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EMIGRANTS' GUIDES TO TEXAS. From the beginning of Anglo-American colonizationqv throughout the nineteenth century numerous books, almanacs, and pamphlets were written to induce Americans and Europeans to move to Texas. Many of the publications had misleading and incorrect information; others were accurate descriptions of Texas. Publications such as Mary Austin Holley'sqv Texas in 1836, the advertising pamphlets of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Companyqv in the early 1830s, and Texas in 1840 or the Emigrant's Guide to the New Republic (author unknown) encouraged Americans to come to Texas. During the days of the republic Europeans were informed about Texas by such books as William Kennedy'sqv Texas (1841), Arthur Ikin'sqv Texas (1841), Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels'qv Texas, 1844-1845 (1846), Viktor Bracht'sqv Texas Im Jahre 1848 (1848), and many others. In the period from 1845 to 1860 Ferdinand von Roemerqv published descriptive books and booklets in German about Texas. Don Egbert Bramanqv published Braman's Information about Texas in 1857; Jacob De Cordovaqv wrote The Texas Immigrant and Traveller's Guide Book in 1856; and almanacs (supported by commercial advertisements) such as Albert Hanford's Texas State Register, 1856-1879, and Willard Richardson'sqv Texas Almanac and Emigrant's Guide to Texas, 1857-1873, gave publicity to the growth of Texas and stimulated immigration. During the Reconstructionqv period the Republican administration in 1871 established the Texas Bureau of Immigration, which circulated almanacs and brochures to other states to foster immigration. When the Democrats regained control of the state, the bureau was discontinued, and official immigration agencies were prohibited. After the Civil Warqv land companies, railroads, and private enterprises published emigrants' guides such as the International and Great Northern Railroad's The Lone Star Guide (1877), Burke's Texas Almanac and Immigrants, Handbook (1875-85), the Union Pacific Railway Company's pamphlets in the early 1890s, the Houston Post Almanac (1895-97), and scores of others. As late as the 1920s land agencies such as those that settled the lower Rio Grande valley issued publications describing Texas potentialities to attract settlers to undeveloped regions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Terry G. Jordan, Immigration to
Texas (Boston: American Press, 1980).
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