Dissertations and Theses of 2006

Dissertations and Theses about Texas Academic Year 2006:
Titles from a Score of Schools

Compiled and Edited by Will Howard
(Electronic Monograph Series # 4)

(First distribution was a supplementary file to Will’s Texana Monthly October 2007)
Houston: Will’s Texana, 2007

Its "Introduction" reads:

Introduction
We have selected about 150 from several hundred tagged with the “Texas” word
which brings up DT’s using that word in its various descriptions, including if it happens
to be produced by an institution whose name includes the word “Texas” regardless of
topic. Certainly many more can be found that did not use the keyword “Texas” in their
titles or abstracts. To augment this list, a dozen city names were searched, as well as a
dozen college names, rivers, and other serendipitous selections. Others can search using
whatever words may be interesting.
The selected works are either focused on social elements of modern times or on
historical topics. Some works of fiction or poetry are included. Most technical reports of
the science, business, and the educational realms were excluded.
Traditionally, dissertations and thesis are collected by ProQuest Digital
Dissertations and made available in a variety of formats, paper (loose sheets, under
paperback binding, hardback binding), at one time in microform, and now in electric
format. Their web site at http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/ offers this salutation,
“Welcome to ProQuest Digital Dissertations! As a visitor, you will be able to freely
access the most current two years of citations and abstracts in the Dissertation Abstracts
database. To search the entire database of more than 1.6 million titles, you will need to
connect from a subscription institution.” College or public libraries near you may have a
subscription. Researchers should bear in mind that not all colleges report their academic
papers to ProQuest, and that retrospective holdings are not infrequently not yet reported.
The database of WorldCat also contains many academic works at http://worldcat.org/
with significant overlap with ProQuest. College library catalogs are becoming more
adaptive to isolating on DT’s. See also the separate column on “The DT’s” in Will’s
Texana Monthly.
Schools provide their information to ProQuest at their own schedules. The
present list was collected near the end of 2006. At the end of 2006, UT reported about
600 on all topics. Texas Tech University showed no reported titles, but some were added
from elsewhere. As 2007 advances, certainly new 2006 titles will be added by several
schools.
Some annotations are provided, often quotations from the abstracts.
Go to ProQuest or other options to acquire copies of the works, not WT.
If you wish to receive the full e-publication, let us know.
Will Howard, Will’s Texana
12618 Ashcroft, Houston, 77035, 713-728-1981, willstexana@yahoo.com

Texas Bookshelf, Texas Parlor, Will's Texana Monthly

Texas Bookshelf in Context

After starting Will's Texana Monthly: Reviews, News, and Electric Observation back in January of 2006, upon retiring from the Texas Room at the Houston Public Library, WTM gained some success in that folks wished to receive it as offered by email as a package e-mailed e-journal. In the beginning, I simply composed it as a Word document and then copy/pasted that into the body of a monthly email. Out it went.

Folks said they wanted more, but in blog fashion, which at the time was new to me. Eventually, I relented and added a blog the Texas Parlor. The Parlor was mostly a placed where I jotted Texana information that may be useful to a person with a broad desire to notice various information sources for one reason or another. In the beginning, I often only put a fragment or phrase or at most a sentence or two about some internet net, and posted it as such. Posting was erratic. More recently, I've begun being a bit more narrative and have started using graphics more frequently. Making it a little more inviting.

At the turn of the year I collected a broader statement of Texana bibliography of about 600 pages and issued that as Will's Texas Annual. It had lotsa long lists of publications for the year, general trade, government publications, etc.

After starting the Texas Parlor and into volume 2 of the Texana Monthly, I began pdf'ing the Monthly with Adobe and distributing it as an attachment. That allowed for better graphics stability and also reduced the size of the file by about 1/3 so I could add book jackets and other such imagery that would not have been stable otherwise.

About half way through volume 2 I found myself longing to continue the more in depth work of the Annual, so I began issuing some monothematic issues of the Monthly. One was on the Texas Institute of Letters, another on children's picture books, and one on Texas vampire literature later as an issue within volume 3 of the Monthly.

