A Legacy of Words: Texas Women’s Stories, 1850-1920

December 21, 2011

The WPA (Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration) may be best remembered for putting people to work during the Depression, but it also left us a priceless legacy. Thanks to the WPA's Federal Writers' Project, writers travelled to the small towns and countryside to collect and record the oral histories of ordinary people. As a result, we have a collection of first-person accounts of American lives in the decades surrounding the turn of the century and even as far back as the Civil War era.

In A Legacy of Words: Texas Women’s Stories, 1850-1920, Ava E. Mills brings to light some of these transcripts held at the Library of Congress and the University of Texas in Austin. Her book focuses on the memories of Texas women, grouped into chapters illustrating such topics as Frontier Travel, Ranch Life, Indian Stories, and even Stories about Outlaws. Stories of childhoods, families, joys and hardships, these narratives tell us about the lives of these women, what they feared, and what they cherished. The work is indexed and a list of additional resources is included.

What better way to learn about life in early-day Texas than from the women who lived it?
 
Kathy F.
Midwest Genealogy Center