Heritage, Volume 5, Number 2, Summer 1987 Page: 37
49 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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format-bibliographies are provided for
each section of the book in appendix format.
Also provided is an extensive list of
helpful offices and organizations-without
phone numbers, however.
The index is only three pages long, but
it is adequate for cross-referencing common
issues in dealing with old buildings.
The last section of the book recommends
other publications produced by the National
Trust and its Preservation Press.
Respectful Rehabilitation is an excellent
manual for the potential or current owner
of an old building, be it residential or
commerical, urban or rural, masonry or
wood, 50 years or 250 years old, in Texas
or elsewhere. Since the National Trust
prides itself on the promotion of historic
preservation in general, and since its federal
partner in the book, the National
Park Service, supports State Historic Preservation
offices and other support programs,
the final bit of information provided
here should have been how to
contact the local state agency for historic
preservation.
The Texas Historical Commission staff
can help implement the answers provided
in this book as well as answer any specific
and general questions about rehabilitation,
restoration, and preservation. Write
Texas Historical Commission, P.O. Box
12276, Austin, TX 78711, or call (512)
463-6094.
Jim Steely is the architectural historian and
director of National Register programs at the
Texas Historical Commission.
Texas Myths
Texas Myths. Robert O'Connor, editor.
College Station: Texas A&M University
Press for the Texas Committee for the Humanities,
1986. 248 pages, index.
Reviewed by Richard Pearce-Moses
Since its beginning, Texas has had its
myths and tall tales. The Alamo was immediately
associated with the massacre of
Spartans at Thermopylae and later became
a romantic epic in John Wayne'sfilm. Much of Texas history, according to
O'Connor, is myth-not a falsehood, but
more in the classical sense of "'true'
stories that explain our reality and present
a system of values, thereby givingmeaning to our lives." In Texas Myths,
fourteen distinguished writers share their
thoughts on myth as a force in shaping
and interpreting history. The contributors
come from a variety of disciplines, including
scholars of history, literature, anthropology,
and American studies, as well
as nonacademics.
Texas Myths is not an anthology of
tales, although some less common ones
are reproduced. Instead, the authors write
about the myth as a force in the Texas
experience. Their articles are reflections
on the theoretical nature of myth and the
transmission of the tales, on the fusing of
the myths of different Texan cultures, and
on the meaning that these myths hold for
Texans as individuals and as a society.
Louise Cowan's and Richard Baumann's
chapters are a brief overview of contemporary
scholarship's understanding of mythology.
Cowan and Baumann go far beyond
the popular notion of a myth as
fantastic tales of Greek gods and Mount
Olympus, and they show how all cultures,
including our modem one, have
such tales. Myths are not factual truths
but describe a different truth that has
moral and spiritual value, like the fable of
George Washington and the cherry tree.
Although theirs are the most heavy-going
and abstract of the articles, Cowan and
Baumann avoid jargon and build their arguments
logically so that a nonacademic
can follow their ideas.
The different cultures that have formed
Texans as a people each brought its
own myths to nineteenth-century Texas.
William Newcomb describes the various
cultural attitudes of the Texas Amerind
tribes. Juan Ortega y Medina points to
the different understanding of political
culture that Hispanic Americans brought
to the state. William Goetzmann recounts
the dream of manifest destiny of
Anglo-Americans. Sterling Stuckey analyzes
the stories brought by black slaves
from Africa and recreated in America.
Sandra Myres and Elizabeth York Enstam
rediscover the role of Texas women.
Who is the mythic Texan of today?
Nicholas Lemann suggests, "The idea
that the mythology of power and wealth
might be exaggerated as a defining characteristic,
or maybe the defining characteristic, of Texas culture, is immensely
appealing to Texans today. According to
Myres, he has "changed his horse for a
Cadillac, his range for the freeway, and
his bunkhouse for a condominium ....Pecos Bill has simply moved to Dallas and
become J. R. Ewing."
James Veninga writes, "When AngloTexans
finally got around to writing their
history, which they regarded as the history
of the state, the story was told as a sacred
history, sharing elements of the basic
American myth and, behind that, the
European-Protestant myth." Even as distinguished
a historian as Walter Prescott
Webb could fall victim to the romance of
the past, recounting myth as history.
Texas Myths is an important balance to
the ethnocentricity, sexism, and romance
in much of the state's history. The book
does not demythologize Texas' past so
much as it gives tools for understanding a
deeper meaning behind the fabulous
tales.
-RPM
Building the Lone Star
Building the Lone Star: An Illustrated
Guide to Historic Sites. T. Lindsay Baker.
College Station: Texas A&M University
Press, 1987. 333 pages, black-and-white
photographs, index.
Reviewed by Richard Pearce-Moses
When the Texas Section of the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
approached author T. Lindsay Baker to
help them select various sites around the
state for designation as ASCE landmarks,
he suggested the Franklin Canal for El
Paso. "Few projects," Baker writes, "have
exerted more influence on the economic
development of a region than has the
Franklin Canal." But ASCE chose another
site, because the canal is unattractive
and unspectacular.
Many historical buildings are preserved
more out of a motivation for their beauty
and grandeur than their historical significance
alone. Yet these attractive stuctures
tell only a part of the story of our culture.
Less romantic, more typical structures are
often lost because there is nothing to distinguish
them.
Building the Lone Star is Baker's attemptto preserve some of the unrecognized
milestones of engineering in Texas. No
homes are included in the book; Baker
selected commercial and public works
37
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 5, Number 2, Summer 1987, periodical, Summer 1987; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45437/m1/37/?rotate=90: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.