hello in class and welcome to the first lecture first full lecture with our coronavirus quarantine first off apologize I understand the video quality and sound quality isn't the best so I'm working with what I have here so please be patient so let's just get straight to the lecture shall we we're gonna be looking at the social and cultural life in Texas right before the Civil War and you'll see some similarities to today and you'll see some differences throughout all this but we're just kind of putting we're trying to establish a bottom line here first off when you really look at Texas social and cultural life you understand it's a male-dominated society and that's really going to drive and impact everything that is going on in Texas society so to put the things into perspective what I mean by all this is that there's a greater number of men than women those about by 1860 there's 36 thousand more men than women in Texas and so this has a huge impact on the social and cultural impact of women and and on society so for example because there are so few women compared to men in Orlais interracial relationships are actually seen as common it was accepted in Texas Society at this time now after the Civil War whenever the number of the you know the number between the genders becomes more equal then that will fall out of favor but at this time before the Civil War interracial interracial relationships are actually seen as socially acceptable now let's talk about some women and family life now women obviously all of us have a disclaimer before we really get into this let's talk about some Texas women here first off think they've kind of always gets my nerves when people say oh women were completely abused women had zero power that's completely false that's basically saying that women completely accepted their situation and they no means or say in society women did have a say within a little bit more say than what a lot of people's think because the old adage that you know mama ain't happy then nobody's happy it is true back then as it is today and now they're not all men abused all women but there were some differences and that's what we're gonna look at right here so I just want to make the disclaimer women were not completely powerless they were not completely fragile especially here in Texas Texas produces some very some very unique women some very headstrong women very powerful women and so we can kind of see a little bit of this time free so first off courtship and marriage courtship and marriage is different than back then than it is today back then there's no such thing as going on dates alone he always had basically just went to the girl if you're a guy and you're courting a girl you went to her house and dad was always available trust me when my daughter was in high school I would loud brought that back I'm gonna hate it myself on the other end but I completely understand why so just kind of keep an eye on things because women were supposed to remain chaste while men can sow their Wild Oats so Menken frequent brothels and bar and borrows and not and not be looked down upon where women had to remain above society above approach now of course women were most known for their childbearing and raising the children and so this so this is a major responsibility at the time period and you'll see why because of the sphere the spheres of influence I might as well just throw that out woman's fear of influences within the house now a lot of people will automatically say oh well that's just because they cook him clean no no no no they made they made a lot of the calls dealing with the house they made decisions with the house so the woman's sphere of influence was within the house while the male's sphere of influence was outside of the house so then while the males men go in influence society women influence the house and so you can and one of the things that women did and we'll see this really pick up speed in the late night century us be the moral moral influence of her husband husband has to go into this awful sin ridden world and she was the moral cornerstone holding everything keeping the family in place and keeping him with the church and so I know I've mentioned this also one of the things that that women had to deal with a lot was infant mortality back then you know I mean even today even today when children are born they they do not have you know there's no immune system and childhood diseases ran rampant and so I think I might talked about this in class where baby names for children were not made until they were about two years old they were known as our little visitor it you know he she kind of like bird box a boy girl like bird box so until they passed the childhood disease stage and no chance of living and increased dramatically as a way of psychologically dealing with with everything now another aspect about women that's fascinating is another sphere of influence is through kinship networks so just kind of like today you know when you get married generally the family is more attached to the warm to the wives family so the kinship and the wives side is much stronger the wife is drawing the husband into that kinship network it's very true during this time period kinship networks meant everything especially on the you know to lesser extent on the frontiers but generally what happened was people tended to migrate as families not just a nuclear family but as larger kinship ties they tend to one person moves in and then the rest will follow and it tended to be along the line of the life and says gives them a little bit more more influence and a little bit more networking ability but this is gonna be a little bit less than the frontier whereas the sparsely settled a legal status of women will actually shock you our women could keep their property upon marriage one of the common things people love to say is oh well women had a forfeit everything everything became husbands you can kind of see the Spanish influence of this on Texas the wife could maintain and control all of her possessions and didn't automatically go to the husband divorce as possible they weren't they weren't extremely common but they did occur but the one thing that differs from today is generally the guardianship of the children went to the husband and not to the mother now generally women's influence was you know not really and you know I gotta said before it's the Messick's fear the poet's fear but there were some avenues that some women were able to to influence the society and a lot of this is through forms within the church so there they couldn't get into the pulpit they can create organizations through their church groups and try to push for reform movements so one famous texan a woman was a woman by the name of Melinda Rankin she was an abolitionist and in push for women's rights she was an import from New England another prominent Texas woman that was well that was an abolitionist to push women's rights was was a lease and I am I I used to be able to enunciate her last name I'm not even gonna attempt it today but she was from Norway coming into Texas and really trying to promote abolitionism and women's rights now as you can see women use Church forums to kind of push for some you know some of their beliefs and so churches were very prominent in Texas now of course the Catholic churches then decline because you have a lot larger Anglo population within the state and so now it's gonna be the Methodists and the Baptist and the Presbyterians that are