Southwestern Historical Quarterly

For 125 years, the editors and contributors to the Southwestern Historical Quarterly have preserved primary-source evidence of the past, provided an analysis of that past for the present, and envisioned the future study of Texas and southwestern history. As the essays in this issue from some of the best historians of the region make clear, the balance between preserving past documents, offering fresh interpretations, and arguing for new approaches has changed over time, but you still find notes and documents that highlight evidence, closely argued analysis and narration that offer insight for modern readers, and reviews, review essays, and special features like this particular issue that point us toward the future. The focus and number of documents made easily available in the Quarterly have changed. The arguments and interpretations have changed, and the paths forward have changed. But the Quarterly remains the heart and soul of the Texas State Historical Association and the search for an accurate past that speaks to the present and shines a light on the future. Despite those changes on a larger scale, the over-arching mission of the Quarterly has remained basically the same for over a hundred years: move beyond imagining and representing Texas and the Southwest (past, present, and future) as solely the land of Big Tex, the larger than life White and stereotypically-masculine cowboy that towers over the state fairgrounds in Dallas.¹ This elusive and intermittent goal has grown more vital with each passing year. [End Page 339]

Change and continuity, then, both mark the development of the Quarterly. The evidence preserved and published, for example, has reflected the evolving concerns and preoccupations of the history profession and the membership of the TSHA. Thus, most of the early material in the Quarterly covered Texas from about 1821 to 1866 and focused on the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, and Anglo American expansion into Texas. After about 1910, however, the range of primary source material grew larger and bits and pieces on such topics as the impeachment of James Ferguson or the White Man's Union began to appear. Reflecting currents in the broader profession the expansion of the Spanish into the Southwest drew more interest. Slowly more material on women, German Texans and other ethnic groups, and Tejanos appeared. Over time the focus came to include Black Texans and their experiences. But into the 1970s the Quarterly, despite these intermittent efforts, remained largely an Anglo male preserve with a heavy focus on the nineteenth century and a journal with only limited interaction with the changes in approaches and methods common to the broader history profession.

Gradually as the membership and profession grew more diverse, innovative, and inclusive, so did the topics preserved in the Quarterly. But even before the 1970s the primary source material always remained a road map of how at any particular point in time editors and contributors envisioned the past, present, and future. See, for example, J. A. R. Moseley, "The Citizens White Primary of Marion County," published in April 1946. What is striking about this particular contribution to the Quarterly is not only the first-person insight into the rise of efforts to eliminate the Black vote, but the casual way this process was still accepted in 1946. Thus, the Quarterly tells you something both about the time period a contribution focuses on and the time that piece was published. For those interested in Texas historiography, it offers a timeline of approaches to the past, and the attitudes of each unfolding era. For everyone, it provides vital source material, and a window on the changing nature of the TSHA.

Beyond its insights into the TSHA, the information published also suggested the interests of the editor. In 1940, when Walter P. Webb edited the Quarterly, he included a useful first-person account of the roles of George W. Littlefield and George W. Brackenridge during the 1917 controversy...