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When Nikki R. Van Hightower stepped into the position of Women's
Advocate for the City of Houston in 1976, she quickly discovered
that she had very little real power. And when the all-male city
council cut her salary to $1 a year after she spoke at a women's
rights rally, she gained full appreciation for just what she was up
against.Nonetheless, before the job was abolished altogether two
years later, Van Hightower went on to help orchestrate the
enormously successful 1975 US National Women's Conference in
Houston as part of the International Woman's Year, to help found
the Houston Area Women's Center and establish its rape crisis and
shelter programs, and to host a radio show where she publicly
discussed issues of gender, race, and human rights. This
eye-opening memoir offers a window into the world of Texas history
and politics in the 1970s, where sexual harassment was not
considered discrimination, where women's shelters did not exist,
where no women were elected to city government, where women in the
parks department were prohibited from working outdoors, and where
women paid to use airport toilets while men did not. That world
that may seem distant and slightly unreal today, so all the more
reason to read Van Hightower's journey as a feminist. Her story
will remind us that while much has been achieved in gender
relations and women's rights, there is much that remains to be
done.
This collection by Teresa Palomo Acosta-poet, historian, author,
and activist-spans three decades of her writing, from 1988 through
2018. The collection is divided into four parts: poems, essays, a
children's story, and plays. Each work addresses cultural,
historical, political, and gender realities that she experienced
from her childhood to the present.The plays, set in the Central
Texas Blackland Prairies where Acosta was raised, provide a unique
Latina vision of memory, identity, and experience and are a vital
contribution to Chicana feminist thought. The essays focus on
Acosta's literary heroes Jovita GonzAlez de Mireles, Sara Estela
RamIrez, and Elena Zamora O'Shea, important writers who contributed
significantly to Tejana literature and to Texas letters. The
children's story, "Colchas, Colchitas," is based on Acosta's most
notable poem, "My Mother Pieced Quilts," which pays homage to her
mother and the many women of her generation who employed needles
and thread, creating both practical and symbolic artifacts. This
collection is a creative and, indeed, essential expansion of
boundaries for what we think of as history, offering a unique and
compelling look into the lived experiences and interior
contemplations of a Texas artist well worth knowing. Readers will
increase their understanding of Tejana experience in the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Tejanaland promises to
become an important addition to the cultural record, informing
historical perspectives on the experiences of Tejana women and
contributing significantly to the existing body of work from Tejana
writers.
The Art of the Woman explores the life of GermanbornElisabet Ney, a
flamboyant sculptor who transfixed the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer and left the court of the half-mad Ludwig of Bavaria
SAILING TIMES AT Mfor America to put down new roots in Texas.Born
in 1833, Ney gained notoriety in Europe by sculpting the busts of
such figures as Ludwig II, Schopenhauer, Garibaldi, and Bismarck.
In 1871 she abruptly emigrated to America and becamesomething of a
recluse until resuming her sculptingcareer two decades later. In
Texas, she was knownfor stormy relationships with officials,
patrons,and women's organizations. Her works includedsculptures of
Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austinand are exhibited in the state and
US capitols as wellas the Smithsonian. Emily Fourmy Cutrer's
biography of Ney makesextensive use of primary sources and was the
firstto appraise both Ney's legend and individual worksof art.
Cutrer argues that Ney was an accomplishedsculptor coming out of a
neglected Germanneoclassical tradition and that, whatever her
failuresand eccentricities, she was an important catalyst
tocultural activity in Texas.
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