Introduction

Roger A. Griffin, the compiler of these lists of links, is a native of Dallas. He holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of North Texas and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of several publications, including articles in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly and The East Texas Historical Journal. He taught Texas history at Austin Community College for twenty-seven years. He now holds the title of Emeritus Professor at that institution.

Dr Griffin began this collection of links as a teaching aid for his students at ACC, with relatively few entries. Since his retirement, he has developed the site into a major collection of links to several thousand Texas history primary source documents located in many online collections. (See "Acknowledgment of Sources.")

The vast majority of links are to documents having to do with nineteenth-century events. As more documents become available for other periods of the Texas past, especially the twentieth century, they will be added.

The compiler has sought to include those documents that most users would consider significant or at least related to significant events. Some documents of lesser importance have also been included because they provide information about how various persons and groups experienced life at various times in the Texas past or because they illustrate aspects of economic, cultural, or social history.

The organization of the document links is chronological with respect to the date of composition, with the exception that documents having to do with a specific event or movement in time but written later have been placed with contemporary documents concerning that event or movement.

Each link is preceded by the title of the document (or collection), plus (with few exceptions) a brief description of the contents. Most of the documents are printed transcriptions. The quality of the editing, transcription, formatting, and scanning of these transcriptions varies from collection to collection and sometimes from document to document within a collection. Also, a small percentage of the documents are excerpts. Almost all of the documents are in English, some of which are translations from other languages.

The site is searchable. Go to the bottom of any page. Enter any term in the search field. Clicking on "Google Search" will take you to a list displaying all entries with that term. The link for any entry containing your term should take you to one of the specific "Lone Star History Links" lists. Then  use the "Find" function of your browser to locate the specific document entry (or entries). [Note: If a search effort results in a "No input file specified" message, modify the URL field near the top of your browser screen by adding an additional forward slash after "com" [before the one already there] and typing the letters "lshl." Then press the "Enter" key.]

Please e-mail about links that do not work or any other errors that you find in the lists. Also, he would appreciate learning of any Texas history primary sources available on the Internet but not included in the lists.

This site is hosted by the Texas State Historical Association. Founded as a private, nonprofit educational organization and housed on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin since 1897, the Texas State Historical Association as long been regarded as one of the nations most dynamic regional history organizations. Reinforced by more than one hundred years of scholarship and educational programs, its mission is to further the appreciation, understanding, and teaching of the rich and unique history of Texas through research, writing, and publication of relevant historical material.