Texas in Popular Literature Script for KWBU/NPR

Texas in Popular Literature 1

Texas in Popular Literature Script for KWBU/NPR

Script for KWBU-FM and Texas NPR Stations

By Hans Christianson

HOST (Mary Landon Darden)

When people think of Texas, they conjure up images of tumbleweeds, oil wells and, of course, cowboys. Everyone lives on a ranch, rides a horse and wears a cowboy hat. In fact, Texas is still a frontier state that is just as wild in the 21st century as it was in the 19th century.

While these depictions of Texas are not accurate, they are permanently ingrained in the minds of non-Texans from around the world. Join me as I talk with Austin freelance writer Hans Christianson about how the mythic portrayal of Texas has developed across various mediums of popular literature.

Welcome to the show, Hans.

Hans Christianson:

Thanks Mary. It's great to be here.

Hans, why are people so fascinated with Texas?

Texas is a hotbed for myths and legends. Over the past five centuries, it has lived under the flags of five countries, the United States, the Confederate States of America, France, Spain and Mexico. And it was even its own republic for nearly a decade. Through its existence, it has maintained a foot in the mythos of both the American West and the American South, drawing stories and traditions from both. In short, Texas has done a great job of building and maintaining its own unique brand.

I've heard that when Texans travel internationally, they always tell people they are from Texas first, and from America second. In contrast, people from other states will usually say they are Americans first. I think Texans can get away with this because the world associates similar status to Texas as it does to the United States. And in a lot of ways, the world is fascinated with Texas.

According to the documents in your research, when did people start telling stories about Texas?

People have been writing about Texas since the mid-16th century, when Europeans first began making contact with North America. The early literature describing Texas, which was historical in nature, was first written in Spanish and can be traced back to 1542.

The first book written in English that solely highlighted Texas was written in 1833 by Mary Austin Holley, a cousin of Stephen F. Austin. It was simply titled, Texas. The book sounds interesting because it consisted of 12 letters written by Holley during her visit to the Texas colony to recipients back on the East Coast. It was expanded a few years later into the History of Texas. Naturally, other topics such as the Texas revolution and the battle for the Alamo proved to be hot topics for writers chronicling the development of Texas.

How has Texas been portrayed in traditional fiction, such as short stories and novels?

One author known for short stories involving Texas is O. Henry. His 1907 collection The Heart of the West features some of his best Texas stories, including The Reformation of Calliope, The Caballero's Way and The Hiding of Black Bill. He is credited with describing Texas life – including cowboys, rangers and pioneers – with great detail.

Another writer with strong ties to Texas, and Baylor in fact, is Dorothy Scarborough. A noted teacher, folklorist and writer, she taught English classes at Baylor from 1905 to 1915, while she earned bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1916, she moved to New York City to teach at Columbia University, where she also earned her doctorate in literature. Her teaching specialty included the short story and novel.

Scarborough was a member of the Texas Folklore Society, which was founded in 1910, and included fellow member and Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie. Many of her novels examined the role of women in Texas along with focusing on Texas mainstays, such as sharecroppers, cowboys and ghosts. Her works include In the Land of Cotton, Can't Get a Redbird and The Stretch-Berry Smile.

In 1925, she published the controversial novel The Wind, which was made into a 1927 silent film of the same name. The story revolved around life on the Texas frontier and how the incessant wind and drought conditions drive the novel's heroine insane. The Texas Collection at Baylor has a large archival section of her personal papers, manuscripts and letters.

In terms of modern Texas writers, I would like to point out author Larry McMurtry. He has written several novels involving Texas, including The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment (both of which were turned into award-winning movies) and All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers. His greatest success came in the 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove, which told the story of a group of retired Texas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. The novel was made into an Emmy Award-winning miniseries, which in turn spawned four sequels and two television series.

The Texas Collection has an extensive collection (more than 20,000 titles) in their Texas Pulp Periodicals section. How do these relate to the Texas myth?

Pulp fiction, not to be confused with the Quentin Tarantino film of the same name, refers to periodicals that were mass-produced from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s on cheap, wood pulp paper. Originally, the medium started out as “dime novels,” which often told stories of the American West in the form of a self-contained novel and short stories, complete with black-and-white illustrations.

