Around the Courtyard | 2004

Expand FAQ List

  • 2004 News Archive

    • The Department of History is proud to announce that Rebecca Ramsey, a student in last spring's graduate public history Local and Community History course, won the annual Victoria College graduate student paper contest for her seminar paper titled "When the Boys of Summer Still Wore Flannel: The History and Success of the San Antonio Missions Baseball Team, 1932-1933." She received a $400 prize and will present her paper at the annual John W. Stormont South Texas History Lectures at Victoria College in February. The paper will be published in the Journal of South Texas Studies. Congratulations Rebecca!

       

    • Jack Kinslow receiving scholarship check from Center for Texas Music History director Gary Hartman.

      The Center for Texas Music History announces that Dee Lannon and Jack Kinslow, two history graduate students, have been awarded $500 scholarships through the generosity of the Western Swing Music Society of the Southwest. Dee and Jack are currently conducting promising research on western swing, a musical tradition that emerged in Texas and Oklahoma during the 1920s to 1940s and exemplified by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. 

      Dee Lannon receiving scholarship check from Center for Texas Music History director Gary Hartman.

      Dr. Gary Hartman, Director of the Center for Texas Music History, awarding scholarships to Jack Kinslow (top) and Dee Lannon (bottom).

       

    • Dr. Lydia Magalhaes Garner has been elected into membership in Brazil's Geographical and Historical Institute (the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro), one of the oldest intellectual institutions in Brazil.  The Institute was created in Rio in 1838 and very early gained support and sponsorship from Emperor Pedro II. The journal for the Institute is one of the longest running in Brazil and was critical in establishing an independent historiographical tradition in Brazil. Its members today include some of the preeminent historians of Brazil. Dr. Garner, who joined the history faculty at Texas State in 1992, is recognized as an authority on the formation of modern Brazil under the rule of Dom Pedro II.

       

    • The Second Annual Dunbar Heritage Festival and Eddie Durham Music Tribute will take place on August 20-21, 2004, in San Marcos. Activities will include featured presentations about Eddie Durham, native of San Marcos and "Maestro of Southwestern Swing," renditions of his Big Band compositions and other works, a "Meet the Artists" fundraiser, and a documentary film premiere.

      Groups and artists scheduled to perform on August 21 at San Marcos Plaza include Eric Durham, son of Eddie, and his Top Groove Band (6.00 pm), Rattlesnake Annie (8.30 pm), and The Harlem Blues & Jazz orchestra with special guests (9.30 pm). Mr. Phil Schapp, curator for Jazz at Lincoln Center, will emcee the activities.

      Also on Saturday, August 21, at 3.00 pm in the Calaboose African American Museum (MLK & Fredericksburg), San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz and museum curator Johnnie Armstead will host a "Meet the Artists" fundraiser.

      Kicking off the festival and tribute will be the Texas premiere of "The Last of the First," a documentary film about the Harlem Blues and Jazz Band. The film will be shown at the San Marcos Activity Center at 7.00 pm on Friday, August 20. Admission is by donation.

      Born in San Marcos on August 19, 1906, Eddie Durham's musical legacy is spectacular.  Durham's contributions are vast and influenced the emerging musical movement known as Southwestern Swing or Kansas City Jazz during the 1920s and 1930s.  After spending his early years in San Marcos' Dunbar neighborhood, Durham joined Bennie Moten's seminal "Kansas City Sound" band, along with Count Basie.  After Moten's death, Basie eventually formed the Count Basie orchestra around the core members of the Moten band, which Durham joined.  Durham composed and arranged early hits of Basie's orchestra, including "One O'Clock Jump," "Topsy," "Good Morning Blues," and "Swinging The Blues." After a stint with the Count Basie Orchestra, Durham arranged tunes for The Glen Miller Band, contributing to the band's signature piece, "In The Mood," for which Durham gained entry into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Durham also produced classic arrangements for Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Jan Savitt, cementing his place as one of the premier arrangers and composers of the Big Band Era.  An accomplished trombonist, Durham possessed talents that extended beyond composing and arranging songs.  Most significantly, Durham pioneered recording using an amplified guitar.  His work with the electric guitar strongly influenced a generation of jazz artists, including Charles Christian, widely held to be one of the greatest electric guitarists ever.  The electric guitar became, of course, a standard instrument for Blues and Rock & Roll bands.

