In this episode, we pull back the curtain on teaching a college-level Texas history course. Texas history is more than what happened between the Red and Rio Grade rivers. So, join us as we unearth overlooked aspects of Texas history and reveal how the state's narrative is part of a broader regional, national, and even global story. We're keen to create a past that resonates with our increasingly diverse student body, including overlooked aspects of the 20th century so we can craft a story that truly represents us all.
In this episode, we pull back the curtain on teaching a college-level Texas history course. Texas history is more than what happened between the Red and Rio Grade rivers. So, join us as we unearth overlooked aspects of Texas history and reveal how the state's narrative is part of a broader regional, national, and even global story. We're keen to create a past that resonates with our increasingly diverse student body, including overlooked aspects of the 20th century so we can craft a story that truly represents us all.
This podcast is not sponsored by. It does not reflect the views of the institutions that employ us. It is solely our thoughts and ideas, based upon our professional training and study of the family.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that explores Texas history before and beyond the Alamo. Not only will we talk Texas history, we'll visit with folks who teach it, write it, support it, and with some who've made it and, of course, all of us who live it and love it. Welcome to another edition of Talking Texas History. I'm Gene Price.
Speaker 1:I'm Scott Soseby.
Speaker 2:Scott, let's talk about something that I often get asked from time to time, and that is what do you teach in a Texas history course? And I think that this is something you know, we, we don't really talk about, we just do, and we've been doing it, you know, for years, for decades even just putting together the syllabi and teaching these courses. But how much thought do we really put into into doing what we're doing? What do we change? How do we structure it? So let's talk about that today.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great thing to all that. But before we get started, we have to say on the day we're recording, it's the morning after the Rangers took care of the Astros and the American League Championship Series. As I'm you can't.
Speaker 2:Even I'm repping the Rangers shirt.
Speaker 1:So we have to make sure everybody knows that the Rangers are back and it's all up. You know this. No, you're exactly right, I don't know. You know, when people teach something, I think we can fall into a habit of it becoming rote and we not think about it when we put things together. And I think there are certain things that you should think about when you're teaching Texas history, when you're trying to get it across.
Speaker 1:My first rattle out of the box is an overarching thing is that you need to find some sort of theme to hang everything on as you put a class together.
Speaker 1:That, will you know, you're going through a lot of information because we're covering Texas history, unlike many of our American history survey courses in which you teach your first half and a second half. So you teach one through reconstruction and then one through the present. We're doing Texas history from pre-Columbian contact. All the way through is present, or it's like I used to say, as far as I get, which sometimes is into the 1990s or so, and sometimes that's not quite that far, depending on how much I riff and class and use impromptu type of conversation. But we need a theme that holds everything together and I think that's something for us to start off discussing. So if you could say, Gene, let me ask you. If you could say, Gene, let me ask you, if you have a theme that you say, I want our students to walk out of this class with one big thought in their mind as a theme of Texas history, what would it be? That's a really good question.
Speaker 2:That's a really good question and it's something that I've struggled with and I don't know that I do. I get this across, but what I want students to realize about Texas history Now this is the theme of the class is that Texas history is a part of a much bigger history of the region, of the nation and of the world history.
Speaker 1:Bingo, that's bingo. I'm the same way.
Speaker 2:And that's what I want them to do is to realize that it's not just, you know, we're not naval gazers and Texas historians. You know, when we were coming up through school and we were in some of the same classes in graduate school at Tech, but a lot of people looked down upon Texas history because they thought we were too inbred, that we were, you know, too regional. And I remember Don Walker up at Tech always used to tell us he said you know, I get my colleagues say that Texas historians are too regional. And he said well, how big is France? And it's smaller than Texas, by the way. And he said that, you know, if Texas is too regional, isn't French history too regional, too? Well, they didn't want to talk about that. But I mean, I get his point. I don't know that I agree with it necessarily, or the way you know you present that, but it is true is that Texas has world history wrapped up into it, regional history, local history and national history. All of that can be combined in a Texas history course.
