History Commons^™

Review: Indigenous Borderlands: Native Agency, Resilience, And Power In The Americas, Edited By Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez, Thomas A. Britten

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Review Of King Fisher: The Short Life And Elusive Legend Of A Texas Desperado, By Chuck Parsons And Thomas C. Bicknell, William C. Yancey

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Review: Borders Of Violence And Justice: Mexicans, Mexican Americans, And Law Enforcement In The Southwest, 1835–1935, By Brian D. Behnken., George T. Diaz

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

[Vet] Veterans Day 2023, Special Collections & Archives, Shannon Pensa

Library Display Posters

UTRGV Special Collections & Archives presents an an annual poster exhibit honoring the service and sacrifice of military service veterans of the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

This year's digital poster exhibit features information about the historic changes in the U.S. armed forces as well as profiles for valley veterans, including: Richard E. Cavazos, Dr. Eloisa Tamez, Pedro Cano, Maria Osorio, Ruth M. Abney, Eugene Gutierrez, Angela Burton, Herbert Pike, and Edgar Hernandez.

Learn more about Special Collections & Archives resources on the history of military service in the Valley by visiting our research guide.

The Scramble For Africa And The Conquest Of The Congo, Adam Hochchild

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Adam Hochschild writes frequently about issues of human rights and social justice. The latest of his eleven books is American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, which won the Gold Medal for Nonfiction of the 2023 California Book Awards. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as was To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion. 1914-1918. His Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves was a finalist for …

American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, And Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, Adam Hochschild

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Book Talk

In American Midnight, award-winning historian Adam Hochschild reassesses the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor. American Midnight brings alive the horrifying yet inspiring four years following the U.S. entry into the First World War, spotlighting forgotten repression while celebrating an unforgettable set of Americans who strove to fix their fractured country showing how their struggles still guide us today.

Ethnicity And Imitatio In Isidore Of Seville, Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Analyses of imitatio imperii commonly focus on the ceremonial and symbolic aspects of the Roman Empire—victory celebrations, creation of a capital, ceremonial dress and language, imagery on coins, and legal pronouncements—not ethnicity. Perhaps one reason is that in modern English, ‘imitation’ carries derogatory connotations of uninspired copying that remove the agency and creativity of the imitator. Imitated items and practices are seen as poor copies of originals, the latter of which are much more worthy of attention.2 Under this definition, one would expect an imitator of Rome to claim to be Roman, resembling Athaulf’s claim that Goths were unable to …

Crossing The Line: Mexican Children Making The Border 1900-1930, Yolanda Chavez Leyva

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Dr. Yolanda Chávez Leyva is a Chicana/ fronteriza historian and writer who was born and raised on the border. She is of Rarámuri descent and honors her grandmother Canuta Ruacho. She is the Director of the Institute of Oral History and Associate Professor in the Department of History at UTEP. She is also the lead historian for the first-ever Bracero Museum (funded by the Mellon Foundation) slated to open in Socorro, Texas in 2024. She has spent her life listening to and now documenting the lives of people who live on la frontera. Professor Leyva specializes in border history, public …

Sick From Freedom: The Untold Story Of A Smallpox Epidemic Among Formerly Enslaved People, Jim Downs

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Emancipated from slavery, former bondspeople entered into an environment in which more soldiers died from disease than from battle. This talk explores the high rate of illness and mortality that devastated formerly enslaved people during the Civil War and Reconstruction. In particular, it provides the first analysis of the smallpox epidemic that began in Washington, DC in 1862 and then spread to the Lower South in 1863 and Mississippi Valley in 1864-65. By 1865, the epidemic plagued the entire South and began to move west and infected Native Americans on reservations. Due to the unexpected and inordinate mortality, the federal …

Borderlands Research In Spanish, Mexican, And Texas Archives, Armando C. Alonzo

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Dr. Armando Alonzo will speak to UTRGV students in Dr. Jamie Starling’s HIST 6325: Seminar in Borderlands History course as well as students from HIST 3300, HIST 3333, and HIST 4399. Interested faculty are also invited to attend. Dr. Alonzo’s presentation will focus on researching the South Texas Borderlands in Spanish, Mexican, and Texas archives as well as the challenges of studying the region’s earlier Spanish colonial era and Native American history. A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Alonzo received his M.A. degree in history in 1983 from what was then the University of Texas – Pan American, …