      These activities are also part of ongoing efforts to publicize the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District, a proposed multi-acre heritage and cultural tourism and economic development initiative located primarily within the Dunbar Historic District in central San Marcos.  The integrated heritage tourism area would include an Eddie Durham Heritage Park and Durham Music Museum, preservation efforts in the historic Dunbar neighborhood, improvements to the Calaboose African American Museum, the preservation and restoration of the Old Hays County Jail for a Hays County History Museum, a restored Old First Baptist Church N.B.C. for community use and exhibit space, a restored blacksmith's workshop, and several additional exhibits that would include a visual recreation of "The Beat," the once vibrant commercial heart of San Marcos' African-American community.

       

    • Jahue Anderson (History, MA, 2004) received recognition for best paper in the Ben H. Procter Research Paper competition at the 2004 meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association for "An Environmental History of the Wichita Rivers: Agriculture and Irrigation on the Mesquite Plains."

      Constance Bishop (History, MA, 2000), who is pursuing the PhD in history at SMU, passed her comprehensive exams and is ABD.

      Carlos Blanton (History, MA, 1995), assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University, recently published The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981 (Texas A&M University Press, 2004) and is currently working on a biography of famed pedagogue and civil rights activist George I. Sanchez.

      Diane Cain (History, MA, 1998) is pursuing the PhD in history at Rice University.

      Angie Calder (History, MA, 2000) has begun the PhD in history program at the University of Houston.

      Amy Canon, a graduate student in the Department of History's public history program, had her work as an intern in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas [DRT] Library during spring 2004 featured in a lengthy article that appeared in the San Antonio Express News, May 22, 2004. Amy archived photographic negatives that are part of a significant 8,000-item collection of work done by commercial photographer Joe Elicson. Amy cleaned negatives, put them in archival-quality envelopes, and categorized and catalogued them. As a result of her outstanding work, Amy was offered a part-time position in the DRT archives.

      Bob Cavendish (History, MA, 2001) published "Anvil of Ceres: The Confederate Foundry at Waller Creek" in the April 2004 edition of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and teaches U.S. history at Austin Community College.

      Jeff Coker (History, MA, 1994) is assistant professor of history at Belmont University.

      Steve Collins (History, MA, 1992) is teaching at St. Louis Community College, after receiving the PhD in history from LSU in 1998.

      Jerry Drake (History, MA, 2003) was recently named Director of Archives at the Texas General Land Office.

      Jesse Esparza (History, MA, 2002) has begun the PhD in history program at the University of Houston.

      Georgia Davis, currently in the graduate Public History Program, was recently named manager for Sebastopol House State Historic Site in Seguin, Texas.

      Nathan Giesenschlag (History, MA, 2001) is teaching American history surveys at Blinn College and Montgomery County CC.

      Kay Goldman (History, MA, 1995) earned the PhD in history from Texas A&M University in 2002 and is an academic advisor there.

      Carlyn Copeland Hammons (History, MA, 2002) is working as the Special Collections Coordinator for the Texas Medical Association. In charge of the organization's archives and the History of Medicine Collection, she has produced exhibits displayed in the TMA gallery, including the "History of Women in Texas Medicine" exhibit that recently opened in June 2004. In addition to that, Carlyn is doing some contract work for Texas Parks and Wildlife, transcribing oral history interviews of former Civilian Conservation Corps workers.

      Jeff Hankins (History, MA, 1998), who earned the Ph.D. in History at LSU in 2003, accepted a tenure-track assistant professor of history position at Louisiana Tech University after recently teaching at LSU and Tulane University during 2003-04.

      Jeff Hassman (History, MA, 1995) received the PhD in history from George Washington University in 2002 and recently taught at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio.

      Gabriel Head (History, MA, 2000) is in the Baylor University Law program and applying for admission to the Texas Bar.

      Clarissa Hinojosa (History, MA, 2002) teaches U.S. history at Austin Community College and Texas Lutheran College.

      Judith Hoffman (History, MA, 1996) is completing the PhD at the University of Texas-Austin andteaches at Texas Lutheran University.

      Roger Horky (History, MA, 2000) has begun the PhD in history program at Texas A&M University.

      Ann Kapp (History, MA, 2002) teaches U.S. history courses at Austin Community College, Concordia Lutheran University, and Central Texas College.