Speaker 1:I think you're exactly right, gene, and that's one of the biggest points that we always should get across is that and I say it this way Texas history didn't happen in a vacuum. It wasn't just developed in a certain way because it was Texas. It developed in certain ways because it was part of something developing bigger, and that's the theme. Really, if you ask me to do one theme, that's what it is as it goes across, it's Texas' development as part of a larger American history, or even more than that, north American history, if you will. That goes this, we all know this. A certain person Many people listen to this podcast will know who I'm talking about by just saying it who begins many things that he says to audiences and stuff. His first statement is Texas has the most unique history of any state in the country, and a lot of people think that way, and that's what I'm really trying to combat, because it doesn't have the most unique history. It has a unique history to some extent because it's one place, one region, but it's not just completely different from other places. Texas' development has elements of development, somewhat like the Mexico, somewhat like Louisiana, someone like Florida. There are elements of that that are all the same. But I try to emphasize this Texas' development and, as it works out, the hanging it together.
Speaker 1:For the most part, if I'm teaching from the 18th through the 19th century, texas is developing as a southern state. This development is bringing in a southern American culture. It is very southern in its thought, it's very southern in its society, very southern in its politics, very southern in its culture. We see some change in a few areas in the 20th century, but for the most part Texas is a southern state. So because I also teach southern history, those are very connected, they're very related, they're parallel and that's what I try to get through in my classes morning.
Speaker 1:Anything else is Texas didn't develop into this little thing all by itself. And as far as Texas being regional and people saying, oh well, you know y'all's history is, you keep it so tightly controlled and it's nothing like you don't talk to people outside. Yes, you know what that has happened in the past. I think, and it's Texas historians fault A lot of this traditional narrative that we hear about going through, a lot of this whole very nationalist idea of Texas. History keeps Texas somewhat as this little, small little place where nothing gets out and so we're to blame. Some historians are to blame because we teach Texas history that way and we need to stop it because that's not what we should do.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, going back to this comment about that, we have the most unique history of any state. I mean, I get the you know that has been what a lot of people have said for a long time or believed for a long time. But I would say this I think every state has a unique history, right? We're just like every other state and we all have unique histories. And the nation, the world, you know, has a unique history, and so it's saying not really very much, but I get what they're trying to say and it's this idea and we this was, you know, drilled into me as a kid was that, you know, we are different because we're the largest state in the union. You know a lot of things. You know, we were our own nation for a while. We were, you know, we had some unique things, and I think that is right. Am I proud to be a Texan? Absolutely, do. I think Texas history is important? Absolutely, and I don't think we can get away from that. But, like you're saying, is you have to put it into a bigger perspective, and that actually makes it much more interesting, because I would argue that a lot of the important things that the United States got involved with were revolved around things that happened here in Texas or because of things that happened here in Texas. So, yeah, I mean, our state is important to national and world history and I would agree with that, but it's not just, it's not just a Texas issue.
Speaker 2:Here's the other thing when does Texas history begin? You know we were talking about this kind of right at the beginning. So let me tell you what I tell my students. I asked my students at the beginning of every class and I teach in Houston, texas, right, fourth largest city should be the third in the United States right and I say, how many of you know about the Battle of the Alamo? Everybody raises their hand, right.
Speaker 2:And then I say, how many of you know about the Battle of San Jacinto? Very few people raise my hand. It's 20 miles away from where I teach. You know it's, san Jacinto is in our geographic area, it's right next to us and most students don't know about it. And so you know. It reinforces this idea to me that most kids, most people coming into college, have a very limited view about history in general and likewise, even though they've had Texas history all their lives, they have a limited understanding of Texas history and why it's important. And that's why it's important, you know, to teach these classes and to be thoughtful about how we put them together and what we want our students to do and come away with.
