and illegitimate, half-brother, Toliferro Travis. The first Travers, or Travis, to settle in North America landed in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1627. Edward Travers became a member of the house of burgesses and amassed significant holdings of land. Subsequent generations of the family drifted southward to the Carolinas, where Barrick or Barrot Travers established a farm in the Edgefield District. Somewhere in the journey Travers became Travis, and Barrot came to be spelled Barret. Barrot Travis's sons, Alexander and Mark, became farmers, and Alexander also became a prominent clergyman.
Minnie Fisher Cunningham, woman suffrage leader and leading liberal Democrat, the daughter of Horatio White Fisher and Sallie Comer (Abercrombie) Fisher, was born on March 19, 1882, on Fisher Farms, near New Waverly, Texas. Her father was a prominent planter who served in the House of Representatives of the Texas legislature in 1857–59 and 1879–81. He introduced her to politics by taking her to political meetings at Huntsville. Educated initially by her mother, Minnie attended secondary school in Houston and New Waverly. She passed a state examination to earn a teaching certificate when she was sixteen but changed her mind about teaching and enrolled in the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In 1901 she became one of the first women to receive a degree in pharmacy in Texas; she worked as a pharmacist in Huntsville for a year, but she later said that inequity in pay led her to suffrage. In 1902 she married Beverly Jean (Bill) Cunningham, a lawyer and later an insurance executive. His successful race for Walker County attorney as a reform candidate was her first taste of the campaign trail.
Lulu (or Lula) Belle Madison White, teacher and civil rights activist, was born on August 31, 1899, in Elmo, Texas, to Samuel Henry and Easter Madison. She attended elementary and high schools in Elmo and enrolled in Butler College in Tyler. Later she moved to Houston, where she met and married businessman Julius White. The couple raised two foster children. Shortly after her marriage, White enrolled at Prairie View College. After receiving a bachelor's degree in English, she embarked on a teaching career in the Heights, a Black community on the outskirts of Houston. Before White could be considered for a teaching post in the Houston Independent School District, she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Her husband had been a member of the Houston NAACP for some time and had been the plaintiff in several White primary cases. White resigned her teaching post in the Heights community and devoted all of her time to the NAACP and its struggle to eliminate the state's White primary in the early 1930s. Until the late 1940s White served the NAACP as director of the Youth Council, fund-raiser, and organizer of new chapters throughout the state. In 1939 she became the president of the Houston chapter upon the death of C. F. Richardson. In 1943, under her fund-raising leadership, the Houston chapter became the largest in the South, and White became the first paid executive secretary. Her seven-year tenure in the post brought her state and national attention. After the Supreme Court handed down its 1944 decision in Smith v. Allwright, which finally outlawed the White primary, White was at the forefront of educating Blacks to vote. When the NAACP looked for a case that would integrate the University of Texas in 1945, White chose the plaintiff, Heman Marion Sweatt, and, with the legal core of the NAACP, pursued the case of Sweatt v. Painter to the Supreme Court. Sweatt later credited White's leadership for maintaining his own resolve. White was also in the vanguard of the movement to get equal salaries for Black and White teachers. When local Blacks reported cases of discrimination in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Lulu White was the one who responded. Politically liberal, White joined James Frank Dobie, Sweatt, and others in 1948 in an effort to get Henry Wallace's Progressive party on the presidential ballot in Texas. White's friendships with Walter White, Daisy Lampkin, Thurgood Marshall, and Roy Wilkins enabled her to exert influence on the NAACP nationally. She resigned as executive secretary of the Houston chapter in 1949 and became state director of the NAACP. She remained in the latter post until her death on July 6, 1957, possibly of heart failure. She was buried in Houston. The week before her death the national NAACP established the Lulu White Freedom Fund in her honor.
Hodges, on Farm Road 605 between Bitter and Mulberry creeks in south central Jones County, was settled by Alexander Stephens Hodges, a Georgia native, and rancher W. L. Harris in 1885. The community was bypassed by the railroad and by major highways. In 1940 Hodges had two stores and twenty-five residents, and in 1978 it had a gin and a store. Its population was reported as thirty-one in 1980 and as 250 in 1990. The population dropped to 150 in 2000.
