Synopses & Reviews
Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives engages current scholarship on women in Texas, the South, and the United States. It provides insights into Texasandrsquo;s singular geographic position, bordering on the West and sharing a unique history with Mexico, while analyzing the ways in which Texas stories mirror a larger American narrative. The biographies and essays illustrate an uncommon diversity among Texas women, reflecting experiences ranging from those of dispossessed enslaved women to wealthy patrons of the arts. That history also captures the ways in which womenandrsquo;s lives reflect both personal autonomy and opportunities to engage in the public sphere. From the vast spaces of northern New Spain and the rural counties of antebellum Texas to the growing urban centers in the postandndash;Civil War era, women balanced traditional gender and racial prescriptions with reform activism, educational enterprise, and economic development.
Contributors to Texas Women address major questions in womenandrsquo;s history, demonstrating how national and regional themes in the scholarship on women are answered or reconceived in Texas. Texas women negotiated significant boundaries raised by gender, race, and class. The writers address the fluid nature of the border with Mexico, the growing importance of federal policies, and the eventual reforms engendered by the civil rights movement. From Apaches to astronauts, from pioneers to professionals, from rodeo riders to entrepreneurs, and from Civil War survivors to civil rights activists, Texas Women is an important contribution to Texas history, womenandrsquo;s history, and the history of the nation.
Review
andldquo;[T]his book is a captivating journey of resilient women. For those who study womenandrsquo;s history, [the] book will add immeasurable resources to your collection; for those who casually acknowledge the role of women in the stateandrsquo;s history, this book will blow your mind. While that last statement is not an accepted scholarly way of expressing praise for a long overdue study of womenandrsquo;s place in the stateandrsquo;s history, it is the most appropriate. . . . [Texas Women] will appeal to anyone with a love of history. There is no doubt that [the work] will be a required text in womenandrsquo;s studies, as well as one that is enjoyed outside of academia. It will also become the very high bar that generations of authors will aim to reach in years to come.andrdquo;andmdash;Debbie Liles, Panhandle Plains Historical Review
About the Author
Elizabeth Hayes Turner is a professor of history at the University of North Texas. Stephanie Cole is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington. Rebecca Sharpless is an associate professor of history at Texas Christian University.