As the years went on, the pulps developed into more of a magazine format with a detailed drawn or painted cover that highlighted the type of action a reader could expect from the interior pages. In many cases, the covers were considered lurid and risqué by refined audiences. They often featured a cowboy or a ranger caught in the middle of a gun fight or sticky situation. By today's standards, many of the cover's portrayals of women and minorities would be considered offensive. A few of the Texas-specific books that I found included titles, such as Texas Western and Texas Rangers.

Eventually, another form of the pulps came out – pocketbooks. These pulp paperback novels featured similar covers on the front and back, and adventurous stories inside. A few titles I found included Pistol Passport and The Texas Pistol. The back cover description to the pocketbook Bigger Than Texas gives a good idea of what these books were like. It reads:

When Johnny Bracket reined into Field City, he had 21 steers, his bay, his gun and a run of bad luck behind him. He liked the looks of the town and, even better, he liked the land deed Morg Field offered him.

What he didn't like was the fear he saw in the faces of the townsfolk and the ruthless greed he began to see in the man who owned them.

The publications had a wide appeal across the country, with sales ranging in the hundreds of thousands per issue. For many people – particularly adolescents – this was how they learned about Texas and the American West. These stories definitely helped develop the cowboy myth in Texas.

From the 1920s to the 1960s, students learned about lone star history through a comic strip called “Texas History Movies.” What can you tell us about that?

This is a great historical gem. Beginning in 1926, the Dallas News and Dallas Journal, predecessors to the Dallas Morning News, published a comic strip intended to teach public school students about Texas history. The strips combined simple cartoons with explanatory historical text. The strips were published only during the school year, and covered events from 1530 to 1885.

In 1928, the strips (428 total) were collected into a 217 page, oversized hardcover book. They were also collected into a smaller, digest size by the Magnolia Petroleum Company (predecessor to Exxon/Mobil) and distributed for free to students around Texas. By the 1960s, the content was deemed to be racist, so the distribution ceased and the copyright was given to the Texas State Historical Association.

In 2007, the association announced they were releasing an updated version of the strips in conjunction with the Texas A&M Press titled The New Texas History Movies. Revised by the late Jack Jackson, award-winning scholar and illustrator, the book offers a glimpse at Texas history for a new generation of students.

Cowboy poetry is a literary form that not all of our listeners may be familiar with. Tell me more about it.

Cowboy poetry is another medium that has helped to spread the myth of Texas. While it is not specifically tied to the Lonestar State in origin or subject, it does celebrate the cowboy way of life.

The form began in the 1800s as a way for cowboys and ranch hands to share stories. Since many of these men were illiterate, the stories were all oral in nature. And the rhyme and meter helped with memory recall and future storytelling. Many people may be surprised to learn that cowboy poetry has undergone a revival in the past few decades. Current cowboy poets write and perform their work at festivals around the country.

I would like to share an excerpt from poem by Jack Douglas from his collection Hangin' Out with the Heifers. The poem is titled A Partner in His Plan.

As I ride across the prairies,

out onto ranges wide

I marvel at God's wonders

beneath the pale blue skies

Where cattle graze on grasses

that are washed by summer rains

And I thank God He made the cowboy,

caretaker of the range.

As I look upon the mountains

that shade the valleys wide

I see God in all His glory

and I see God in all His pride.

For His handiwork is perfect

and the cowboy He has used

To care for all the rangeland

and there he paid his dues

I see God in the faces

of the newborn baby calves

In the streams of bubbling water

that rush on by and laugh

In the deer that graze the meadows

of this rough and rugged land

And I thank God He made the cowboy

a partner in His plan.

The Texas Rangers, the law enforcement group – not the major league baseball team – are an important part of the Texas myth. How have they been portrayed?

As I mentioned earlier, the Texas Rangers were a prominent part of the pulp fiction movement. They were also the title characters of Tales of the Texas Rangers, a western police procedural radio drama that premiered in 1950. The shows recreated actual cases involving the Texas Rangers and featured fictional Ranger Jayce Pearson and his horse Charcoal. In 1955, the show was adapted for television. One of the unique aspects of the television show is that it used stories set in modern times and the old Texas. And, speaking of television, I have to mention the show Walker, Texas Ranger, which featured film star and martial artist Chuck Norris.

The Texas Rangers fit seamlessly into Texas myth. Even though they are a modern-day law enforcement agency – the investigative arm of the Texas Department of Public Safety – they still have a frontier style to their persona. Rangers wear white cowboy hats, western-style shirts with a shiny badge attached to the pocket, and a gun strapped to their belt. They embody the frontier spirit of Texas.

