The people of Waxahachie, Texas, have always been at the heart of a thriving community that was once the largest cotton-producing county in the nation. As county seat, Waxahachie burgeoned into a bustling center for business and education and carved out a unique niche in the growing landscape. But its citizens overcame significant obstacles as well, facing such challenges as a massive slave revolt during the Civil War and the economic bust of the 1930s. Reflecting both the glory and hardship of these struggles, Waxahachie today stands as a testament to Southern determination and how a town came to be defined by a crop on which America still relies-cotton.Always with an eye on their future, the people of Waxahachie, in 1912, supported the development of an interurban electric railway system linking them to Dallas and Waco. Each July between 1900 and 1930, Texans from all over the state came to Waxahachie by covered wagon, on horseback, and later by automobile to participate in the national Chautauqua phenomenon and hear such great orators as William Jennings Bryan and Will Rogers. Waxahachie's Chautauqua Auditorium, still in use today, is one of the few national survivors of this educational movement. This tradition of community and culture survives to the present day in such events as the Scarborough Fair, the National Polka Festival, and the Gingerbread Trail of Homes. In this new historical account, Waxahachie, Texas: Where Cotton Reigned King, the town springs to life in a blend of more than 100 vintage photographs and stories that chronicle the perseverance and love of a people for their town.
War memorials are symbols of a community’s sense of itself, the values it holds dear, and its collective memory. They inform us more, perhaps, about the period in which the memorials were erected than the period of the war itself. Kelly McMichael, in her book, Sacred Memories: The Civil War Monument Movement in Texas, takes the reader on a tour of Civil War monuments throughout the state and in doing so tells the story of each monument and its creation. McMichael explores Texans’ motivations for erecting Civil War memorials, which she views as attempts during a period of turmoil and uncertainty—“severe depression, social unrest, the rise of Populism, mass immigration, urbanization, industrialization, imperialism, lynching, and Jim Crow laws”—to preserve the memory of the Confederate dead, to instill in future generations the values of patriotism, duty, and courage; to create a shared memory and identity “based on a largely invented story”; and to “anchor a community against social and political doubt.” Her focus is the human story of each monument, the characters involved in its creation, and the sacred memories held dear to them.
The people of Waxahachie, Texas, have always been at the heart of a thriving community that was once the largest cotton-producing county in the nation. As county seat, Waxahachie burgeoned into a bustling center for business and education and carved out a unique niche in the growing landscape. But its citizens overcame significant obstacles as well, facing such challenges as a massive slave revolt during the Civil War and the economic bust of the 1930s. Reflecting both the glory and hardship of these struggles, Waxahachie today stands as a testament to Southern determination and how a town came to be defined by a crop on which America still relies-cotton. Always with an eye on their future, the people of Waxahachie, in 1912, supported the development of an interurban electric railway system linking them to Dallas and Waco. Each July between 1900 and 1930, Texans from all over the state came to Waxahachie by covered wagon, on horseback, and later by automobile to participate in the national Chautauqua phenomenon and hear such great orators as William Jennings Bryan and Will Rogers. Waxahachie's Chautauqua Auditorium, still in use today, is one of the few national survivors of this educational movement. This tradition of community and culture survives to the present day in such events as the Scarborough Fair, the National Polka Festival, and the Gingerbread Trail of Homes. In this new historical account, Waxahachie, Texas: Where Cotton Reigned King, the town springs to life in a blend of more than 100 vintage photographs and stories that chronicle the perseverance and love of a people for their town.
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