going to truly dominate the the religion within the state of Texas and so one of the things that the church does and I come and this kind of ties back in with the women is that it allowed women a platform to push for other reform so you'll see the beginnings of a temperance movement before the civil war but it really picks up speed right meetly afterwards with industrialization in the rise of urbanization but the temperance movement the trying to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol of alcohol was was through the church now of course education is is extremely important in Texas and we saw this being you know especially public education it was started by Mirabeau Lamar if you remember he's the second president of Texas and so he helps establish a school system even though it doesn't have any money I you can see my son running there in the background so I apologize for that and what you have is they're using Texas is using what they have remember their land rich in cash poor they don't have much money and so they're using the sale of land to promote to generate revenue in order to to establish these schools and so the first public schools and Texas are going to be in New Braunfels because the Germans they like to education y'all and also down in in Houston now if you also remember the Morrow set aside land to to establish to university so he established you know we talked about Soleil University the first one and then of course Baylor University which was founded in Independence Texas just outside of Brenham so here's a picture of the the modern-day ruins I don't know if you can see this the cursor there but the modern-day ruins back when it was in session in early decay of the building so if you go down to independence you can still see the the ruins of Baylor University and so same thing that we talked about with with the public schools is they're setting aside land these proceeds from those land sales will then be used to to establish the buildings and pay pay instructors so just in general overall public education is going to is going to improve but Texas doesn't have that many well-qualified our well-trained teachers and so it's gonna be lacking behind attendance is gonna be low parents aren't too excited about their kids going to school because the main reason they have kids is to work on the farm so being at school means they're not working in a farm and so if there's any farm you know farm hand work that needs to be done the kids aren't going to school they're staying at home and working in the fields some private schools would be established the bit of state aid is gonna be given but but in general it's gonna be some private schools established private tutors and whatnot but overall the literacy rate for Texans is actually pretty good it's about 95 percent compare that to the rest of the south which is about 80 percent in Texas is doing pretty good when it comes to education and so that's what always shocks people everybody always thinks out of 19th century you know they're in the past they must be dumb they must be illiterate not the case now what do the best spellers know they were not but then that I can make the case that if people had had to stay away from spell check that they that their spelling would suffer significantly so let's just keep that into perspective and so one of the things and so let's wrap up on college and education here quick one of the main things these colleges are for but they're being establishes or they're establish a serve basically two purposes one is their seminaries their training ministers for for the churches and you'll see some some a lot of these early universities are going to be sponsored by by the church so obviously Baylor is sponsored by the Baptist Church and then you have Austin College is another early early university that's formed in Texas it's established by the Presbyterian Church it starts in Huntsville and then later on transferred up to Sherman Texas on the Texas Oklahoma border hands down with the smelliest campuses in Texas they build it close to a mayonnaise factory so when the wind blows us fried it gives a nice pleasant smell another major university established during this time period is st. Mary st. Mary's music is established by the Catholic Church to train the trained priests and so so that's one purpose that these universities fulfill another one is their you know the rest of the students that are attending our sons of planter's early ones that can afford it and these planters sons are really using it as an opportunity to train them to prepare them socially for do their life as a planter and so create some unique situations where these these you know they generally were young men you do have some women attending college they tend to be the daughters of the instructors with professors but the planners sons are worried about their public image and about how they're dressing do they have the latest latest clothes available to them and so and also you have the same shenanigans that that occurs with with college students today drunkenness and rowdiness pranks and whatnot so it makes it quite quite interesting and so books are going to be out of these universities you're going to have books are gonna be published by professors books on aggregate on agriculture on law and religion of the most common and you're also beginning when you know that this time period the first wave of settlers are beginning to die off or getting older and so they start want to record their experiences and so they're writing their memoirs and poaching memoirs about their experience on the early Texas frontier and so you can you can see that there are some chronology chronologically chronological create a little bit of I'll get the word out chronicling of the events in Texas entertainment entertainment so is going to be key and we'll divide entertainment up by by where people are living now if you're in an urban setting you're going to go to you're going to go to like a dance hall or this here is one of my favorite places on earth crane Hall yam Ben go catch a show there yeah it's unique and it really serves up it shows you kind of the diversity of what's going on at this time period because I Green Holly can go to you can go dance so you can go listen you know you can just go listen to a band you can have that sometimes I have lectures sometimes they have performances theater theatrical performance and even have Church there so I had a colleague get praise you that was always fascinated by this he could never wrap his brain around that we could do so much in this old building still today so but then again he's from Ohio so he needs all the help he can get when it comes to that but and you have also in schools you know you got to people can go to taverns so kinda like green hall you go there and imbibe and you know in libations you can go you know you can go these the taverns at the time to gamble you know sometimes you may have some prostitutes there wasn't it wasn't very common everywhere but also taverns serve as a social hub you can go there looking for jobs you go there you know you get the latest job postings cash or check it was just kind of the the one-stop shop newspapers also are a major form of entertainment I know a lot of people today criticize oh everybody's always looking down on their cell phone at all times so you go back in this day and time everybody's got their head buried undos paper but newspapers are important not only do they disseminate information