Women and the Texas Revolution - Hardcover

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9781574414691: Women and the Texas Revolution

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574414690 ISBN 13: 9781574414691

Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 2012

Winner of the Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women, Texas State Historical Association

Historically, wars and revolutions have offered politically and socially disadvantaged people the opportunity to contribute to the nation (or cause) in exchange for future expanded rights. Although shorter than most conflicts, the Texas Revolution nonetheless profoundly affected not only the leaders and armies, but the survivors, especially women, who endured those tumultuous events and whose lives were altered by the accompanying political, social, and economic changes.

While there is wide scholarship on the Texas Revolution, there is no comparable volume on the role of women during that conflict. Most of the many works on the Texas Revolution include women briefly in the narrative, such as Emily Austin, Susanna Dickinson, and Emily Morgan West (the Yellow Rose), but not as principal participants. Women and the Texas Revolution explores these women in much more depth, in addition to covering the women and children who fled Santa Anna’s troops in the Runaway Scrape, and examining the roles and issues facing Native American, black, and Hispanic women of the time.

Like the American Revolution, women’s experiences in the Texas Revolution varied tremendously by class, religion, race, and region. While the majority of immigrants who crossed the Sabine and Red rivers into Texas in the 1820s and 1830s were men, many were women who accompanied their husbands and families or, in some instances, braved the dangers and the hardships of the frontier alone. Black and Hispanic women were also present in Mexican Texas. Most black women came as chattel property (or free blacks) and most Tejanas were already living in predominantly Spanish or Mexican communities. The Native American female population, a sizeable but declining segment of the population, was also in the region, inhabiting the prairies and plains, but rarely counted in the various censuses at the time. Whether Mexican loyalist or Texas patriot, elite planter or subsistence farm wife, slaveholder or slave, Anglo or black, women helped settle the Texas frontier and experienced the uncertainty, hardships, successes, and sorrows of the Texas Revolution.

By placing women at the center of the Texas Revolution, this volume reframes the historical narrative and asks different questions: What were the social relations between the sexes at the time of the Texas Revolution? Did women participate in the war effort? Did the events of 1836 affect Anglo, black, Hispanic, and Native American women differently? What changes occurred in women’s lives as a result of the revolution? Did the revolution liberate women to any degree from their traditional domestic sphere and threaten the established patriarchy? In brief, was the Texas Revolution “revolutionary” for women?

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About the Author:

MARY L. SCHEER is an associate professor and chair of the history department at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. She is also a former Fulbright Scholar to Germany. Scheer has authored The Foundations of Texan Philanthropy and co-edited with John Storey Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History (UNT Press). Her research interests include Texas, women, and twentieth-century social history.

Review:

“Women and the Texas Revolution is a fresh and valuable addition to works on the Revolution and on women in nineteenth-century Texas. It is a serious and multifaceted treatment of a topic that has come in for very little scholarly study.”—Paula Marks, author of Hands to the Spindle and Precious Dust

“The gathering of scholars in this book is formidable. They have produced a well-done series of well documented vignettes of women in the revolutionary period, whether defined by ethnicity, as in African-American, or by fate (as in Alamo survivors, or participants in the Runaway Scrape).”—James L. Haley, author of Sam Houston and Passionate Nation

"Using primary and secondary sources, each essay provides both personal vignettes and academic examination of each group, including accounts of many relatively unknown women. Overall, the anthology is clearly written and well constructed and effectively accomplishes its goal of highlighting the ways in which experiences in and around the revolution affected the lives of the many women living in Texas."--Choice

"What a great topic! After all the books about the battles, politics, and intrigue of the men in the Texas Revolution there is finally a book addressing the role of women. With chapters about women of various ethnicities followed by chapters about women at the Alamo, in the Runaway Scrape, and at San Jacinto, the book was a delight to read from beginning to end. . . . The chapter by Dora Guerra on the women of the Alamo is a gem as it addresses all the women and children who survived, not just Susanna Dickinson Wilkerson and Angelina. The San Jacinto chapter by Jeffrey Dunn makes an important contribution separating fact from fiction about Emily West, the Yellow Rose of Texas."--Journal of South Texas

"All of the chapters are well researched, drawing on many primary resources as well as secondary ones. A 'must read' for anyone interested in Texas history."--Texas Books in Review

"A volume on women in the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836 is a welcome addition to a historiography that focuses on the exploits of men.The Republic of Texas lasted only from 1836 to 1845, but its male founders and military leaders have been immortalized. This volume attempts to remedy that absence by highlighting the multifaceted role of women during the revolution. In chapters on Native American, Tejana, and black women, the authors convincingly claim that the Texas Revolution did not change their lives for the better. . . . Even Anglo-American women did not benefit from the war or from the New Republic of Texas."--Journal of American History

"[This] is a needed, educational, and enjoyable anthology that can be used in a variety of studies--women's history, that of the Revolution, or early Texas. This book will be equally attractive to the non-academic world, as it contains all the ingredients in a great book--love, death, turmoil, survival, defeat, and victory."--East Texas Historical Journal

"On balance, the Texas Revolution was not a liberating experience for women, nor did it improve their opportunities and lives over the course of the nineteenth century. The essays in the volume Women and the Texas Revolution provide a useful introduction and initial attempt to bring a more complete, gendered perspective to Texas history."--Southwestern Historical Quarterly

"The eight essays in Women in the Texas Revolution aim to redress the absence of women in the overall narrative. With relatively little evidence to rely on, the essays are masterpieces of recovery work. They create a counter narrative by examining ordinary people coping with daily life and the changing rules and mores brought about by shifting national governments." New Mexico Historical Review

"Women and the Texas Revolution is a remarkable collection that chronicles the female experience during a volatile time. This work not only aids in revising the traditional literature on the insurrection but also underscores the need for additional research on women."--Journal of Southern History

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