Review Of Pioneer Of Mexican-American Civil Rights: Alonso S. Perales, Rolando Avila

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

From “Cowardice” To “Shellshock”: The Definition And Treatment Of Mental Health In The United States Marine Corps During The Age Of The Great War, Itzel Marquez

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of my master’s thesis is to study how the United States’ Marine Corps recognized, defined, and treated mental health issues during the Great War and how this translated into the treatment of Marines by their peers and commanding officers. Similar to other countries that fought in the Great War, also referred to as World War I, the United States witnessed intense discussions about the psychological effects of war. The question of whether and how modern warfare affected troops’ mental health was addressed by all branches of the United States’ military. Yet, the issue of mental health in the …

U.S. History As Part Of A Core Curriculum, Megan Birk

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

"The Veneer Of Civilization Washed Off": Anti-Black Posse-Lynchings In The Twentieth-Century Rural Midwest, Brent M. S. Campney

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study seeks to identify anti-Black posse-lynchings in the Midwest between 1910 and 1930, and to examine the ways in which they were framed by the media for their readers. It posits that these lynchings emerged as the foremost type of anti-Black lynching by the second decade of the twentieth century, casting doubt thereby on the prevailing scholarly assumption that the number of lynchings declined precipitously in these years. Because most of these incidents received little attention at the time and few received significant attention outside of the locality in which they occurred, this essay uses as its primary documentation …

[Whm] Herstory: Women's History Month 2023, Shannon Pensa, The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Library Display Posters

HerStory is a digital presentation created for Women's History Month 2023 using collection materials from UTRGV University Library Special Collections & Archives and resources from other regional and digital archives.

An Unhealthy Obsession: Understanding Russian Views Of Ukraine, Faith Hillis

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

Faith Hillis is Professor of Russian History at the University of Chicago. She is particularly interested in nineteenth and twentieth century politics, culture, and ideas. She is the author of Children of Rus’: Right Bank Ukraine and the Invention of a Russian Nation (Cornell, 2013) and Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Exiles and the Quest for Freedom, 1830 1930 (Oxford, 2021). The latter work was awarded the 2022 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize from ASEEES, which recognizes the most important contribution in any discipline of Slavic studies. The recipient of research fellowships at Columbia, Harvard, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and …

Review Of John B. Denton: The Bigger-Than-Life Story Of The Fighting Parson And Texas Ranger, By Mike Cochran, William C. Yancey

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Sharyland (View Book), John H. Shary

John H. Shary Collection

From the inside cover "The following views are faithful reproductions of genuine photographs of some of the many objects of interest to be seen on the John H. Shary Subdivision and other points of in the Lower Rio Grande Valley."

View book contains 40 pages printed in black and white with brief captions (left) and photographs (right).

Borderlands Course Reader, Volume One, Jamie Starling

Open Educational Resources

This collection compiles primary source documents and narratives from the present-day U.S.-Mexico Borderlands Region from c.1500 to 1865. The collection is designed for use with U.S. History and Mexican American surveys as well as Texas history and U.S.-Mexico Borderlands history courses. A few documents are abridged or excerpted from longer sources. All sources contain a citation or link to a source at the foot of the document. Documents span from indigenous accounts and sources of early contact through the late Spanish colonial period, era of Mexican independence, U.S. expansion and the American Civil War.

The Persistence Of Racist Violence In The Rio Grande Valley, 1921-1927, Vincent A. Larralde

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the conditions that led to the violence orchestrated by Texas Rangers during La Matanza, and how after the Porvenir Massacre of 1918, state reform initiatives resulted in an investigation of the Texas Rangers in 1919. As a result, they were reduced in force and capability, and modern-day scholars imply violence associated with La Matanza ceased in the Valley after that.

