Oldham Was A Thorn In Confederacy’s Side

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In a speech to the Confederate senate on September 4, 1862, William Simpson Oldham condemned conscription with the argument that the draft was wrong under any circumstances.

During the Civil War, the Tennessee native turned the tables on Richmond insisting states’ rights took precedence even in wartime and repeatedly railed against what he called “the battering ram of executive influence.”  Following the collapse of the Confederacy, Oldham went into exile in Mexico and later Canada before coming back to Texas in 1866.  He died two years later in Houston of typhoid fever.

Amarillo Actress Best Known As TV’s “Morticia”

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The last episode of the hit TV series “The Addams Family,” starring Carolyn Jones as Morticia, aired on September 2, 1966.

Born in Amarillo in 1930, Jones endured abandonment by her father at age four and severe asthma that kept her indoors much of her childhood.  She broke into motion pictures and television in the early 1950’s, earning an Academy Award nomination for “The Bachelor Party” and small-screen stardom with “The Addams Family.”  But colon cancer cut her life short in 1983.

Newspaperman Writes Political Best-Seller

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A book reviewer had nothing but the highest praise on August 28, 1959 for a newspaperman’s first novel:  “It may be a long time before a better one comes along.”

How right he was!  “Advise and Consent” by Houston native Allen Drury was the last work of political fiction to win the Pulitzer Prize — more than half a century ago.  Read all about it in “This Week in Texas History” for Wednesday, August 27 through Tuesday, September 2.

Famed Sociologist and Political Thinker Born in Waco

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C. Wright Mills, who grew up to become one of the most influential critics of post-World War II America, was born on August 28, 1916 in Waco.

No other book written in the 1950’s had a greater impact than Mills’ “The Power Elite,” which for the first time exposed the  triumvirate of government, military and corporations that posed a threat to the very survival of democracy in the United States.  Mills was just 45 when he died in 1962 of his fourth heart attack.

Texas Confederates Ride Into Mexican Exile

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Hundreds of Texans wearing the rags of their once proud gray uniforms followed Gen. Jo Shelby and his fabled Iron Brigade across the Rio Grande after the fall of the Confederacy in the spring of 1865.

That’s the subject of the “This Week in Texas History” column for Wednesday, August 20 through Tuesday, August 26.  Hope you read it in your local newspaper, but if not you can always get it by email with the private subscription available on this web site.

Texan Loses Temper One Time Too Many

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Have you read “This Week in Texas History” for Wednesday, August 13 through Tuesday the 19th?  It may be in your local newspaper but if not you can read each and every column with your own private email subscription available on this web site.

The hot-tempered Texan featured in the current column is David Terry, brother of the famous founder of Terry’s Texas Rangers, the legendary Confederate cavalry.  Read about him today.

Texas Legislature Replaces Gallows With The Chair

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The Texas legislature passed L.K. Irwin’s “Electric Chair Bill” on August 14, 1923 after the state representative promised to be present at the first electrocution.

True to his word, the politician watched in horror as five condemned men were put to death one after the other on opening night.  When the ghastly spectacle was over, Irwin questioned whether the newfangled “chair” really was a humane alternative to public hanging.

Dallas Dressmakers Stage Historic Strike

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“Six months into the longest strike in Dallas history, dressmakers tore the clothes off the backs of replacement workers, who tried to cross their picket lines on August 7, 1935.” 

That is how the “This Week in Texas History” column for Wednesday, August 6 through Tuesday, August 12 begins.  This seldom told story of one of the most determined struggles ever waged by women workers in the Lone Star State is well worth reading either in your local newspaper or with the email subscription available on this web site.

 

Horrell-Higgins Feud Was A Bloody Affair

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Under pressure from Major John B. Jones of the Texas Rangers, the surviving members of the Horrell and Higgins clans signed a formal treaty on August 2, 1877 ending their Lampasas feud.

But within the year Tom and Mart Horrell were executed in their jail cells by a Meridian mob.  Brother Sam, last of the five siblings left alive, moved to Oregon, and Pink, leader of the HIggins faction, lived out his days as a ranch detective in the Panhandle.

Baptist Paper Puts The Blame On Cities

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An editorial in the July 30, 1914 issue of the “Baptist Standard” described the prohibition movement as “a struggle for a higher Anglo-Saxon civilization against the slum civilization of the great cities.”

The author of an article in the same issue contended the big cities were “the nuclei of vice, depravity, misery and crime generated by the liquor traffic.”  No wonder so many Texans got so worked up over the proposed ban on booze!