      Ryan Kashanipour (History, MA, 2003) has begun the PhD program in history at the University of Arizona.

      John Kearney (History, MA, 1996) received the Ph.D. in history from the University of Houston and presented a paper at the World History Association of Texas 2004 Conference.

      Morgen King, current MA student, received a Professional Business Women's research grant in the amount of $500 for researching the Texas Women's University Special Collections.

      Rebecca Kosary (MA, 1999), who is pursuing a PhD in history at Texas A&M University, passed her comps and teaches at Texas Lutheran University.

      Tanya Krause (History, MA, 2003) published "Barrels of Fun" in Horse Illustrated (February 2002).

      Bryan Mann (History, MA, 2000) is writing his dissertation on the early Stuart lieutenancy in Cambridgeshire, England, for a PhD in history at the University of Leicester, England.

      Heather Milligan (History, MA, 2003) is engaged in studies in the University of Texas-Austin Information Sciences School's MLS program.

      Tara Neal (History, MA, 1996) earned the PhD in history from the University of North Texas and is a director of academic affairs with the University of Phoenix.

      <Hugh O'Donovan (History, MA, 2004) received recognition for best paper in the Ben H. Procter Research Paper competition at the 2004 meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association for "The Unionization of Black Motion Picture Projectionists in Dallas and Houston, 1923-1949." Hugh taught the introductory U.S. history survey at Texas State and was recently hired to teach history courses at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin.

      Gene Preuss (History, MA, 1993) earned the PhD in history from Texas Tech University in 2004 and is an assistant professor of history at the University of Houston-Downtown.

      Chris Quinn (History, MA, 1999) is in the PhD program in history at the University of Delaware where he passed his comps.

      Jodi Reed (History, MA, 2003) also taught the U.S. history survey and the History of Western Civilization since 1715 at Texas State.

      Nicole Sanders (History, MA, 1996) completed the PhD in history at the University of California-Irvine and is an assistant professor at Lynchburg College.

      Brandi Schnautz (History, MA, 2001) is pursuing a law degree at the University of Texas-Austin.

      Brad Shreve (History, MA, 2003) has begun the PhD in history program at the University of New Mexico.

      Ruth Sullivan, a current MA student, participated in the First Annual Texas Heritage Seminar in September 2002 at Schreiner University and assisted in the design and display of an exhibit on Texas guitars and guitar making that complemented the travelling Smithsonian Institute exhibition, "Hearts and Hands: Musical Instrument Makers of America" at the New Braunfels Museum of Art & Music.

      Dave Sysma (History, MA, 1999) teaches U.S. history at Austin Community College.

      Bev Tomek (History, MA, 1999) passed her comprehensive exams and is now ABD in history at the University of Houston.

      Miguel Trujillo (History, MA, 1998) is an instructor at the University de Alcala, Spain.

      Chuck Waite (History, MA, 1992) completed the PhD in history at Texas Tech University in 1999, has been working for a museum design firm in Houston, and soon will take a teaching position at the University of Texas-Pan American.

      Laura West (History, MA, 2001), who previously was Historian and Archaeologist with PBS&J in Austin and designed a museum among other public history and cultural resource management projects, left her position with M&S Engineering, Ltd. and is now a private consultant.

      Ray Westphal (History, MA, 2000) is pursuing the PhD in history at Exeter University, England.

      Keith Williams (History, MA, 1997) was awarded the degree of PhD in history from the University of Leicester, England, in 2002.

       

    • The Department of History is proud to announce it will partner with the San Marcos CISD through a Teaching American History grant in the amount of $676,559. It is the second such partnership for the department and an area school district; the department is currently collaborating with the Hays CISD on a Teaching American History grant awarded last year. The grants are awarded to support “three-year projects to improve teachers' knowledge, understanding and appreciation for American history through intensive, ongoing professional development,” as U.S. Secretary of Education Page noted last year.

      History faculty are to provide in-depth training in American history content and pedagogy for thirty Hays CISD teachers annually during the three-year program. During 2005-07, the Department of History will host week-long summer Institutes, participate in monthly professional development sessions provided for the school teachers, and create and maintain a discussion list and web site dedicated to the exchange of lesson plans and ideas between faculty and San Marcos CISD teachers. Other professional development experiences and the adoption of the History Alive! curriculum are included in the project.

      The summer Institutes will be devoted to three chronological periods of American history: Year One 1500 to 1763; Year Two 1763 to 1877; and Year Three 1877 to Present. Each day will focus on a different historical theme–political/governmental; socio-economic; cultural; legal/constitutional–with afternoons dedicated to pedagogy and integration of primary source materials in lesson plans. Fridays will be used for immersion activities at historical sites, including trips to the San Antonio Missions National Park and Institute for Texan Cultures. In 2005 and 2006, Hays CISD and SMCISD teachers will attend the summer institutes together.

      Department of History faculty participants in the three-year program include Dr. Gregg Andrews, Mr. Alan Atchison, Dr. Mary Brennan, Dr. Vikki Bynum, Dr. Frank de la Teja, Mrs. Trace Etienne-Gray, Dr. Jeff Mauck, Dr. Jimmy McWilliams, and Dr. Dwight Watson. Dr. Gene Bourgeois is PI for the Texas State component of the grant and spearheaded the collaborative effort on behalf of the Texas State Department of History. We are very happy to join our colleagues in the SMCISD in embarking on this exciting professional development experience.

       

    • Two Texas State history graduate students received recognition for best papers in the Ben H. Procter Research Paper competition at the 2004 meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association. Jahue Anderson, who presented “An Environmental History of the Wichita Rivers: Agriculture and Irrigation on the Mesquite Plains,” and Hugh O’Donovan, who presented “The Unionization of Black Motion Picture Projectionists in Dallas and Houston, 1923-1949,” received their awards at the business meeting of the Southwestern Historical Association.

      Three other Texas State graduate students also presented papers at the conference. Amy Canon presented, “Presidential Ranches: Political Tool or Get-A-Way Place,” Lance Couch, “A Comparison of French Revolutionary Newspapers and Their Treatment of the Crown During the French Revolution,” and Debra Law, “A Symbol of Affliction or Affection? Popular Perceptions of the King in American and Brazilian Independence.”

       

    • The James Taylor Lecture, sponsored by the Department of History at Texas State University, will for the first time in its forty-two year history present not one but two scholars offering their unique perspectives on the early history of our country on March 29 and March 30.

      Fred and Virginia Anderson, our first husband and wife Taylor Lecturers, are professors of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At 7:30 P.M. on Monday, March 29th, Fred Anderson will explain the role of “The Seven Years’ War and the Making of George Washington” in Taylor Murphy Hall, Room 101. Virginia Anderson will describe “Seeing Banquo’s Ghost: Bringing Livestock into the History of Early America” at the second session of this year’s Taylor Lecture, on Tuesday afternoon, March 30th, at 3:30 P.M., also in Taylor-Murphy 101.

      Fred Anderson earned his undergraduate degree at Colorado State University in his home state, and his graduate degrees far away at Harvard, where he and Virginia met. His dissertation was published as A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years' War. He recently produced a superb general history of that conflict, Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in North America, 1754-1766.
      Virginia Anderson is a native New Englander, taking her baccalaureate degree at the University of Connecticut. She holds master's degrees from both the University of East Anglia in Britain and Harvard, from which she also earned her doctorate. Her first book was New England's Generation: The Great Migration and the Formation of Society and Culture in the 17th Century, and her study of the role of cattle in the culture of early America will soon appear in print.

      The James Taylor Lecture, the oldest established lecture at Texas State University, began in 1962 as a tribute to the then Chair of the Division of Social Sciences at what was then Southwest Texas State College. It has continued since the 1960s under the management of the Department of History at Texas State University.The Department of History invites the public to share the experience of two of this year’s Taylor Lectures with us.

       

    • Confirming what faculty have long suspected about the quality and strength of their MA program, the Texas State Department of History has gained national recognition for the number of its MA students who later earned a PhD in history during 1981-2001.

      The department’s achievement surfaced in the January 2004 edition of Perspectives, which is the newsmagazine of the American Historical Association. In his article, Philip Katz summarizes a specially commissioned National Opinion Research Council report on the entire graduate careers of history PhDs earned during 1981-2001 (Perspectives, 42:1, 41-44). Our department, listed under the recently changed Southwest Texas State University moniker, ranks in the top 15% of 246 American history departments that awarded at least five master’s degrees to future PhDs who earned a master’s degree from a different institution than the doctorate. Twenty Texas State history MAs subsequently earned PhDs at other U.S. institutions during the period.

      Prestigious institutions with history doctoral programs dominate the list published, including Harvard University, The Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UCLA, Georgetown University, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California-Berkeley. In fact, Texas State is one of only eight “leading MA ‘feeder’” programs that did not award doctorates in the period studied.

      With another six former MA students having earned PhDs at U.S. institutions since 2001 and approximately six more in the pipeline and likely to receive PhDs in the next three years, our status as a leading MA feeder department stands to rise even further. This record of achievement is a sound testament to the overall academic quality and strength of the Texas State Department of History.

       

    • Texas State University-San Marcos will present the Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 on Friday, February 6, 7.00 p.m., in Evans Auditorium on the Texas State campus. The evening will feature presentations about Eddie Durham, native of San Marcos and “Maestro of Southwestern Swing,” and renditions of his Big Band compositions. Sponsored by the Texas State School of Music, Department of History Taylor Lecture Series and Center for Texas Music History, NEH Southwest Regional Humanities Center, Calaboose African American Museum, San Marcos Area Arts Council and the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District Coalition, the event is free and open to the general public.

      The Texas State Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Freddy Mendoza, and the Texas State Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Keith Winking, will perform Big Band compositions of Eddie Durham.

      Featured presenters include Loren Schoenberg, Stanley Crouch and Dave Oliphant. Schoenberg, Executive Director of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem and faculty member at the Julliard Institute for Jazz Studies, “is a first-class musician, arranger, leader, and a critic” and has performed many of Durham’s compositions during his distinguished career. Stanley Crouch is an award-winning author and columnist with the New York Daily News, co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center, and held the 2002-03 Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor of Jazz Studies at Columbia University. Crouch will discuss Durham’s musical legacy in “conquering the Southwest.” Dave Oliphant, a respected historian of Texas music, has authored books and articles about Eddie Durham and Texas Jazz, including Texan Jazz, The Early Swing Era: 1930-1941 and The Roots of Texas Music. Oliphant will speak about Eddie Durham’s San Marcos and Texas roots.

      The special guest of the evening is Marsha Durham, daughter of Eddie Durham and executrix of Eddie’s publishing estate.

      Eddie Durham’s musical legacy is spectacular. Durham’s contributions are vast and influenced the emerging musical movement known as Southwestern Swing or Kansas City Jazz during the 1920s and 1930s. After spending his early years in San Marcos’ Dunbar neighborhood, Durham joined Bennie Moten’s seminal “Kansas City Sound” band, along with Count Basie. After Moten’s death, Basie eventually formed the Count Basie orchestra around the core members of the Moten band, which Durham joined. Durham composed and arranged early hits of Basie’s orchestra, including “One O’Clock Jump,” “Topsy,” “Good Morning Blues,” and “Swinging The Blues.” After a stint with the Count Basie Orchestra, Durham arranged tunes for The Glen Miller Band, contributing to the band’s signature piece, “In The Mood,” for which Durham gained entry into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Durham also produced classic arrangements for Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Jan Savitt, cementing his place as one of the premier arrangers and composers of the Big Band Era. An accomplished trombonist, Durham possessed talents that extended beyond composing and arranging songs. Most significantly, Durham pioneered recording using an amplified guitar. His work with the electric guitar strongly influenced a generation of jazz artists, including Charles Christian, widely held to be one of the greatest electric guitarists ever. The electric guitar became, of course, a standard instrument for Blues and Rock & Roll bands.

      The Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 also kicks off wider publicity for the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District, a proposed multi-acre heritage and cultural tourism and economic development initiative located primarily within the Dunbar Historic District in central San Marcos. The integrated heritage tourism area would include an Eddie Durham Heritage Park and Durham Music Museum, preservation efforts in the historic Dunbar neighborhood, improvements to the Calaboose African American Museum, the preservation and restoration of the Old Hays County Jail for a Hays County History Museum, a restored Old First Baptist Church N.B.C. for community use and exhibit space, a restored blacksmith’s workshop, and several additional exhibits that would include a visual recreation of “The Beat,” the once vibrant commercial heart of San Marcos’ African-American community.

      For more information about the Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 and the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District, please contact Dr. Keith Winking (512.245.2651) or Dr. Gene Bourgeois (512.245.2142).

      Texas State University is a member of the Texas State University system.