Without bias, any United States citizen has thought of Texas of being a big oil producer in the country. Afterall, since the largest discovery of oil in the United States in 1901 was discovered near Beaumont, Texas it would cause some changes not only in the local area but the entire state as well. We all take oil for granted each day but maybe one day you should thank Texas for fueling the United State’s oil production and making the economy a lot better.
In the late 19th century the University of Texas will given 1,000,000 acres of land in West Texas as an endowment from the Texas Legislature. About 30 years later, the university started drilling for oil and their awakening came in 1923 with the discovery of oil on their property. Since then they have made up to $4.4 billion dollars (1923-2008). This did not just affect the universities wealth, it effected another university as well which was split in a ⅓ payment to Texas A&M. The only money produced in West Texas was enough for the universities to give more grants and
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scholarships to more students who deserved the money. Around the same time of the oil discovery in West Texas by UT, the oil fields and rigging jobs we’re not giving to African-American and Mexican-Americans.
Even though this might seem bad, it really wasn’t. When people left their domestic jobs (ex. Cleaning up the house, washing dishes, etc.) they went into the oil field, in turn these ‘minorities’ took these open domestic jobs and used them to get wealthier. An excellent object comes from Willse Lee Mckinney who said; “The thing that caused me to stop here in 1949, … I could make one dollar per hour for domestic work: cleaning house, washing, and ironing. So if I worked ten hours that day. I had ten dollars. Ten dollars per week was a good wage back in East Texas. So I thought, “Well this is it. I’ll stay here and make me a little money and go back to school…” This could mean that now minorities would start to rise up from what they would be thought of as a sort of scapegoat in the 19th
century. And again, at the same time a new town was formed because of oil! A year after oil was found in this area, a town called ‘Wink, Texas’ was now suddenly on the map. This was excellent news, there would be more jobs because of oil in these little “oil towns!” By the time there was around 6,000 citizens living in Wink, a high school was built. In typical Texas tradition, a football team was needed badly. Instead of what most people would do today, the oil industry actually funded the football team, a cheerleading squad, and even a marching band! This just shows that oil has had even the littlest of impact in Texas to bringing in more pride & enjoyable activities for all to a tiny new founded town. In 1926, the county of Midland, Texas had a 3.6 divorce rate (3.6 people divorcing every 1,000). But there was a problem, it was rising. This was because of oil, this did not just happen in Midland County, it was happening all over West Texas. It was so much, it rose the United States’ average by .2! There is no official reason to why this happened, but some can guess that men left their homes to go work in the oil fields. This lead to women divorcing and marrying more men. In conclusion, the discovering of oil for worse or for better, impacted Texas like a freight train. Without the discovery of oil, we would most likely be in an economic crisis fighting for money, or a just a place with boring cities and no football! No matter your opinion, oil did change Texas forever and made it what it is today.
When we see Texas, we remember today mainly for its BBQ, Football and Black Gold, Texas tea. However, there is much more than just the usual itineraries that we find in most other states as well. Molly Ivins in her essay “Is Texas America” categorically states that, “Here's the deal on Texas. It's big. So big there's about five distinct and different places here, separated from one another geologically, topographically, botanically, ethnically, culturally and climatically” (Ivins). This is a true belief from Molly Ivins of how huge Texas was and how the demographics changed in each geographical location in Texas. The population of Texas and the demographics are two essential factors that include many important parameters in deciding the history of any state. The presence of many ethnic groups further adds to the diversification of
* Raised on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, Cash articulated a racialized class divide not simply among whites and African Americans, but among whites, themselves. Cash belonged to a growing class of impoverished white farmers increasingly referred to by his contemporaries as "white trash," and recast by historian Neil Foley as "The White Scourge. " In his book of the same title, Foley analyzes the impact of class and race consciousness on white tenants and sharecroppers in central Texas as they competed for farm labor with both African Americans and Mexicans from 1820 to 1940. Foley asserts, "The emergence of a rural class of 'white trash' made whites conscious of themselves as a racial group and fearful that if they fell to the bottom, they would lose the racial privileges that came with being accepted for what they were not-black, Mexican, or foreign born. "
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
...ights of blacks due to the inequitable laws such as the Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, and sharecropping, and the fact that the Economic Depression of 1873 and the common acts of corruption distressed the economy. The southern states were reunified with the northern states through Lincoln and Johnson’s Reconstruction programs, even though Congress did not fully support them and created their own plan. Reconstruction was meant to truly give blacks the rights they deserved, but the southerners’ continuous acts of discrimination including the Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, and sharecropping eventually denied them of those rights. Lastly, the negative effects of the corruption and the Panic of 1873 lead to economic failure during Reconstruction. These issues relate to our society because people do still face discrimination and corruption in our economy still exists today.
Growing up in McKinney, Texas, Lewis did many odd jobs before he was in the Texas National Guard. He was a bread truck driver for a bakery and worked on cars, to name a few . The life in Texas at the time of Lewis’ high school years was about economic expansion, with petroleum being the basic regional builder in the south west. Oil made the region’s economy different, where as it used to depend on agriculture and timber. But oil fueled the growing automobile industry, with every 4.3 Texans having a car by 1929. By 1930, Texas...
