Richard B. McCaslin, professor of history at the
University of North Texas and Fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, won the Tullis Prize from the Association for Tainted Breeze: The Great Hanging at Gainesville, Texas, October 1862. He has also written Lee in the Shadow of Washington, which was nominated for a Pulitzer and won the Laney Prize from the Austin Civil War Round Table and the Slatten Award from the Virginia Historical Society.
J. P. Bryan was TSHA president for the year 1982–1983; his father, J. P. Bryan Sr., was president from 1965 to 1967; and another family member, Guy M. Bryan, was vice president from 1897, when the Association began, until his death in 1901. Bryan’s roots in the history of the state go back to Emily Austin Bryan Perry, sister of Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas." His interest in Texas history was instilled by his father and his Aunt Hally Bryan Perry, and encouraged by Association director H. Bailey Carroll.
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Description:
"On St. Valentines's eve, 1897, ‘a number of gentlemen,’ brought together by a concern for the Texas heritage, gathered on the hilltop at the north edcge of Austin known as the University of Texas campus to discuss organization of a state historical association. A few days later Francis R. Lubbock, a former governor; John H. Reagan, a former United States senator and Postmaster–General of the Confederate States of America; George T. Winston, a highest honor graduate of the United States Naval Academy whose career was blighted by chronic nausea, a former president of the University of Norht Carolina, and current president of the University of Texas; Dudley G. Wooten, a historian–lawyer primarily responsible for the University's being located in Austin; Archibald J. Rose, worthy overseer of the Texas State Grange and doughty fighter for free textbooks and trained teachers; and George P. Garrison, Texas’ first historian to win national attention —unusual citizens all—circulated a letter to 250 persons inviting them to meet on Texas Independence Day, March 2, 1897, in the office of the Commissioner of Insurance, Statistics, and History to organize a proper state historical association."
From this beginning has grown the remarkable intitution whose first century is celebrated in At the Heart of Texas, which, in telling the story of the people and the achievemnets of the Texas State Historical Association, leaves an appreciation for how much thought and energy and commitment have gone into the guidance and stability of the state's oldest historical organization.
The text is organized in chronological chapters by the tenures of the seven directors, Gearge Garrison to Ron Tyler, all of whom were professors in the history department at the University of Texas. The book is profusely illustrated with photographs, and sidebars—many culled from past issues of the Association’s journal, the Southwestern Historical Quarterly—complement the main text and give an immediacy to the past and a sense of the variety of accomplished people who have played a part in shaping the TSHA. A brief epilogue brings the history to the present day.
Available in the UNT Bookstore,
along with all faculty publications.
(940) 565-3185
Also Available from Amazon
ISBN-13: 978-0-87611-216-8
ISBN-10: 0-87611-216-5 |
