The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 406
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Apart from industries centered on those leaders-lumber man-
ufacture, flour milling, and the manufacture of cottonseed oil and
cake-Texas manufacturing at the end of the century was still
small scale and tailored mainly for local needs. Progress in man-
ufacturing as a whole relative to the nation had been made since
the coming of the railroads, but the comparative data serves as
much to indicate the continued backwardness of Texas in 1900
as to indicate the rate of progress.
In 1870, of the national population one person out of forty-eight
lived in Texas, but for every dollar of industrial output produced by
Texas the nation turned out three hundred and sixty-seven. After
the passage of thirty years, one person out of twenty-five of the nation's
population resided in Texas, yet 'Texans produced only one out of
every one hundred and nine dollars' worth of goods turned out by the
nation's industrial plants. After three decades it could be noted that
industrial progress in Texas had moved at a more rapid pace than
for the nation as a whole, but the improvement of its relative posi-
tion signified little more than that industrially Texas still lagged far
behind the national average.2
To illustrate the point further, Spratt estimated from Census of
Manufactures and Department of Agriculture data that the value
of 'Texas' cotton alone in 1900 exceeded that of all of the state's
manufactured goods. But, by 1900, Texas was ready to move for-
ward industrially by virtue of the presence of its comprehensive
rail system and the exploitation of the new oil and gas industry.
The year 19goo provides a convenient point at which to divide
the history of manufacturing of Texas because it was at that time
that the oil industry had its first significant development. In a
real sense, Texas has ridden the road to industrialization on the
coat-tails of the oil and gas industry. Since World War I, at which
time the industry reached maturity, petroleum refining, the first
chief manufacturing industry derived from the broader classifica-
tion of "oil industry," has either headed or been close to the top of
the manufacturing industries of Texas in terms of value added by
manufacture. Since the beginning of World War II, it has been
replaced at the top alternately by the transportation equipment
industry during the war and by the chemical industry afterward.
2Ibid., 251.406
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/491/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.