The social and economic developments of the last quarter of the nineteenth century drastically changed the United States. The business world changed once industrialization was introduced to the world. Opportunities grew as people heard about the boundless American opportunities. Immigrants from all races flooded the cities which doubled in population from 1860-1900 (Barnes and Bowles, 2014, p. 34). However, as industries grew, owners prospered off the hard work of others. People started to feel they were not being treated fairly. People had to work harder and longer for their money. Barnes and Bowles (2014) noted “In the era of industrialization, millions of workers fought to simply have the right to work in safe conditions, and earn a fair wage” (p. 45). Many Americans feared that giant corporations would one day seek to restrict the ability of common people to get ahead and curtail individual freedoms. These fears were particularly strong among farmers, laborers, an...
The expansion of agriculture and railroads helped form Texas’s present economy. The invention of the steam engine not only allowed people to move across the country in 7 days, instead of 6 months, but it also allowed crops and livestock to be carried to markets and places where they would be sold anywhere in the country. They could be moved to another farm in Texas as well. Since it’s such a large state, railroads were a necessity for travel, and general transportation. The railroad-building boom lasted 40 years. The production of cotton in Texas introduced some of the first slave-based cotton farms, and was the dominant crop for a very long time. After this event, Texas’s economy was forever changed.
After liberation, most of the African Americans operated roles as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. “And Black men’s feet learned roads. Some said goodbye cheerfully…others fearfully, with terrors of unknown dangers in their mouths…others in their eagerness for distance said nothing…” (Takaki 311). The migration to the north guaranteed blacks opportunities toward employment, which led them to obtain sharper wages. Unfortunately, the northern part of the United States was not how immigrants perceived it to be: lack of segregation.
The decade following the Reconstruction Era in American history is brilliantly and descriptively named; the Gilded Age was coated with superficial prosperity which buried its hardships that laid within its core. The rise of big business grabbed American’s attention---whether it was in a positive or negative notion--- and the United State’s focus on minorities declined. Women in the Gilded Age were continuous victims to inequality in contrast to their male counterparts, and the opportunity to pursue their own economic quickly turned into another element of inequality between the genders. On the other hand, the general working class quickly were slaves to big business and the new factory system. Working conditions and wages were unbearable,
“Houston was founded in 1836 by two brothers,” (World Book Encyclopedia pg. 394) John K. Allen and Augustus Allen. They bought 6,642 acres on which to build the great city. They decided to name the city after their friend Sam Houston. “He was a general that led the army that won Texas’s freedom from Mexico.” (Passionate Nation pg. 274) Sam Houston also became the first Texas president. The brothers built a capitol building; it was two stories tall and made completely out of wood. The Texas Congress moved from Colombia to the new capitol building. Within four months after Houston was founded, more than 1,500 people were living there. Once the city started growing, Houston became very famous for its popular port. The port sent goods to and received goods from all around the world. Sadly, in the 1900s a hurricane hit it. “Houston helped out in World War II. They helped with ship building, steel producing, and producing oil.” (visithoustontexas.com) Houston’s history is very rich and so is its culture.
After the Civil War, many ideologies developed into the United States of America. Some of these ideologies included the free labor ideology and the producerist ideology. Free labor endorsed the belief that by removing slavery, or any other kind of barrier, everyone had an equal chance to try to get wealth (Farless). The producerist ideology tried to stay to the customary view of society and it stressed the importance of viewing the community instead of an individual (Farless). With these two ideologies, they had an impact on labor. By believing in the producerist ideology, people would be staying with tradition, and that leaves no change for our world. Many laborers wanted change, which led to problems for the laborers.
A major economic struggle after the Great Depression for many Americans, including African Americans, was how they would be able to provide enough income to keep themselves and their families financially stable. Most African Americans worked in agriculture or as domestic servants. “As the ‘last hired and first fired,’ African Americans were hit hardest by the Depression. With an unemployment rate double that of whites, blacks benefited disproportionally from direct government relief, and especially in northern cities, jobs on the New Deal public-works projects.” Since some African Americans were also veterans at this time, they qualified for the G.I. Bill (1944), which provided massive federal funding to U.S. veterans for education, job training and placement, small business loans, and home loans. Unfortunately, just like other New Deal programs, this bill was not equally administered equitably along racial lines, because only the white race was considered superior to the others. In order to continue increasing their salaries, many African Americans had to move to a different location in order to find new jobs. The Second Great Migration helped expand the workforce. African Americans were attracted to new jobs in the North and West, so they left everything behind and moved to a completely new area. This migration proved to be even l...
The economy started collapsing promptly after the Civil War ended, however former slaves were the cause and effect of a growing nation. Though the nation was starting to boom, former slaves didn’t get their equality in their share, if they were lucky enough to have one. African Americans that made their money in sharecropping lived a rough life and faced many family hardships. Sharecropping was a system by white southerners where freed slaves were allowed to work on cotton farms and gain money for the owner with a little share for themselves, in return for a place to live, food, and medical aid. In spite of the hospitality, the freemen were required to pay for all of the equipment at the end of the year, but most sharecroppers didn’t gain enough
races as a whole were relocated and forced to work for little to no pay for someone else
Because the Great Depression significantly reduced employment opportunities in the North for blacks, the rate of Southern black emigration slowed significantly during the 1930s. The Great Depression, though, increased the number of African American migrant workers. “The Great Depression also witnessed the entry of African Americans into the ranks of organized labor in unprecedented numbers. The formation in 1938 of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, an outgrowth of the American Federation of Labors Committee for Industrial Organization established in 1935, was crucial to this development” (statelib).