Stephen Fuller Austin, founder of Anglo-American Texas, son of Moses and Maria (Brown) Austin, was born at the lead mines in southwestern Virginia on November 3, 1793. In 1798 Moses Austin moved his family to other lead mines in southeastern Missouri and established the town of Potosi in what is now Washington County. There Stephen grew to the age of eleven, when his father sent him to a school in Connecticut, from which he returned westward and spent two years at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. At Potosi, Moses Austin was engaged in the mining, smelting, and manufacturing of lead and, in addition, conducted a general store. After his return from Transylvania in the spring of 1810, Stephen Austin was employed in the store and subsequently took over the management of most of the lead business. He served the public as adjutant of a militia battalion and for several years was a member of the Missouri territorial legislature, in which he was influential in obtaining the charter for the Bank of St. Louis. After failure of the Austin business in Missouri, he investigated opportunities for a new start in Arkansas and engaged in land speculation and mercantile activities. While he was there the territorial governor appointed him circuit judge of the first judicial district of Arkansas. He took the oath of office and qualified in July 1820, but he only briefly held court, for at the end of August he was in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and in December in New Orleans, where he had made arrangements to live in the home of Joseph H. Hawkins and study law. At this time Moses Austin was on his way to San Antonio to apply for a grant of land and permission to settle 300 families in Texas.
Special Projects
Handbook of Dallas-Fort Worth
The tremendous growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex from the 19th through 21st centuries far outpaced the recorded history of this economically vital area. Texas is often associated with its rural ranching history, yet as the decades passed, the cultural and economic identities of Lone Star State evolved to reflect the increasing importance and influence of the urban areas. No area in Texas illustrates this transformation better than DFW—a well-traveled location during the cattle trailing and early railroad eras that blossomed into a modern financial and cultural hotspot in the present day. We need a more complete documentation of the DFW metroplex, and the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) seeks to correct this imbalance in the historical record.
Handbook of Texas Medicine
Texans lay claim to a dynamic medical history. The state has borne witness to deadly disease outbreaks, the establishment of world-renowned medical institutions, and the discovery of new therapeutics and cures. From the first documented surgery on Texas soil by Cabeza de Vaca in the sixteenth century to the innovative research spearheaded by university laboratories to develop vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19, the medical story of Texas is reflective of the many ways Texans have engaged to protect and promote their health and well-being. Today, the healthcare industry represents a significant share of the Texas economy, contributing more than $108 billion to the state’s GDP, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Yet, despite the fundamental role medicine has played in shaping the growth and development of the state, a comprehensive and authoritative medical history of Texas remains unfulfilled. With the development of the Handbook of Texas Medicine, TSHA proudly presents a unique opportunity to address this disparity.
Handbook of Texas Women
The Handbook of Texas Women project strives to expand on the Handbook of Texas by promoting a more inclusive and comprehensive history of Texas. Texas women make Texas history, and TSHA wants to significantly recognize the various ways women have shaped the state’s history at home, across the state, nationally, and abroad. The impacts of women on Texas history are often overlooked, and as more and more people are accessing information using smartphones, tablets, and other mobile technologies, this project will seize upon the unprecedented opportunities of the digital age in order to reshape how Texas women’s history will be understood, preserved, and disseminated in the twenty-first century.
Handbook of Texas Music
What is it about Texas music? Trying to define it is like reviewing a dictionary. There is way too much detail to try to pin it down. However, this much is clear: Texans have given American music its distinctive voice, and that's no brag, just fact.
Handbook of Tejano History
The TSHA is proud to announce the launch of the Handbook of Tejano History, which contains more than 1,200 entries, including 300 new entries, detailing the critical influence of Tejanos on the Lone Star State. Released on March 29, 2016, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Tejano Monument unveiling on the Capitol grounds in Austin, the Handbook of Tejano History is the culmination of a two-year effort involving dozens of researchers, educators, students, and Texas history enthusiasts committed to capturing and sharing Tejano contributions to Texas life and culture. Originally conceived in partnership with the board of directors of the Tejano Monument, Inc., the Association’s Handbook of Tejano History joins a number of other important initiatives born out of the legacy of the Tejano Monument, including the Tejano History Curriculum Project and Austin Independent School District’s Cuauhtli Academy/Academia Cuauhtli.