Speaker 1:I think you're exactly right, gina. This thing, the amazing thing you talk about using the example of San Jacinto and, of course, the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution, is that everybody in Texas recalls the Alamo, like you said, but nobody recalls San Jacinto. But you know what? That battle is not just an important battle that ended the Texas Revolution, it's one of the most important events and military engagements ever in United States history. And but how often do we teach it that way? Probably not that often. Because we were talking about relating to everything else. I can take and I do this in class almost a direct line from the outcome of San Jacinto to the start of the Civil War. That, because that ended the way it did, the Civil War begins when it does, and why it does? Because that's related to the whole, you know, to what I call San Jacinto in class is the first military battle of manifest destiny, because it begins this empire march of the South across to expand the slaveocracy.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, that's a great description.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because let's say let's just say remember kids at home, don't do this. Historians are never all when bar used to hammer into my head. Historians never do this. They do not be a historical and say, what if this had happened? But that's no fun. Let's just say Santa Ana wins San Jacinto right and the Texas army is vanquished.
Speaker 1:At that point what happens to Texas? Does that mean that the United States under Andrew Jackson decides to okay, now we're going to go down and save this. And they enter in a war with Mexico in 1836 and say they start the Mexican war 10 years early. And then what we have? You know, we haven't fully formed some of the slavery arguments. That time the whole, the whole play of history comes out different. You know, people say history is a fabric, and it is. And like any fabric, if you pull out one thread, sometimes the whole thing will fall apart. And that might have happened if we do. But that's been a historical. But you're right.
Speaker 1:I think one of the one of the things the battles we fight also is trying to overcome this grandiose, nationalist, almost mythical history of Texas. I start my semester every semester on my opening day I say all right, class, I want you to tell me five things that you just know about Texas, five things that you know are just true about Texas, and it's never fails. Two of them I know I'm going to get. One is, of course, texas is the only state that was once its own country. Well, no, it's not right.
Speaker 2:What about?
Speaker 1:Hawaii.
Speaker 1:What about California, even Vermont, for a short, short period of time. These places were basically their own countries and my thing is but does that really matter? As you'll learn, texas was its own country by accident. It didn't really want to be, but I hear that every time. The second one, of course, because Texas was its own country and came in, it was it's can fly its flag on the same level as United States flags when they're together. Oh yeah, well, no, any state can do that.
Speaker 1:We're just the state so full of damn hubris that we do quite often to do that, and so we have this idea of history and what that has led to and this is the biggest thing that I want to stress in class also, like our friend Ty Cashion used to say quite often and was part of his book book loans our mind and it's become something that's been a come, a mantra of mine. Even If we teach Texas in that very, very controlled, regionalized, most unique history in all this of all the states, we do not create a usable past. We do not create something that relates to everything else and, even more than that, to the students we have now. We don't create something that relates them because these students are different than they were 50 years ago. It's a more inclusive student body. It's a more diverse student body.
Speaker 1:If I'm teaching about Texas history the old let's say that old Anglo narrative way that young man sitting in the front row whose parents his mother, was born in Honduras and his dad was born in Mexico and then they came to the United States to make another life how does that past relate to him? It doesn't. Why do they care, right? Why do they care about that Exactly? But if we make it in that as part of something larger, that is, part of a full development, then it does become usable. If we tell that young man his story of how this happened, we do.
Speaker 1:Which brings me to another pet peeve that I'm going to throw out and let you do first, because I know it's a pet peeve of yours too, because we both share it. I think one of the biggest problems many people have when they've learned Texas history before they come to our classes, and also what textbooks tend to do and what rich volumes tend to do, is Texas history is too damn Concentrated on the 19th century that we spend so much time, energy, on the 19th century, many things, so we don't get to some of the important stuff. If you ask me, the most important things about Texas happen in the 20th century. So I'll let, because I know that's one of your great topics, I'll let you go on.
Speaker 2:Well, well, look, you know, and full disclosure. Really, you and I are both Late 19th and early 20th century historians, right? So your focus whenever you were working on your dissertation was on late at night. You know Western settlement, right, and so that's late 19th, post civil war and early 20th century Texas. My dissertation was on the development of Texas public education, which you know Really changed in 1949. That well, we have the modern Texas public education system. So we're both late 19th, early 20th century and plus I like reconstruction and New South a lot too, just like you know you did so, right. So our focus tended to be more on the more recent developments and less on the 19th century.
Speaker 2:But I, you know what I always say. This is my, my Struggle with teaching the Alamo a there's a lot of great resources Out there on the Alamo. Do I really need to offer my opinion on it or my Knowledge about it? No, I can let others, you know, others who have already put together material do that for me. But the other thing is, is that you know, I always tell people, say you know, we know the name of every jackass at the Alamo, and by that I mean borrow right, donkey, we know the name of every jackass at the Alamo, but we don't know much about anything else in that great detail. I mean, if you look and you know we've done this before.
Speaker 2:Frank de la Teja, number of years ago, at the East Texas Historical Association meeting in Galveston, brought up one of the pitfalls of writing a Texas history textbook was that so much of the Texas history textbooks in the past have focused on 1821 to about 1845 that nothing else really gets talked about very much. And Most of what we know, or what people Popularly know about the Alamo is based upon a John Wayne movie and Walt Disney films. So there's a lot of myth and legend built into it. But that's what attracts everybody and it's knowing about how things developed, how you know actual history looking at documents, looking at records of what happened that are available, that are out there.
Speaker 2:But it's not the exciting, the mythical stuff of history, the stuff that we, you know, can puff up our chests and tell great stories of, of Kings, right, but it's a. It's a story of baser things. It's that story of how we developed into a State, how we fought the Civil War, which didn't much happen here on Texas soil, but how we participated in the aftermath of that and how we put our governments back together, how we dealt with new citizens, how we dealt with immigration, how we dealt with, you know, changes in the economy After the 20th century. I think all those are important, but in a lot of Texas history Teachings those get short shrift.
Speaker 1:You're right, jean, and that's some of the things that get short shrift, are things that are very important. One example that I think of I once gave a paper at the East Texas Historical Association meeting on the five most transformational moments and events in Texas history. And the thing I choose for the most important event in Texas history may be unique to a lot of people and Because I think it is this consequential and that's the the hitting, the hitting of the gusher at spindle top in 1901, because it completely begins to change Texas's development and and how it worked. But you look at most textbooks from Texas history and how much is spindle top mentioned? If anything, it gets a paragraph or two and the consequence of it is never really brought out.
Speaker 1:And the thing is in my mind, if you use that Happens in 1901 as an important transformational thing that helps you frame a whole lot of what happens to Texas in the 20th century. Because that discovery of that Texas is essentially floating on a sea of oil Changes everything. It changes so much about the state and its development. Those are the types of things, I think, what we can emphasize instead of every jackass at the Alamo, which we tend to do, and I think that's one of the things, that. Another thing that if we're teaching Texas for me that I have to make sure I get across.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we have to look at the things and the transformations. How do we get to where we are today? I mean agriculture everybody always thinks of it. Agriculture In Texas history. They think cows. Well, sorry, cows aren't the most profitable overall in Texas history and we've had a lot of other. If we're just looking at critters, if we're just looking at you know what about sheep and goats? That has been much more profitable for Texas farmers and ranchers than cattle have been, because the cattle market goes up and down and the cattle market is really a post-Civil War thing. You know before that it was cotton. Cotton was the big crop, just like it was throughout much of the South.
Speaker 1:But Dean John Wayne never. He never heard it in his sheep and he never did grow any cotton. So we thought he was that.
Speaker 2:That's why nobody thinks about it, you know, and maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's that we have this television movie driven history, because we've seen these shows over and over again. I'm having my students right now read a report from a scouting party after the Civil War up in the Red River Valley of Texas, and one of the this is from 1877,. You know, one of the things that the scouting party doesn't really report about very much, in fact they talk about how little they ran into Native Americans. Well, you look at every movie, every Western movie, there's a wagon train that has to circle every time in every movie because of a hundred hundred and fifty or a thousand Native Americans, indians, attacking them. And you know, if we look at history, a very rarely did anybody ever, if any time at all, did anybody ever circle a wagon train. Most Native American attacks weren't that large and, as this report points out, even more so they didn't run into Native Americans that often.
