The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998 Page: 264

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Christian University Press, 1995. Pp. xvi+315. Sources and acknowledg-
ments, illustrations, index. ISBN 0-87565-145-3. $29.95, cloth, $16.95,
paper.)
During the winter of 1896, Texas stockman Charles McFarland and Charles
C. French, the public relations director for the newly established Fort Worth
Stock Yards Company, agreed that a stock show would greatly enhance the cattle
industry as well as aid the economic well-being of Fort Worth. They received nec-
essary support from Texas cattlemen Samuel Burk Burnett and the Hovenkamp
brothers, Frank and T. D., as well as Stock Yards Company manager W. E.
Skinner, and company superintendent H. C. Holloway. As a result, the first stock
show, which would become nationally recognized as Fort Worth's Southwestern
Exposition and Livestock Show, occurred in March 1896. Most accounts report-
ed that it "began as a dismal affair" (p. 11).
In this book, Clay Reynolds, a novelist who has been a professor and writer
in residence at the University of North Texas and Lamar University, and
Marie-Madeleine Schein, assistant professor of English at Tarrant County
Junior College in Fort Worth, have collaborated to write a oo-year history of
this stock show, which, they conclude, "is a uniquely American institution, one
that endured and has remained a people's show; a place where the very best
can be shown, bought, sold, and admired. A place where entertainment and
education have been perfectly blended for the betterment of all" (p. 304).
They have thus traced the evolution and development of this Fort Worth "insti-
tution" in four stages-the early years from 1896 to 1908, the struggles and
successes of a period climaxed by a six-day exposition in 1918, the Great
Depression and World War II, and the postwar period, entitled "The Golden
Years." The authors have also credited those individuals who contributed so
much to the show's enduring accomplishments-Marion Sampson Sr., Marion
Samson Jr., Van Zandt Jarvis, W. R. "Billy Bob" Watt Sr., W. R. "Billy Bob" Watt
Jr., John Justin, Edward P. Bass, and the Amon Carters, both Sr. and Jr. And
the authors have also chronicled the major performers who graced the exposi-
tion with their presence.
Although this work has no endnotes, which would have verified for histori-
ans the specifics of the research, and although the authors often state that
some records have been lost or not written down by the stock-show partici-
pants, this volume is a contribution to Texana. Both Reynolds and Schein have
told about this annual Fort Worth occurrence in an interesting and compen-
tent manner.
Texas Christian University BEN PROCTER
The Civil War in Books: An Analytical Bibliography. By David J. Eicher. Foreword by
Gary W. Gallagher. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1996. Pp.
xxiii+4o07. Foreword, acknowledgments, introduction, illustrations, appen-
dices, indices. ISBN 0-252-02273-4. $39.95, cloth.)

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