Grand Prairie. By James K. Greer. (Dallas: Tardy Publish-
ing Company. 1935. Pp. (vii), 284. Price, $2.50.)

The ten chapter titles of this book, though attractive enough,
give little indication of the variety and interest of their contents:
"On the Grand Prairie," "Counting the Costs," "Social Condi-
tions in the Fifties," "Varmints and Pests," "Then Came the
War," "Tonkawa Trailers," "Reconstruction Years Bring
Changes," "Frontier Daughter," "Political Consciousness," "An
Era Passes." The Table of Contents should be expanded to give
a clearer and more comprehensive suggestion of the scope and
value of the book.

Professor Greer, who is head of the history department ot
Howard University, Birmingham, Alabama, defines the geograph-
ical area of Grand Prairie as including ten or a dozen central
Texas counties, extending from Bell County in the south to Cooke
County in the north. Bosque County is, roughly, the center of
the area and receives the emphasis of the narrative. The book is
a thoroughly creditable example of social and economic history,
interesting enough to read for entertainment and definite enough
and sound enough to leave an unusually vivid impression of life
in those frontier counties during the forty years from 1850 to
1890.

Professor Greer happens to have been born and reared in the
area that he describes, though he was born much later than 1890.
The experiences and recollections of his parents; his publication
of Buck Barry, Texas Ranger and Frontiersman, 1845-1906; and
industrious and discriminating study of a variety of source ma-
terials; together with a somewhat unusual historical imagination
have enabled him to write a book that more pretentious social
historians might serve themselves by studying. Use of the first
personal pronoun, rare but not unknown to historical works, is
an aid to the narration of many homely, and singly insignificant
details without which his picture would be much less vivid.

The author modestly states his creed and his purpose in his
preface: "Many books have been written of the Old West-
fiction, biography, and pseudo-biography--and some of them will
live. While there can hardly be too many life-stories of the men
who grew up with the West and have lived to tell them, the
author feels that there is a need for studies of the less dramatic
experiences in the lives of those who participated in the pictur-
esque drama of settling the frontier. . . . Barely, however,
does the student have available those details from which alone
the real state of a section can be determined. With these ideas
in mind, the author sought an informal and impartial medium
for portraying something of those subjects merely referred to
by authors of more vivid narratives."

The book has some blemishes, which a more careful editorial
staff in the publisher's office would have eliminated, and it de-
serves a more tasteful format, but, in most essentials, it could
be imitated to advantage by other writers of "social" history.

Eugene C. Barker

How to cite:
"Grand Prairie", Volume 39, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v039/n2/review_DIVL2078.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 14:03:11 CST 2009]