Speaker 1:I think it's again something else that popular culture has given to us. I think we can switch to kind of sort of wrapping some of this up because we've had some great ideas. We may have to do two casts on this right, given our time constraints, but we've been talking about themes and going through. But how about we talk a little bit about use, of how you get this point across to students that we're talking about in your class? What kind of materials do you use? What kind of direction do you use? And I think both of us have somewhat of the same approach, even though, of course, what's going on I know it's probably the same there at your university as it is mine.
Speaker 1:Big portion of the people who pass through our Texas history classes are training to be classroom teachers in Texas, because it's required to take, and so, that being the case, I think it's important to not just get an honest history of Texas in the classroom, but also to give these future teachers a way to hey, look, these are things you can pass in your class, these are things you can use in your class to also give to your students. So when we get them at the college level, after taking Texas history in the fourth and the seventh grade, and some of them in the twelfth grade, that they don't have all these mythical, grandiose ideas in their head. And that is to use the primary documents when you're talking about hey, you know, the Texas revolution developed in a certain way. These people thought certain ways. Then you give them look, these are the things they wrote. You show them the Texas Declaration of Independence. What did they find important? You can see that there.
Speaker 1:What kind of ideas you can show them documents about oh, they really were concerned with protecting their slaves in a Mexican federation. When you talk about civil war and secession, you can give them the orders of secession and see look, this is what they were thinking about. When you get to the 1920s, let's say, and you start talking about business, progressives and how they were really coalescing into the conservative faction, you can show them things that came out of, for example, governor Pat Neff's office, that were really pressing, this idea of an economic differentiation in Texas that protected business and also protected white supremacy. All these things. If you show them the primary documents, that gives them a say. You know what this is, backs it up. This shows what these people were actually thinking, instead of this interpretation that we get from so many traditional Texas accounts that this was not important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great point, and for the exact same reasons, right, most of the people who major in history, right, american Historical Association has shown that most of the people who major in history, half of them, let's say most of them, half of them, half of them will go into teaching of some field, right, and so how do you prepare teachers? This is another thing I think that I've transitioned into doing that I didn't think about starting off teaching Texas history was that is what is the end goal in mind. What am I trying to get across? And that was a question you asked right at the beginning, and I think this was something that I've journeyed to rather than started off doing is that not only what do I want them to understand about Texas history, but what do I want them to get out of my class? And it is to use primary sources.
Speaker 2:When I was in history courses, that wasn't used that often, and so I try to use them now with undergraduates so that they can have some understanding of how to use primary sources, so that if they go into teaching, they can do the same thing. They can find primary sources, either some that I provided or they've gotten in other classes or those that they found on their own in their own research right? How do you use primary sources to let students learn about history and become involved in the historical thought process themselves? And you know, scott, we've only got a minute or two left, so let me ask you a question, scott, so is me. What do you know about putting together a Texas history course?
Speaker 1:What do I know about putting together a Texas history course? Well, I'm sure I'll have some students that will say it's not a damn thing. But, that being said, what I know about putting together a Texas history course is that, first off and that's the number one thing I've repeated again you have to make what you're teaching relatable to your students. They have to be able to connect with what you're teaching, and if you're teaching them something and if you're emphasizing something that they don't care about, they're not going to relate, they're not going to learn anything. So the number one thing I concentrate on that I know that I have to make Texas history appeal to that student, most of them between the ages of 18 and 22, and most of them who grew up now, most of them who they all grew up almost all in the 21st century. So let's start relating something to them that they can look back and go oh yeah, I kind of get that. That's what I know, gene.
Speaker 2:I think that's a that's a good way to wrap up, and I think we need to come back and talk about this, because you know, we pulled up our syllabi. We're going to talk about our. We haven't even gotten there, right? We've just been talking about the. You know what we need to do to get the right mindset, so let's talk about how we put together our syllabi, books and teaching techniques. Next time, okay, next time.
Speaker 1:Sounds good to me. Thanks for listening, Gene. And now everybody else. All right, have a great day.
Speaker 2:We'll talk to you soon, bye, bye.