Saturday, March 26, 2016

Allie Tennant Profile on KUT Radio

 
Today KUT Radio in Austin is running a biographical piece on Allie Tennant as part of the celebration of Women's History month. This sketch is part of a series of radio spots dealing with outstanding women in the history of Texas sponsored by the Ruth Winegarten Foundation. These short radio biographies are designed to increase awareness about the role women have played in building the state as we know it today.
 
 
 
 
 
 


Friday, March 18, 2016

Finalists for the Ramirez Family Award of the Texas Institute of Letters

Allie Tennant and the Visual Arts in Dallas has been named as a finalist for the 2016 Ramirez Family Award presented each year by the Texas Institute of Letters. This award recognizes the best scholarly book published during the previous calendar year, in this case 2015. The three books named as finalists must meet at least one of two criteria: the volume must have content centered on some aspect of Texas or it must have been written by someone who has lived in Texas for at least two years. This award is endowed by Renato Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez and his family support this award as part of their continuing commitment to Texas letters. Mr. Ramirez himself is a master of the lively art of la declamaciĆ³n, the Spanish language oral poetry tradition of the Texas/Mexico border region.

The other two books named as the finalists for this award are Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850 by Andrew Torget. It was published by the University of North Carolina Press. Dr. Torget is a faculty member in the history department at the University of North Texas. The other finalist is Competing Visions of Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empires by Abigail Swingen. She is a member of the history department faculty at Texas Tech University. It was published by the Yale University Press. 

The award will be presented to one of the finalists during the Texas Institute of Letters spring banquet that will be held in Austin at the Bullock State History Museum on the evening of April 16.

To learn more about the books that share TIL finalist status with the Allie Tennant volume, please click below.

Click here for Press Page





Friday, March 4, 2016

Thursday, March 3, 2016

A Double Winner Today of the Liz Carpenter Award



Today I received the Liz Carpenter Award for Best Book on the History of Women at the Annual Meeting of the Texas State Historical Association. The Liz Carpenter Award is given annually for the outstanding scholarly book on the history of women in Texas published during the calendar year. Today's award dealt with books published during 2015.

This year two books shared the award. I was associated with both volumes that were co-awardees today. I was the sole author for one of them, Allie Tennant's biography, and for the other co-authored a chapter with Victoria Cummins in an anthology entitled, "Texas Women."

My co-winning book "Allie Victoria Tennant and the Visual Arts in Dallas" was published by the Texas A&M University Press. It is the first volume in a new publication series "Women in Texas History" underwritten by the Ruthe Winegarten Foundation for Texas Women's History.

My wife Victoria Cummins and I are also contributors to the book of essays that was the co-winter of the Liz Carpenter Award today. That volume is "Texas Women: Their Histories, Their Lives," edited by Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Stephanie Cole, and Rebecca Sharpless, published by the University of Georgia Press. Victoria Cummins and I wrote the chapter in this book dealing with Frances B. Fisk and the promotion of the visual arts in pre-World War Two Texas.

Click on the links below to read about these two books at their respective Press websites:


I have been involved in receiving the Liz Carpenter Award on two previous occasions before today. My biography of Emily Austin won the award in 2009. I also had an essay on the Runaway Scrape in the volume "Women and the Texas Revolution" edited by Mary L. Scheer, which won the Liz Carpenter Award in 2012.
Receiving the 2009 Liz Carpenter Award for "Emily Austin of Texas"
Elizabeth Turner and Hal Smith present me with the award.
Contributors to "Women and the Texas Revolution"
winner of the 2012 Liz Carpenter Award.
Sitting: l. to r..Mary Scheer and Jean Stuntz. Standing: l. to r.
Ron Christman (UNT Press Director), Angela Boswell,
me, and Lindy Eakin