As volume 3 (2008) began, I was drawn to making a blog just for the book reviews in the Monthly. The Texas Bookshelf is that result.

The Monthly and the Parlor will continue with their varied missions, and the Monthly book reviews will appear on the Bookshelf.

I'm thinking of finding a place to warehouse the Monthly issues and the sections of the Annual online somewhere.

Book of Texas Bayy - Jim Blackburn

The Book of Texas Bays.

By Jim Blackburn and photos by Jim Olive. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004. ISBN 1-58544-339-5 cloth $40.00 8 1/2x10. 304 pp. 116 color photos. 32 figs. 26 maps. Index.

Jim Blackburn and John Graves could have comfortably ridden canoes or kayaks together. Blackburn is an environmental lawyer, scholar, and expert, close to the coast. Graves was a literary man close to the earth and the Brazos River. They’d’ve mixed in the flat potholes, marshes, estuaries, and gulf waters of the Matagorda Bay, fed by the Brazos. Blackburn has lived most of his life along the coast, and that place is home in his heart, mind, and work. After years of legal wrangling, he and his “Team 11” crew recently boated along the coast and listened to folks. He heard a lot from regular folks,and he shares a lot here in his Book of Texas Bays. His 26 chapters, lushly illustrated with Olive’s photos and clearly documented with charts, pretty much cover the water front.

We have seven major bay complexes – the Sabine Lake, Galveston Bay, Matagorda Bay, San Antonio Bay, Aransas/Copano Bays, Corpus Christi/Nueces Bays, and the long, long Laguna Madre. Each is driven by a fresh water river on one side and the salty Gulf on the other.
It is so simple from one view. The fresh waters fed the bays, and Texas economic life is very heavily dependent on the future natural success of our coastal heritage. What was once viewed simply as an economic engine that needed no tending is undergoing rapid change. Our economy, politics, and our philosophic heritage and integrity will determine whether our grandchildren will enjoy their lives. Jim’s general natural philosophy come from Odom, Leopold, and Carson who realized that things need to work together to continue functioning.

Jim can write clearly and the reader can be pulled smoothly as if by the tide from page 1 to subsequent chapters. Although he pulls up a net-full of facts, events, farming, fishing, development, and government actions, he seasons them with convincing and contradicting human emotions and motivations, his own and the folks he met while with “Team 11.” Overall, Blackburn is cautiously optimistic, trusting people will do the right thing, with a little pushing.
The book is a pleasure to read and is likely being used in classrooms as well. I’ll leave my copy on the coffee table, next to Sand County Almanac.

Lone Stars of David: The Jews of Texas.

Compiled and edited by Hollace Ava Weiner and Kenneth D. Roseman, foreword by Robert S. Strauss. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press / University Press of New England http://www.upne.com/index_new.html in association with the Texas Jewish Historical Society , 2007 • 332 pp. 184 figs, 18 color plates, index 8 1/2 x 11" $34.95 Cloth, 1-58465-622-0 ( Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture and Life). Toll-Free: 800-421-1561

A wonderful collection, richly illustrated, these 21 chapters by three dozen knowledgeable authors are charmingly readable. The lively chapters, each with a separate bibliography, are in a chronological order, colonial period onward, and written on particular locales, families, and individuals, but some are topical, e.g., on clubwomen in the state, Zionism, and little synagogues across Texas.

Picking a favorite chapter is just hard to do. In some I visit topics I’ve known elsewhere like Ray K. Daily on the Houston School Board, the merchant families Sanger and Neiman and Marcus, the be-diamonded Zale clan, and the venerable Rabbi Henry Cohen. Others are fresh to me, Mayer Halff’s cattle empire, Max Stool setting up shop in Laredo, and El Paso’s open door to Holocaust survivors. And there’s the evolving story about what the Dell they are doing in Austin.

For my favorite, I’ll point you to the photograph on page 202 of my hometown Marshall’s Temple Moses Montefiore, tucked as I remember into the trees before it was razed for the new police station. Not since Deep in the Heart of Texas: The lives and legends of Texas Jews and Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work have we been so blessed.

