This volume includes five papers presented at the fourth Biennial David B. Warren Symposium: American Material Culture and the Texas Experience in 2013. The 2013 conference focused on the theme of itinerant and immigrant artisans and artists living and working the state in the nineteenth century.
Ron Tyler opened the symposium with a keynote address, discussing the cultural reasons for itinerant and immigrant artists and artisans within the framework of nineteenth-century Texas and border history. Scholar D. Jack Davis, author David Haynes, historical architect Mario L. Sanchez, and art expert Heather White discuss early Texas silversmiths and photography, evolution and cultural continuity in the building of South Texas, and Thomas Allen sketches.