Doesn't the Lone Ranger also have a connection to Texas?

Yes, he does. In fact, he may be the most famous – albeit fictional – Texas Ranger. The character was created in 1933 for The Lone Ranger radio show. The show lasted more than two decades and spawned film serials, a television show, comic books and a feature film. The title character, known only as Reid, is part of a group of six Texas Rangers pursuing a gang of outlaws. When the group is ambushed, all of the Rangers are killed except him. After being nursed back to health by an American Indian named Tonto, Reid fakes his death and takes up the guise as the masked Lone Ranger.

In true western fashion, he and Tonto travel through Texas and the American West exacting justice and righting wrongs.

Austin, Texas is considered a live-music hub. How do people across the U.S. associate music with Texas?

One example of Texas-influenced music can be found in Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Wills is considered to be one the fathers of Western Swing, and some of his famous songs include San Antonio Rose, If You're From Texas and Texarkana Baby. His music is still enjoyed across Texas at dance halls, and has inspired younger musicians such as Asleep at the Wheel.

Most people probably associate with the Austin City Limits television show that airs on PBS. In fact, the show debuted in 1975 with a reunion of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Over the years, ACL has featured performances by Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Johnny Cash, the Indigo Girls and more. Currently, ACL is the longest-running concert music program. And since 2002, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has been drawing visitors to Texas from around the world.

Texas has been portrayed frequently in films. Can you give us a few examples that emerged in your research?

I think that film is the medium that has most impacted people's modern perception of Texas. For many people, the history and geography lessons of Texas were learned in the classroom known as the cinema and the late, great drive-in movie theater.

That sounded like something Joe Bob Briggs would say.

The first fictional film about Texas, titled Texas Tex, was made in 1908. What's interesting about this film is that it was produced entirely in Denmark. It did, however, feature genuine Native Americans, who were traveling through Europe as part of a Wild West show. The plot was typical for a western story: the title character Tex has to rescue his stolen horses and abducted love interest from a bad cowboy and, of course, his Native American counterpart, which was so typical for that day, but has appropriately been abandoned for the obvious racist implications. As always, in the end, Tex saves the day.

For a period of time in the early 20th century, Texas was featured more than any other state in the title of films. And naturally, there was no shortage of films about the Alamo. One of the quintessential films made about Texas is Giant, starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Released in 1955, Giant was a critical success and featured a new type of villain for the Texas landscape – oil. The film was based on the 1952 award-winning novel of the same name by Texas author Edna Ferber. The film dealt with the conflict in Texas between ranching and oil exploration. Don Graham described the film in his book Cowboys and Cadillacs:

GIANT is probably the archetypal Texas movie; it contains every significant element in the stereotype: cowboys, wildcatters, cattle empire, wealth, crassness of manners, garish taste, and barbecue.

What are some other quintessential films involving Texas?

Some of the films related to Texas that still stand out include The Last Picture Show (written by Larry McMurtry), Urban Cowboy and Tender Mercies, which was written by American playwright and Texan Horton Foote. Dazed and Confused, a more recent film and cult classic from the 1990s -- chronicles life in 1976 Austin, Texas. The funny thing about this film is that most of the actors, save for Matthew McConaughey, do not have Texas accents.

Texas has also made a significant impact on the horror genre with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Loosely based on the horrific events surrounding Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, this low-budget movie took the nation by storm. Special effects were limited, so the movie delivers its frights through suspense. It has gone on to spawn several sequels and a big-budget remake, along with inspiring many Halloween costumes. It also inspired generation of mask-wearing film villains.

I think the biggest reason this film works is because of the title. Texas goes naturally with a chainsaw-wielding maniac. I don't think there are any other states that could pull off that title. After all, the Idaho or North Carolina Chainsaw Massacre just doesn't have the same ring to it.

One of the most enduring icons of Texas legend is the Battle of the Alamo in San Antonio. How has that been portrayed in literature and film throughout the years?

There's certainly no shortage of coverage surrounding the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, particularly in film. And it fits perfectly with Texas legend. Just take a look at the cast of characters who were at the battle: Mexican General Santa Anna, William B. Travis, the famous knife fighter James Bowie and frontiersman Davy Crockett. The 12-day siege ended with the violent deaths of all but two Texas revolutionaries, but it inspired settlers to join the Texas Revolution movement that ultimately resulted in independence from Mexico. Don Graham describes the film appeal of the Alamo in Cowboys and Cadillacs: