The end of independence: Social and political consequences of economic change in Texas, 1870-1914

This dissertation explores the relationship between the changing Texas agricultural economy and the plain folk community, 1870-1914.;A population explosion and the arrival of the national market via new railroads drove land prices beyond the reach of self-sufficient but cash-poor plain folk. Land ownership became concentrated and landlords required the abandonment of self-sufficiency in favor of cotton. Aging tenants discovered the permanence of their status while losing shares of wealth to the prosperous few.;The plain folk struggled to retain their family, work, church and community-centered values. Matter-of-fact communitarianism defined everyday life but powerful counterforces (class conflict, racism and mobility) served to vitiate community cohesion.;A large minority protested the new economy, couching their critique in the language of the fundamentalist plain folk church. Greenbackers, Populists and Socialists found rural support, and by 1912 the plain folk in one typical county cast a sixth of their vote for the Socialist Party of America. Ultimately, however, their protests came to naught. By the early twentieth century they were too poor and it was too late.