POLS 207 State and Local Government CHAPTER 1 The Spanish Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca explored Texas to search for the golden cities in 1528 The Anglos First organized Anglo settlement was established under Stephen F Austin an empresario whose father Moses negotiated a settlement agreement with the Spanish The Texans The Republic of Texas existed for almost ten years 1836 1846 marked by growing population expanding frontier deteriorating economy and rampant inflation The Confederacy Texas was the 28th state in the Union but they also joined 10 other southern states in attempt to sunder the Union by forming the Confederate States of America Texas became a major supplier of men and material to the South s war effort but ultimately lost and were economically devastated Reconstruction 1865 1877 Confederates had restrictive laws applied by the federal government it was a time of great stress and turmoil in Texas The first state s Republican governor E J Davis took office in 1869 but him and the government later led Texas to becoming a one party Democratic state for the next 100 years The Americans time of economic troubles and political dissatisfaction primarily among the farmers and shopkeepers that led to the election of Governor James Stephen Hogg in 1890 and to the beginning of the Progressive Era in Texas Politics Hogg made good on a campaign promise when he persuaded the legislature to establish the Texas R Railroad Commission A Modern State Big Oil followed the 20th century into Texas by 10 days A F Lucas brought in a huge well south of Beaumont in January 1901 and the Spindletop field became the most productive in the world the big three C s crude oil cattle and cotton In 1914 Jim Ferguson Farmer Jim won the governorship but after being reelected he made a fatal mistake by crossing political swords with the University of Texas a he used the line item veto to eliminate all funding for the university from the 1917 general appropriations b he was charged with 21 articles of impeachment by the Texas House of Rep and the Senate convicted him on 10 counts of questionable diversion of state funds to the State Bank 1 He became the only governor of Texas to be impeached and removed from office In 1924 Ferguson s wife Miriam Ma ran and won governorship Running with the slogan Two Governors for the Price of One she sought vindication for her husband and he continued to call the shots Note Seniority led to power in the U S Congress and since Texas was a one party state its congressmen and senators were reelected until they died or retired De Jure legal segregation setting apart separation and other discriminatory laws and social practices prevented many African Americans from gaining access to public education housing and other accommodations A long history of De Facto practiced racial prejudice against Hispanics resulted in the denial of basic rights to these citizens the Arab oil embargo of 1973 1974 produced a tripling of oil prices worldwide and an incredible revenue windfall for Texas a A large portion of revenue was generated directly or indirectly by petroleum and as oil prices rose so did the state s income b convinced that oil prices would hit 50 a barrel by the mid 1980s Texans went crazy When the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC failed to agree on a worldwide oil price in early 1984 Saudi Arabia flooded the market with oil and Texas lost billions of dollars in revenue In 1978 William P Clements became the first Republican since E J Davis to win the governorship of Texas thus beginning the end of the one party rule in Texas With the election of George H W Bush as president in 1988 Texas was becoming a two party system The Economic Pieces 1 The three C s 2 Manufacturing 3 Diversity The First Stage Take It 1 The three C s cattle cotton crude oil Cattle came to Texas with the Spanish a by the 1860s it was said that there were six head of cattle for every one person in Texas 1 this made it possible for the American people to make alot of money by herding them to railheads in Kansas and elsewhere b Texas cattle became the boom market in the second half of the 19th century and they rode these ornery animals to economic recovery following the Civil War Cotton had also come to Texas with the Spanish but it was the Anglos that brought a major foothold in the state s economy with this crop Cotton was a big cash crop in the state of Texas even before the War After the Civil War cotton production rose drastically increasing by more than 1 000 percent between 1860 1900 a one quarter is still being done in Texas but alot of the cotton isn t processed here b 60 billion dollars a year is being lost in agricultural products Crude Oil one of the leading industries and was discovered in Texas in 1901 it was this discovery of Spindletop in Beaumont that signaled a new economic era for Texas a In the 1970s oil began to decline In the 1990s oil is at its lowest point The Second Stage Make It 2 Manufacturing manufacturing began expanding with the advent of World War 2 and in the 1940s the defense manufacturing in Texas started growing a Texans were employed more than ever directly or indirectly by the myriad defense contractors across the state After the war Texas became a leading manufacturer of petroleum based chemicals and compounds such as plastics and synthetic rubber The Third Stage the 1980s were an economic disaster for Texas with the collapse of the oil industry and also with cuts in defense spending towards the end of the Cold War 3 Diversity electronics health care one of biggest growing industries here has led to a lot of good 40 of the jobs created were made in Texas but they are low wage paying jobs The Demographic Pieces 1 population size Texas was the second most populous state in the union trailing California 2 population growth continouos growth since 1850 much due to people moving to Texas 3 population distribution a fallacy exists of Texas as a rural state but more than 80 of the state s population resides in metropolitan areas and over 58 of all the people in Texas can be found in 10 urban counties 4 population diversity Texas is diverse in their ethnic and cultural heritage a anglo texan largest group of Texans since 2011 in population 4 8 steadily decreasing over last several decades since 1980 with a 68 of Anglos b hispanic texans second largest ethnic group in Texas but largest and fastest growing minority group c african american texans third largest group
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