Author: Richard B. McCaslin Publisher: University of North Texas Press ISBN: 1574416731 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
In Sutherland Springs, Texas, Richard B. McCaslin explores the rise and fall of this rural community near San Antonio primarily through the lens of its aspirations to become a resort spa town, because of its mineral water springs, around the turn of the twentieth century. Texas real estate developers, initially more interested in oil, brought Sutherland Springs to its peak as a resort in the early twentieth century, but failed to transform the farming settlement into a resort town. The decline in water tables during the late twentieth century reduced the mineral water flows, and the town faded. Sutherland Springs’s history thus provides great insights into the importance of water in shaping settlement. Beyond the story of resort spa aspirations lies a history of the community and its people itself. McCaslin provides a complete history of Sutherland Springs from early settlement through Civil War and into the twentieth century, its agricultural and oil-drilling exploits alongside its mineral water appeal, as well as a complete community history of the various settlers and owners of the springs/hotel.
Author: Joe Holley Publisher: Hachette Books ISBN: 0316451118 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
**Winner of the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Carr P. Collins’ Award for Best Book of Nonfiction** One part Columbine, one part God Save Texas, Joe Holley's riveting, compassionate book examines the 2017 mass shooting at a church in a small Texas town, revealing the struggles and triumphs of these fellow Texans long after the satellite news trucks have gone. Sutherland Springs was the last place anyone would have expected to be victimized by our modern-day scourge of mass shootings. Founded in the 1850s along historic Cibolo Creek, the tiny community, named for the designated physician during the siege of the Alamo, was once a vibrant destination for wealthy tourists looking to soak up the "cures" of its namesake mineral springs. By November 5, 2017, however, the day a former Air Force enlistee opened fire in the town's First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs was a shadow of its former self. Twenty-six people died that Sunday morning, in the worst mass shooting in a place of worship in American history. Holley, who roams the Lone Star State as the "Native Texan" columnist for the Houston Chronicle and earned a Pulitzer- Prize nomination for his editorials about guns, spent more than a year embedded in the community. Long after most journalists had left, he stayed with his fellow Texans, getting to know a close-knit group of people - victims, heroes, and survivors. Holley shows how they work to come to terms with their loss and to rebuild shattered lives, marked by their deep faith in God and in guns. He also uses Sutherland Springs' unique history and its decades-long decline as a prism for understanding how an act of unspeakable violence reflects the complicated realities of Texas and America in the twenty-first century.
Author: Jennifer Berry Hawes Publisher: St. Martin's Press ISBN: 1250163005 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019 * BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER GREAT NEW WRITERS PICK * OPRAH MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019 READING LIST SELECTION * NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE “A soul-shaking chronicle of the 2015 Charleston massacre and its aftermath... [Hawes is] a writer with the exceedingly rare ability to observe sympathetically both particular events and the horizon against which they take place without sentimentalizing her subjects. Hawes is so admirably steadfast in her commitment to bearing witness that one is compelled to consider the story she tells from every possible angle.” —The New York Times Book Review A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes. On June 17, 2015, twelve members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. Two days later, some relatives of the dead stood at Roof’s hearing and said, “I forgive you.” That grace offered the country a hopeful ending to an awful story. But for the survivors and victims’ families, the journey had just begun. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath. With unprecedented access to the grieving families and other key figures, Hawes offers a nuanced and moving portrait of the events and emotions that emerged in the massacre’s wake. The two adult survivors of the shooting begin to make sense of their lives again. Rifts form between some of the victims’ families and the church. A group of relatives fights to end gun violence, capturing the attention of President Obama. And a city in the Deep South must confront its racist past. This is the story of how, beyond the headlines, a community of people begins to heal. An unforgettable and deeply human portrait of grief, faith, and forgiveness, Grace Will Lead Us Home is destined to be a classic in the finest tradition of journalism.
Author: Gunnar M. Brune Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 9781585441969 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 616
Book Description
This text explores the natural history of Texas and more than 2900 springs in 183 Texas counties. It also includes an in-depth discussion of the general characteristics of springs - their physical and prehistoric settings, their historical significance, and their associated flora and fauna.