However, this thesis argues that racist violence did not disappear but continued in the 1920s. Posses continued the administration of racist violence and lynching against ethnic Mexicans. Therefore, this thesis examines one case in Cameron County in …

Remembering Conquest In Texas, Omar Valerio-Jimenez

Rondel V. Davidson Endowed Lecture Series

This presentation draws from Dr. Valerio-Jimenez's larger project, Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship, which explores the influence of collective memories of the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-48) on struggles for social change among Mexican Americans. It examines the collective memories disseminated among ethnic Mexicans through families, publications, and organizations. These memories offered alternative views of the war that not only challenged the dominant versions, but were invoked by Mexican Americans to remind the nation of the war's continuing legacies. The war instigated immediate intergroup conflict between European Americans and ethnic Mexicans that bore long-term effects by shaping the ways that …

From A Tabula Rasa To The Governor’S Award For Historic Preservation, Roseann Bacha-Garza, Juan L. Gonzalez, Christopher L. Miller, Russell K. Skowronek

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

Prior to 2009, South Texas was essentially an archaeological tabula rasa, largely unknown in the academic, public, or grey literature due to its location far from research universities, the state historic preservation office, and cultural resource management firms. Here, we relate how a consortium of anthropologists and archaeologists, biologists, historians, geologists, and geoarchaeologists have embraced a locally focused, place-based STEAM research approach to tell the story of a largely unknown region of the United States and make it accessible to K–17 educators,¹ the public, and scholars with bilingual maps, books, exhibits, films, traveling trunks, and scholarly publications. The efforts …

[Vet] We Salute The Veterans Of The Lower Rio Grande Valley, Shannon Pensa

Library Display Posters

A Special Poster Exhibit Honoring the Service and Sacrifice of Our Veterans and their Families. The 2022 digital poster exhibit highlights military service veterans and their achievements, including Saburo Tanamachi, John F. Webber, Tom Landry, Ruth Aline Moses, Pablo M. Coronado, Jacob Daniel White, Frank S. Plummer, Ricardo Sanchez, William C. Gorgas, Herminia Whitzel, Fernando De La Rosa, and Frances Isbell.

Documenting Difficult Cases: A Mixed Method Analysis, Thomas Daniel Knight

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Special Issue of Genealogy examines the use of evidence, documentation, and methodology in family history and genealogical studies, and welcomes case studies that examine how to document individuals and relationships. A critical component of scholarly research focusing on the study of particular individuals or groups entails correctly identifying those individuals Historians, genealogists, historical demographers, and scholars in other disciplines sometimes undertake this sort of analysis. Often, research is uncomplicated if the research subject remained in a particular geographical area, or left a clear evidentiary trail, but what happens when historical documents do not clearly identify the research subject? Utilizing …

Review Of Civil Rights In Black And Brown: Histories Of Resistance And Struggle In Texas Ed. By Max Krochmal And J. Todd Moye, Brent M. S. Campney

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Review Of Texas Rangers, Ranchers, And Realtors: James Hughes Callahan And The Day Family In The Guadalupe River Basin, By Thomas O. Mcdonald, William C. Yancey

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

[Whm] Rio Grande Valley Women's History Poster Exhibit 2022, Shannon Pensa, Utrgv Special Collections & Archives

Library Display Posters

March is Women's History Month— a time to honor the historic achievements and contributions of women in the Rio Grande Valley.

Review Of Reverberations Of Racial Violence: Critical Reflections On The History Of The Border Ed. By Sonia Hernández And John Morán González, George T. Diaz

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Indian Mission Of The Institute Of Blessed Virgin Mary (Ibvm) Nuns: Convents, Curriculum, And Indian Women, Nilanjana Paul

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study focuses on the Indian mission of IBVM nuns, and the role played by them in the spread of female education in India. While acknowledging that missionaries were part of the imperial process, this study analyzes the work of Catholic nuns in India, their convents, and curriculum to show how their work advanced women’s educational opportunities in India. In the process the study examines how Catholic nuns resisted the dominating attitude of the Catholic Church in India. The last section of the article examines how Christian influence under missionaries not only prepared good mothers and wives but also trained …

Chapter 2 Origin Legends Of Visigothic Spain In Isidore Of Seville’S Writings, Erica Buchberger

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.