The Texas Economy
In the Late
Nineteenth Century
Continuity and Change
Texas and the New South
Key Themes
Cotton, cattle, and oil
 New South
 Continuity or change
 The case for cotton – romanticizing the
Texas past (context)
 Economic history at the micro- and macrolevels – social dynamics, history from the
bottom-up
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From Reconstruction to
the New South
New Economic System
Sharecropping (1/2 to 2/3 of crop turned
over) – advantages and disadvantages
 Protection of inequality under the law
 Segregation – de facto and de jure
 Discrimination in the legal system –
enforcing Jim Crow, “lynch law”
 Positive aspects of Reconstruction?
Religion, education, leaders: George Ruby
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The Legacy of
Reconstruction
Continuity
 De jure – segregation (Plessy)
 Poverty, violence and intimidation
 Disenfranchisement: How do African
Americans lose their right to vote?
 The politics of Redemption in Texas – the
fate of African Americans
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General Stores and Texas History
at the Micro-level
Greater Reconstruction and national
consolidation
 General merchants and attitudes on race
 Purchasing – an expression of freedom?
 Continuity and change
 Women in store ledgers – two unique
women: Mrs. Anna Hyde and Mrs. Anna
Martin
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The Texas Longhorn
German Cowboy
The Cattle Kingdom
Elimination of the Bison; Post Civil-War
factors – continuity and change
 Railroads
 Opportunity for cattle
 Texas Longhorns
 Issue of “splenic fever” (aka Texas or
Spanish fever)
 The great cattle drives of the 1870s/1880s
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The King Ranch
Early Ranching
King Ranch
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Early history
Santa Gertrudis Creek
Drought and the
King’s men (kineños)
1850s (1854 Mexico)
Growth in the postCivil War era
Innovations
Running W - legacy
Cattle Boom and Bust
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Why invest?
Issue of public domain – “range rights”
Large ranches – JA Ranch; XIT Ranch
Improved breeds (especially Herefords)
Overstocking
Barbed wire (1874-1875)
Ecological Disaster (1885-1887), Winter 18861887
Ecological disaster fed economic disaster
Capitol Building
Cowboys at XIT Ranch
Sources of Tension
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Battle over the public domain
Sutton-Taylor Feud (1867-68)
White cappers and race in East Texas
Racial friction with Tejanos – the Salt War
(1877)
Texas Rangers – law and order?
Fence-Cutters’ War (1883-1884)
Other examples of cattle conflict in the West –
Johnson County War (1890s)
“Change”
and the Texas Economy
The New South, Industrialism,
and the Discovery of Oil
Texas, Industrialism and the
New South
Land grants and railroads
 Industrializing Texas – railroad
development: T & P, MK & T (the Katy)
 Gilded Age – corporations and
monopolies: Collis Huntington and Jay
Gould
 Land policy
 Other industrial development: lumber,
agricultural derivatives: flour and cotton
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Texas at the Turn
of the 20th Century
Early oil discoveries:
Nacogdoches and
Corsicana – James M.
Guffey and John H.
Galey (Mellon money)
 Patillo Higgins and
Cpt. Anthony Lucas
 January 10, 1901
 Growth of the oil
industry – companies
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Spindletop 1903
Oil’s Legacy
Spin-off industries
 Other finds: Sour Lake (1902); Humble
(1905); Goose Creek (1908); Electra
(1904); Mexia (1912, 1921); Burkburnett
(1913); Desdemona (1918); etc.
 Frontier mentality – the oil town = cattle
town?
 Changing the economic pursuits of Texans
away from the 19th century standbys
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Labor’s Response
Organized labor?