Handbook of African American Texas
African Americans have been part of the landscape of Texas for as long as Europeans and their descendants. Spanning a period of more than five centuries, African American presence began in 1528 with the arrival of Estevanico, an African slave who accompanied the first Spanish exploration of the land in the southwestern part of the United States that eventually became Texas. While African Americans have been subjected to slavery, segregation, and discrimination during this long history, they have made significant contributions to the growth and development of Texas. They have influenced Texas policies and social standards. Living and working with other ethnic groups, they have helped create a unique Texas culture. Historians have not always acknowledged the role that African Americans have played in the Lone Star State. Although numerous studies of Texas’s past appeared in the twentieth century, until 1970 there remained too many empty pages in the history of the state concerning the black population. This situation has changed since the 1970s, but the need to capture more of the African American experience still exists. For this reason, we are happy to launch the Handbook of African American Texas.
Handbook of Civil War Texas
At 4:30 on the morning of April 12, 1861—one hundred and fifty years ago this spring (2011)—Confederate States of America artillery opened fire on United States troops in Fort Sumter, South Carolina, beginning the American Civil War. Texans, who had voted overwhelmingly in February 1861 to secede from the Union and then watched their state join the Confederacy in March, thus became involved in a four-year conflict that would take the lives of many and leave none untouched. Texas escaped much of the terrible destruction of the war for a simple reason—United States troops never managed to invade and occupy the state’s interior. In sum, the Civil War exacted a huge price, primarily in terms of lives lost and ruined in the Confederate Army and in the privations of those left at home. However, the conflict had two vitally positive results for Texas: It freed the state’s more than 200,000 enslaved people, and it destroyed the curse of the ‘Peculiar Institution’ for the entire society of the Lone Star State.
Handbook of Houston
The Texas State Historical Association and the Houston History Alliance (HHA) are proud to announce the launch of the Handbook of Houston, which contains more than 1,250 new and existing entries highlighting the significant impact Houston has had on the state, the nation, and the world. Launched on March 2, 2017, the Handbook of Houston is the culmination of many years of historical research.
Texan's London loop-the-loop dazzles His Majesty
121 years ago today
Spanish expedition leaves for East Texas
330 years ago today
First heart transplanted in Houston
56 years ago today
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Our entries are accessed thousands of times per day from all over the globe, and we are here because of you. Please consider a recurring membership or a gift.
Juneteenth read 17,475 times in the past week
Old San Antonio Road read 3,438 times in the past week
Texas Revolution read 1,964 times in the past week
Quintanilla Perez, Selena [Selena] read 1,584 times in the past week
Republic of Texas read 1,522 times in the past week
Comanche Indians read 1,418 times in the past week
Flags of Texas read 1,281 times in the past week
Steinmark, Freddie Joe read 1,223 times in the past week
Travis, William Barret read 1,164 times in the past week
McCallum, Jane Legette Yelvington read 1,120 times in the past week
Bowie, James read 1,081 times in the past week
White, Lulu Belle Madison read 1,046 times in the past week
Texan's London loop-the-loop dazzles His Majesty
121 years ago today
Spanish expedition leaves for East Texas
330 years ago today
First heart transplanted in Houston
56 years ago today
Get the FREE! Texas Day by Day delivered straight to your inbox:
Recent Additions
Every one of our entries is written, fact-checked, and reviewed by our team of professional and academic historians. It is the time, dedication, and support from both our staff & people like you—through your recurring memberships & generous donations—that makes it possible for us to produce quality work that you can trust.
Allen, Amelia Ann Tapscott 2 days ago
Ridgely, John 4 days ago
Holliday, Carranza Adair 4 days ago
Healthcare for the Homeless–Houston 4 days ago
Richards, Paul Rapier 1 week ago
Stratton, Monty Franklin Pierce 1 week ago
Koehler Park 1 week ago
Halaby, Najeeb Elias, Jr. [Jeeb] 1 week ago
Cash, Norman Dalton 1 week ago
Runnels, James Edward [Pete] 1 week ago
Montgomery, Ellie Alma Walls Mims 1 week ago
San Antonio Water Works Company 2 weeks ago
Arizmendi Mejía, Elena Irene 2 weeks ago
Fisher, Vernon Lane 2 weeks ago
Camfield, William Joseph [Icky Twerp] 2 weeks ago
Read, Julian Otis 2 weeks ago
Capps, Sarah Angel Brooke [Sallie] 4 weeks ago
Austin Rape Crisis Center 4 weeks ago