From his earliest sketches of Texas cattle in 1876 until his death in 1945, Texas master Frank Reaugh dedicated his life and career to telling the stories of the great cattle drives from Texas to points north. He collaborated wiith writer Clyde Walton Hill and composer David Guion to create one of the first performance-art pieces in Texas and in the United States in 1933. Reaugh's Twenty-Four Hours with the Herd debuted in Oak Cliff in 1933 and was performed in Waco and at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas in 1936. The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts assembled an abbreviated version of Twenty-Four Hours with the Herd in 2021. This presentation will show the 2021 version with commentary by Michael R. Grauer, authority on Frank Reaugh and author of Rounded Up in Glory: Frank Reaugh, Texas Renaissance Man.
Meet Michael Grauer
Mr. Grauer holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in art history from the University of Kansas; Master of Arts in art history from Southern Methodist University; and Master of Arts in history from West Texas A&M University. Beginning his career at Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1984, he was curator of art and Western heritage at Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum for 31 years. He was recruited to become McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture and curator of cowboy collections and Western art at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum where he worked for six years. He has curated over 160 exhibitions and authored over 75 publications on art, culture, and history of the American West. He taught at West Texas A&M University for over twenty years. He was the 2012 University of Kansas Department of Art History's distinguished alumnus. He was inducted into the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame at Dodge City, Kansas, as Cowboy Historian for 2021.
When discussing the experiences of Unionists in Texas during the Civil War era, the scholarly focus has often been on persecution during and after the war. Similarly, the First Texas Cavalry, USA, has been described as mostly Germans or Mexicans, and the Texas Republican Party after Reconstruction is dismissed as an alliance of misfits and African Americans. The story of Francis A. Vaughan helps to correct both stereotypes. A native of Tennessee, raised in Mississippi among relatives who had dozens of slaves, Vaughan came to Texas with his family in 1853. He served with distinction in the First Texas, then prospered as a businessman and active Republican for decades after the war. Rather than being persecuted, he was elected several times to postwar offices.
Meet Dr. Richard McCaslin
Richard B. McCaslin, the Director of Publications for the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), is the retired TSHA Professor of Texas History at the University of North Texas and the author or editor of nineteen books. Eight of these won awards, while his biography of Robert E. Lee was nominated for a Pulitzer. He is currently working on two co-authored works focused on the Civil War—a biography of a Texas Unionist and an analysis of the wartime Texas cotton trade--as well as a biography of Pompeo Coppini. a prolific sculptor whose public works in Texas include the Alamo Cenotaph. A Fellow of the TSHA and Admiral in the Texas Navy, McCaslin has commendations from the Civil War Round Tables in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Shreveport for his academic work.
Bridles and Biscuits: Contraband Culture in Spanish East Texas, written by Gary L. Pinkerton in collaboration with Tom Gann, explores the complex economies and shifting structures of a borderland environment. In 1773, as residents of Los Adaes were abruptly forced to relocate to Béxar, the Spanish retreat from the region created a greater opening for unregulated trade among French, American, and Italian settlers. For five years before Spanish subjects resettled Nacogdoches in 1779, the people forced out of Los Adaes forged a new existence on the Trinity River in a place they called Bucareli. There, Antonio Gil Ibarvo solidified his role as a key figure in contraband trade. Through the story of Ibarvo's rise to become the leader of Nacogdoches and his subsequent arrest and removal from that post, Pinkerton demonstrates how the region that hosted the exiled Adaeseños "became the entry point for those with bigger goals than trading horses and skins."
Meet Gary Pinkerton
Gary L. Pinkerton is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Texas History (alliancefortexashistory.org). Since 2016 when he published Trammel's Trace: The First Road to Texas from the North, he has been actively engaged as an author, independent researcher, and web designer. He is a Fellow of the East Texas Historical Association and a former board member. He has published works in the Handbook of Texas, the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. Gary has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Houston and worked in human resources in his professional career.
They came up from Texas driving cattle to Cochise County, Arizona, where they got paid off and spent their money on wine, women, song, and gambling, totally wasting the rest finding themselves with no way to get back. So, they took to herding other folks' cattle . . . without permission and then went after stagecoaches. Soon they discovered that three of the largest and wealthiest towns in the West, Tombstone, Bisbee, and Silver City, were prime pickin's. Take a close look at the outlaws and gunfighters who emerged in droves from southeast Arizona.
Meet Doug Hocking
Doug Hocking has completed advanced studies in American history, ethnology, and historical archaeology. Raised on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, Doug retired from the US Army after serving in military intelligence and as an officer in the armored cavalry. He is the author of many award-winning books of Southwest history including Southwest Train Robberies, Terror on the Santa Fe Trail, a history of the Jicarilla tribe, Tom Jeffords, Friend of Cochise and Black Legend, about the Bascom Affair. He has won the Spur Award, the Will Rogers Medallion, the Co-founders' Award for Best History, and the Danielson for best presentation.
A calaboose is, quite simply, a tiny jail. Designed to house prisoners only for a short time, a calaboose could be anything from an iron cage to a poured concrete blockhouse. Easily constructed and more affordable for small communities than a full-sized building, calabooses once dotted the rural landscape. Though a relic of a bygone era in law enforcement and no longer in use, many calabooses remain in communities throughout Texas, often hidden in plain sight. William Moore will discuss different types, facts and fiction about their use, and what about them inspired him to write a book.
Meet William E. Moore
William E. Moore is a graduate of Sam Houston State University with a masters degree in English and geography and a masters degree from Texas A&M University in anthropology (1980) with emphasis on archaeology. He attended the U. S. Army Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterrey, CA and received a diploma in German. He is a retired professional archaeologist who is currently engaged in writing and research. His recent publications include The Texas Calaboose and Other Forgotten Jails, published by Texas A&M University.