Heritage, Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 1990 Page: 33

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Pioneers, Immigrants, & Progress
New from Texas A&M University Press

OLEANDER ODYSSEY
The Kempners of Galveston,
Texas, 1854-1980s
HAROLD M. HYMAN
When Harris Kempner arrived at Ellis
Island in 1854, he was an uneducated
immigrant teenager escaping antiSemitism
and conscription into the czar's
army. After establishing himself as a peddler
in East Texas and later expanding his
business as a cotton factor and wholesaler
and relocating to Galveston, Kempner had
risen high in Island business and social
hierarchies when he died prematurely, in
1894. Harris's twenty-one-year-old son Ike
became head of the family along with his
mother, and he expanded the business to
include international trade in cotton, plus
subsidiaries in banking and insurance.
The family transformed Sugar Land,
Texas, and the Imperial Sugar Company
from a notoriously abusive operation to a
model company town and successful business.

The complete archives of the Kempner
family papers housed at the Rosenberg
Library in Galveston provided the primary
source material for this work, and
Harold Hyman's further research provides
a backdrop of social, political, and
religious factors affecting four generations
of Kempners in Galveston. The result is a
story about large, diverse family businesses,
Progressive urban reform and
community development, the acculturation
of American and Southern Jews, and
the dynamics of life, politics, and the
economy in Southeast Texas. 512 pp. 36
b&w illus. $39.95

NEW IN PAPERBACK
TEXAS TEARS AND
TEXAS SUNSHINE
Voices of Frontier Women
EDITED BY
JO ELLA POWELL EXLEY
Vivid personal accounts-some delightful
and witty, others gruesome-provide
provocatively different perspectives of
frontier days. Texas women tell of Indian
marauders and hunting buffalo, even
"high society" on the frontier.
"I'm glad to have met these 16 women,
and I think their stories enrich the body of
work about 19th-century frontier life, as
experienced by both women and men."Judyth
Rigler, Lone Star Library. "... a
fascinating collection of some of the Texas
women's experiences.... instills lessons of
pride and courage for today."-Southern
Living. ".. . an exquisite thematic quilt
covering the economic, political, social,
and cultural history of women's lives in
Texas."-Western Historical Quarterly. 292
pp. Illus. $12.95 paper
DAMMING
THE COLORADO
The Rise of the Lower Colorado
River Authority, 1933-1939
JOHN A. ADAMS, JR.
" ... adds immeasurably to our understanding
of water resource development
in the 20th century, most particularly the
New Deal years in Texas.... carefully and
thoroughly researched ... exceedingly
well written."-Richard Lowitt
John Adams here details the dynamics in

the struggle of private interests and public
institutions to cooperate in the taming of
the Colorado River of Texas. Intensive
research in primary documents, including
four sets of presidential papers, has
enabled Adams to trace the development
of the accord and relationships between
private utility interests, conservationists,
and politicians that finally dammed the
Colorado and further cemented the precedent
for federally funded water and reclamation
projects in the West. 176 pp. 28
b&w illus. $32.50
CHRISTMAS IN TEXAS
ELIZABETH SILVERTHORNE
Christmas in Texas shows how Texans
have celebrated Christmas over four
centuries, during good times and bad. The
Texas holiday season is steeped in the rich
legacy of the different ethnic groups
represented here. The music, the food, the
decorations, the secular fun and frolic
have been imported to Texas by land and
by sea, often as the nostalgic efforts of
homesick immigrants to recreate memories
of past Christmases in their homelands.

Elizabeth Silverthorne paints pictures of
the different ethnic groups that have
settled in Texas, showing what they kept
uniquely theirs as well as what they
changed to adapt to their new home.
Walnuts had to be replaced in holiday
cooking by Texas pecans, and the traditional
fir Christmas tree gave way to the
abundant Hill Country cedar.
We follow Los Posadas along the
Riverwalk in San Antonio, predict the
future with Poles and Czechs, shoot the
anvil on the frontier, and go first-footing
with the Scots. Recipes throughout add
ethnic flavors, from Wendish coffee cake
to Yugoslavian Christmas bread, from
well-known buttermilk pie to exotic
zabaglione.
Families today will look to this beautiful
volume annually as they enjoy holiday
traditions passed down to them. Ideal for
reading and giving, it also will appeal to
those who want to reminisce about the
old ways, and those who want to learn
more about their heritage and the
holidays. 7x10. 210 pp. 18 color, 29 b&w
photos. $19.95

*ee order no.: 1-800-826-8911

A107

Texas A&M University Press *: Drawer C *. College Station, Texas 77843 *. Toll-fr
Texas residents add 7.75% sales tax. Publisher pays postage

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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 1990, periodical, Autumn 1990; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45429/m1/33/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.

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