but they allow people to connect just like today where you have you can have communications you can have advertisements it serves as this major hub within within these cities now if you go into world settings you're going to entertainments gonna be a little bit more different it's gonna be different in the sense that you know hunting and fishing are very dominant when it comes to to the frontier are into these rural areas before you ask no this is not a picture of me this is actually my friend this is not in Texas this is a stag he he shot in New Zealand it was a major record I had to stick it in there because it's just absolutely amazing seeing that that beautiful creature right there and so hunting is a major pastime fishing as well as a form of entertainment and also in the rural areas you have more opportunities to kind of what people do in rural areas today - you guys are driving along with me my car's faster than your car but back then it was my horses faster than your horse that's dry and they would race their horses at the time and then also when you don't have this these these institutions like the theaters what you do is you just kind of make do with what you have and so with inner keeping you know within the rural area then maybe one person plays guitar another one plays a fiddle and then somebody can can make some percussions and you basically put a band together and it's an excuse to get people together and dance so nothing real formal and we still have you know it still occurs today so I mentioned in class I went to a cabrito cook-off and September out in Marathon Texas and that was what they did you barbecue cabrito all day and then at night they just had so this local band come out and play in the whole community danced when we're in college in Abilene yeah not much to in that town trust me and so one of the things we did Carla I almost every Friday night was a different organization on campus which sponsor a dance than just an excuse to get or bite together and do something so come to this thing thing is up in the rural areas as I mentioned the last lecture health is always a major concern health is extremely important because like we're experiencing right now with coronavirus you're gonna have these epidemics that are going to come through come through Texas now at that time they don't have as good a medical treatment so for example call you know you have these cholera outbreaks that do waves that come through Texas you have yellow fever along the coast and so one of the things people tended to do is what we're practicing now social distancing they would just stay away from the cities they would go deeper into the country and just kind by their time while they let the virus go go I just forgot the term will eventually diminish go through the process and so some but but there so has some proactive activities in Texas so for example you know people are experimenting with different medicines nothing that's really to to to effective but also Medical Association will be established in Texas in 1853 in order to basically try to sponsor research and try to try to consolidate and synthesize best practices for dealing situations all right now kind of the last major point in this this lecture is is looking at violence now Texas was a very violent place for really gross you know there's for several reasons one is you always have the potential threat on the frontier from Native American attacks and so here's a nice depiction of a scalping this guy is dead and the scalp has been removed from from his body now believe it or not some people actually survived some of these they were known as Nappers with the one critical thing was you always put up wet damp cloth on top of your head to keep your skull from drying out because your skull dried out infection would set in soon thereafter and eventually the skin would grow back over the skull and then you basically look like me so you do have Indian wars and violence on the frontier you have lawlessness because think about this also on the frontier do you have law enforcement no you don't you have your local militia maybe on the frontier and that's a big maybe you have your frontier forts sometimes but they're not they're not a law enforcement they're just there to protect it so what happens is when there's a you know within isolated areas when there's an incident that occurs and usually this vigilantism that resolves the issue they're going in and trying to trying to deal with the situation themselves and so usually what happened is you'd have a couple factions breakout with that community or that area two different groups side with one another and violence will ensue shooting killing one another to to to support their cause and then also you just have general brawling that goes on you know anybody and we'll see well I mean you have a lot more physical altercations to resolve issues instead of talking it over and a lot of that reason why you have a lot more violence as well as also slavery's you know this is fake get the obvious out of the way now obviously you know here's a picture of a former slave and scars on his back from from being we're receiving lashes so you have the punishment aspect of it but it also causes violence amongst society so for example what it is is when you have slavery slave owners have a Shepards mentality so think of a shepherd you have your flock of sheep and you need to keep this sheet together and it's very mobile so just like the sheep you know are similar this sheep saves can can move relatively quickly so any perceived insult needs of may be dealt with swiftly and violently because the second people sense that you are weak they're going to try to come in and take your stuff and so and so dueling comes out of this where if you have the you have a disagreement you resort to violence now most of these are going to end nonviolent so you it's a whole elaborate process with seconds and and you bring people in and then they would just shoot in the ground or shoot into the air and say okay are our issue is resolved better lights and then on the other hand there's a lot of instances where they shoot and kill one another or at least one person or sometimes both die from their wounds and so and so just kind of wrap this all up this was really painting the south and then painting Texas as a southern state it really is at this time and it is definitely gonna be influenced by the frontier so think of Texas as being on this pivot point in the United States history at this time you have the East which is very southern because you have plantations and you have silence in the West is very Western with the frontier with Native Americans and people living out on the front here and so what this does is creates it better so a unique situation for women combine that with this the influence of Spanish times you you have some developments going on in the East but Texas is just still very much more violent than than most states in the United States because of that frontier aspect and so the front the violence in the frontier combined with violence associated with slavery all contributes to the unique situation that is Texas at this time and so with that said well that's it for this lecture like I said before I want to try to set up some forums where you can post questions or you know we can have a video chat to resolve any any issues or questions you might have over over anything so with that everybody take care let me know if you have any questions later bye