The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 85, July 1981 - April, 1982 Page: 465

Book Reviews

Confederate soldiers useful thumbnail sketches of ten important men
who served Texas long and well through five trying years.
Richland College WILLIAM J. TEAGUE
Essays on Southern History: Written in Honor of Barnes F. Lathrop.
Edited by Gary W. Gallagher. (Austin: The General Libraries,
The University of Texas, 1980. Pp. 182. Introduction, tables,
bibliography of the writings of Barnes F. Lathrop, index. $25.)
All too often the teaching contributions of historians remain largely
unheralded, both in terms of professional recognition and material
reward. And yet, great teachers, particularly those deeply involved in
graduate direction, leave as indelible a mark on the profession as pro-
lific publishers. Such a historian is Barnes F. Lathrop, whose teaching
career at the University of Texas extended over almost four decades.
During that period Lathrop influenced the careers of the best of stu-
dents, both undergraduate and graduate. Especially noted was he for
his meticulous scholarship in the direction of a large number of gradu-
ate theses and dissertations; published versions of many of these com-
pleted manuscripts attest to his devotion to high scholarly standards.
This volume by several of his former students represents an effort to
recognize his contribution to the learning of their craft, a contribution
which the editor states is Lathrop's real legacy to the profession.
Two of the six selections included in the volume rest largely on the
methodology pioneered by Lathrop in utilizing United States manu-
script census returns. Alwyn Barr utilizes census returns, as well as
other research materials, to analyze the factors in black urbanization in
four southwestern towns in the period from the Civil War to the turn
of the century. He concludes that the pace of black urbanization in the
Trans-Mississippi area was more rapid than elsewhere in the country,
as the blacks sought to satisfy economic, social, and educational aspira-
tions spawned by Reconstruction. Ralph A. Wooster continues the
theme of his earlier works by utilizing census returns to study the
southern elite on the eve of the Civil War. His findings contain no sur-
prises; most of the wealthy were agriculturalists, most were well edu-
cated, and a large majority supported immediate secession in the
crisis period.
The remaining four selections have no central focus. Dwight F.
Henderson analyses the early federal court system in Louisiana, with
much digression into the exciting history of the first two decades of

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