For special arrangements contact in Austin the Texas Jewish Historical Society http://geocities.com/txsynvr/ txjhs@yahoo.com for a synagogue near you. And thanks to Marvin Rich, bookman & past president TJHS, for the volume!

Antique Maps of Texas & Indian Territory,

(CD of digitized maps), volume 1, 3rd edition. Fort Worth: Electric Books, Box 79260, zip 76179, Phone: 817.238.9579, 2006. $19.99 http://www.lectricbooks.com/ Electricbooks@juno.com


AMoT (Pete Charlton, Publisher) is a wonderful digital collection with good images at an excellent price. There are about 200 maps from 1780 to 1930, Included are early state maps, cattle trail maps, early mining and topographic maps, Texas cities and historic Texas places, and a few United States and continental maps. The maps are grouped by period or place. Also included are a number of pre-1907 maps of Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

Map fans will recognize familiar cartographers such as Bonne, Arrowsmith, Tanner, Lincoln, Cram, Mitchell, Goldsmith, Huntington, Morse, Burgess, McNally, Marcy, Disturnell, and Bartholomew, just to name a few. AMoT is a good gift for aficionados, students, and researchers. Get two so you can give one away.

The collection is augmented with many online topical links to the Handbook of Texas Online®. Students may benefit from the two slide show options, Texan and American.
Zoom capacity enables you to go from 25% to 200%, and panning is enabled. AMoT is for use through Windows 98 and above, but not Macs. No installation is required. Electric Books web site also lists many of their retail outlets. Hard copy reproductions are available through the publisher, (17.5" x 23" and 23" x 35").

Weird Texas - Wesley Treat

Weird Texas: Your Travel Guide to Texas’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets.

Compiled by Wesley Treat, Heather Shade, and Rob Riggs. New York: Sterling, http://www.sterlingpub.com/, 2005.
288 pages, $19.95, paperback, ISBN: 1-4027-3280-5, oblong

In these pages, 1 or 2 photos per page illustrate the over 200 brief narratives about strange people, unique places, recounting of fables, legends, ghost stories, Indian lore, descriptions of caves, sinkholes, extra-terrestrials, unidentified flying objects, mystery lights, and just plain strange phenomena. It’s written with fun and so will be the reading. Two of the compilers previously had websites dedicated to related matter.

Everybody will learn something, natives and newcomers. The series editors, Mark and Mark, first did their home state of New Jersey and then did the nation. Texas was their next local target.

http://www.sterlingpub.com/

Mascot Mania - Paul Ruffin

Mascot Mania: Spirit of Texas High Schools.

Compiled and edited by a class of 20 students of Paul Ruffin’s graduate course in English.

Introduction by Gary Wilkens. Huntsville: Texas Review Press, http://www.shsu.edu/~www_trp/, 2005.
160 pages, $16.95, paperback, ISBN 1-881515-72-9, 6x9 inches.

This little book can be often used. The compilers found about 300 different mascots from about 1,200 schools. The most popular were animals, Eagles, Bulldogs, Tigers, Panthers, Mustangs represented about 50 schools each. The most popular human figures included Indians, Pirates, Warriors, Trojans, Rangers, Rebels, and Knights. Weather included the Hurricanes and Tornadoes. Other creatures abounded. My favorites are the Hutto Hippos and the Hamlin Pied Pipers.

Friends of Libraries and Archives of Texas

Friends of Libraries and Archives of Texas (FLAT).

Friends Forecast [newsletter]. Quarterly.

Copies in hand include March 2001, March 2002, April 2003, Spring 2005, and Fall 2005.