Author: Kristine Paulsen Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316265969 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 217
Book Description
The author of the 400,000-copy bestseller On Killing reveals how violent video games have ushered in a new era of mass homicide -- and what we must do about it. Paducah, Kentucky, 1997: a 14-year-old boy shoots eight students in a prayer circle at his school. Littleton, Colorado, 1999: two high school seniors kill a teacher, twelve other students, and then themselves. Utoya, Norway, 2011: a political extremist shoots and kills sixty-nine participants in a youth summer camp. Newtown, Connecticut, 2012: a troubled 20-year-old man kills 20 children and six adults at the elementary school he once attended. What links these and other horrific acts of mass murder? A young person's obsession with video games that teach to kill. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who in his perennial bestseller On Killing revealed that most of us are not "natural born killers" - and who has spent decades training soldiers, police, and others who keep us secure to overcome the intrinsic human resistance to harming others and to use firearms responsibly when necessary - turns a laser focus on the threat posed to our society by violent video games. Drawing on crime statistics, cutting-edge social research, and scientific studies of the teenage brain, Col. Grossman shows how video games that depict antisocial, misanthropic, casually savage behavior can warp the mind - with potentially deadly results. His book will become the focus of a new national conversation about video games and the epidemic of mass murders that they have unleashed.
Author: Janet Mace Valenza Publisher: Univ of TX + ORM ISBN: 029276796X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
This historical study reveals a fascinating yet forgotten aspect of life in nineteenth century Texas—its once-famous mineral spring health spas. Southern Texas once boasted an enviable variety of mineral waters. Though most are closed and nearly forgotten today, Texas spas and resorts once drew thousands of visitors from across the country. They came seeking rejuvenation of body and spirit in the healing mineral waters. This book offers the first comprehensive history of Texas’ healing springs. Janet Valenza tracks the rise, popularity, and decline of the "water cure" from the 1830s to the present day. She follows the development of major spas and resorts, such as Mineral Wells and Indian Hot Springs near El Paso, as well as smaller, family-run springs. Valenza also describes how mineral waters influenced patterns of settlement, transportation routes, commerce, and people’s attitudes toward the land. Period photos and quotes from those seeking cures offer vivid glimpses into the daily life at the springs, which Valenza lists and describes county-by-county in the appendix.
Author: Brandon T. Jett Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1648431348 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
The Texas shooting at Santa Fe High School on May 18, 2018, which killed ten and injured thirteen, prompted public debate over the causes and potential solutions to this type of violent episode. On May 21, 2018, National Rifle Association president Oliver North declared that a culture of violence is largely responsible for these killings. “The problem that we’ve got is we’re trying like the dickens to treat the symptom without treating the disease. . . . The disease is youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence.” This debate has captivated the American media and general public for decades. Texas history is steeped in brutality and bloodshed, creating a narrative that these conditions are still a vital part of the state’s culture in the twenty-first century. But perceptions of violence are often at odds with realities on the ground. Over several centuries, violence has decreased with the development of modern society, but popular perception seems to be that a culture of violence has emerged, and perhaps persisted despite demographic, economic, cultural, and political shifts in Texas. Starting from the notion that a culture of violence existed historically in the state and asking if such a culture still persists in modern Texas, this collection of essays examines trends associated with various types of violence within the state as well as social and political responses from 1965 to 2020. This important and timely work provides valuable context for discussions on violence in the past and for the future.
Author: Wesley Lowery Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316312509 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 241
Book Description
A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end it. Conducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today. In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs. Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community's long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They Can't Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.
Author: Richard B. McCaslin
Author: Joe Holley
Author: Jennifer Berry Hawes
Author: Gunnar M. Brune
Author: Kristine Paulsen
Author: Texas. Legislature. Senate
Author: Janet Mace Valenza
Author: Brandon T. Jett
Author: Wesley Lowery
Author: Texas. Secretary of State