The First Texas News Barons

by Cox, Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780292709775
• ISBN10: 0292709773
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-30
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

"Those interested in how power is used-as well as who gets to wield it--will enjoy this contribution to the study of journalism, often called the rough draft of history." -- East Texas Historical Association Newspaper publishers played a crucial role in transforming Texas into a modern state. By promoting expanded industrialization and urbanization, as well as a more modern image of Texas as a southwestern, rather than southern, state, news barons in the early decades of the twentieth century laid the groundwork for the enormous economic growth and social changes that followed World War II. Yet their contribution to the modernization of Texas is largely unrecognized. This book investigates how newspaper owners such as A. H. Belo and George B. Dealey of the Dallas Morning News , Edwin Kiest of the Dallas Times Herald , William P. Hobby and Oveta Culp Hobby of the Houston Post , Jesse H. Jones and Marcellus Foster of the Houston Chronicle , and Amon G. Carter Sr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram paved the way for the modern state of Texas. Patrick Cox explores how these news barons identified the needs of the state and set out to attract the private investors and public funding that would boost the state's civic and military infrastructure, oil and gas industries, real estate market, and agricultural production. He shows how newspaper owners used events such as the Texas Centennial to promote tourism and create a uniquely Texan identity for the state. To balance the record, Cox also demonstrates that the news barons downplayed the interests of significant groups of Texans, including minorities, the poor and underemployed, union members, and a majority of women.

Author Biography

Patrick Cox is Assistant Director of the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
Texas Newspapers and Modernization	9	(19)
The Evolution of the Texas Press	28	(34)
Expansion and Consolidation: Individual Publishers	62	(39)
``An Enemy Closer to Us than Any European Power''	101	(34)
The Forces of Traditionalism and the Challenge from the Invisible Empire	135	(44)
Texas Newspapers, the Crash of 1929, and the Great Depression	179	(23)
Newspapers and the 1936 Texas Centennial	202	(22)
Conclusion	224	(5)
Notes	229	(24)
Bibliography	253	(12)
Index	265