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/friends/ & friends@tsl.state.tx.us

FLAT’s brief serial publication addresses the general interests of libraries and archives of Texas and more particularly as expressed, in the March 2001 issue, through enriching “library and archival services for the benefit of the individual, the community, and the state by promoting and supporting the services of the Texas State Library & Archives Commission,” the agency in Austin, now long established. Therein, in addition, FLAT extends its networking toward the local level by intuitively and immediately encouraging and assisting other Friends groups through its advice on purpose and procedure toward those groups’ local interests and goals.
The 2002 issue notes its funding approval of State Librarian Peggy Rudd’s request to microfilm the “Convict Records Ledgers, 1848-1954” and an interactive kiosk in the building’s lobby area. Also noted was TSLAC’s launching of the online exhibit “The McArdle Notebooks” through a combination of scanning and application of HTML description. Some comments from the Texas Library Association’s Library Friends, Trustees, and Advocates Round Table complemented the lateral networking goals of FLAT.

The 2003 issue reviewed the continuing service of FLAT’s president, Patrick Heath, the roles of Friends and some fund raising options for those local Friends groups.
The Spring 2005 issue carried Rudd’s commentary on the opening of the Legislature and a brief history of White House Conferences on Library and Information Services” in 1979 and 1991.

Further mentioned was the opening of a the exhibit on Governor O’Daniel, who according to Bob Wills would “Pass the Biscuits” during O’Daniel’s successful Depression era campaign.
The most recent issue of Fall 2005 promoted the Texas Book Festival, a microfilming project of military records, and the developing renovation of the Lorenzo de Zavala building that houses TSLAC. The issue records its leaders’ accomplishment by announcing the induction of Patrick Heath, Commission leader Sandy Pickett, and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation into the American Library Association’s National Advocacy Honor Roll, thereby demonstrating FLAT’s networking toward the national level.

The Newsletter to some degree substitutes for the content of TSLAC’s serial, Texas Libraries, that ceased in the 1990s.

Members receive the newsletter with their dues payment of $10 to $1,000 a year.

Lone Star Navy - Jonathan Jordan

Lone Star Navy: Texas, the Fight for the Gulf of Mexico, and the Shaping of the American West.

By Jonathan W. Jordan. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005, 368 pp, ISBN 1-57488-512-X $28.00. http://www.potomacbooksinc.com/Books/Features.aspx

The times were turbulent, as were the seas. Jordan, a lawyer by day in Atlanta, writes comprehensively and readably. This volume should remain a mainstay for a long time. He treats the revolutionary background and the privateers with their letters of marque and reprisal to avoid the label of pirate, as well as the establishment, disestablishment, re-establishment, and subsequent transferal of the Navy to the United States.

The story is filled with genuine, personal details as well as nautical lessons made easier by his clear, deliberate approach for landlubbers. It seems there were at the time personality clashes, insubordination, and greed, in addition to sacrifice, friendship, and loyalty in the name of patriotism and maritime reality. Throughout, the influences of Mexican, English, and French foreign powers, the marines, the enabling and disabling politics and court proceedings, and the occasional pirate highlight the depth of the Navy’s life.

The often effective navy’s role in securing Texas liberty is strategically and tactically addressed.
Thirty portraits, maps, and facsimiles add a visual component. Jordan’s extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources is a starting point for any future historian.

See also: A bibliography at http://www.texasnavy.com/biblio.htm , the author’s homepage at http://www.lonestarnavy.com/ , and a Handbook of Texas article at http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/qjt2.html

TEXAS by Mary Jo Powell

Texas. By Mary Jo Powell.

Northampton, Mass.: Interlink Publishing, 2005. http://interlinkbooks.com/. 5" x 9", 288 pages, full-color photos, maps, paperback. ISBN 1-56656-564-2; Price: $18.95

This tall, paperback by Austinite Powell is a pleasant collection of past and present – Cabeza de Vaca to Branch Davidians. Over 10% of the pages have photos or graphics, color and b&w. Objectivity and the writer’s liveliness of short narratives and sidebars keep the reader interested. The few final pages devoted to movies, music, and literature make good diving boards for the modestly adventurous. Each title in this “On-the-Road Histories” series should include: maps, famous sons & daughters, tidbits, literary extracts, tourist sites, etc. and a bibliography. For medium and large libraries.