Presents color photographs of Texas cowboys and the environments in which they live and work, and includes an essay that traces the history of cowboys from early mission days to modern times.

A collection of twenty-three Depression-era interviews in which Texas cowhands describe their everyday responsibilities and experiences.

Offers twenty-four essays about African American men and women who worked in the Texas cattle industry from the slave days of the mid-19th century through the early 20th century.

How did cattle drives come about—and why did the cowboy become an iconic American hero? Cattle drives were the largest, longest, and ultimately the last of the great forced animal migrations in human history. Spilling out of Texas, they spread longhorns, cowboys, and the culture that roped the two together throughout the American West. In cities like Abilene, Dodge City, and Wichita, buyers paid off ranchers, ranchers paid off wranglers, and railroad lines took the cattle east to the packing plants of St. Louis and Chicago. The cattle drives of our imagination are filled with colorful cowboys prodding and coaxing a line of bellowing animals along a dusty path through the wilderness. These sturdy cowhands always triumph over stampedes, swollen rivers, and bloodthirsty Indians to deliver their mighty-horned companions to market—but Tim Lehman’s Up the Trail reveals that the gritty reality was vastly different. Far from being rugged individualists, the actual cow herders were itinerant laborers—a proletariat on horseback who connected cattle from the remote prairies of Texas with the nation’s industrial slaughterhouses. Lehman demystifies the cowboy life by describing the origins of the cattle drive and the extensive planning, complicated logistics, great skill, and good luck essential to getting the cows to market. He reveals how drives figured into the larger story of postwar economic development and traces the complex effects the cattle business had on the environment. He also explores how the premodern cowboy became a national hero who personified the manly virtues of rugged individualism and personal independence. Grounded in primary sources, this absorbing book takes advantage of recent scholarship on labor, race, gender, and the environment. The lively narrative will appeal to students of Texas and western history as well as anyone interested in cowboy culture.

Convict Cowboys is the first book on the nation’s first prison rodeo, which ran from 1931 to 1986. At its apogee the Texas Prison Rodeo drew 30,000 spectators on October Sundays. Mitchel P. Roth portrays the Texas Prison Rodeo against a backdrop of Texas history, covering the history of rodeo, the prison system, and convict leasing, as well as important figures in Texas penology including Marshall Lee Simmons, O.B. Ellis, and George J. Beto, and the changing prison demimonde. Over the years the rodeo arena not only boasted death-defying entertainment that would make professional cowboys think twice, but featured a virtual who’s who of American popular culture. Readers will be treated to stories about numerous American and Texas folk heroes, including Western film stars ranging from Tom Mix to John Wayne, and music legends such as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Through extensive archival research Roth introduces readers to the convict cowboys in both the rodeo arena and behind prison walls, giving voice to a legion of previously forgotten inmate cowboys who risked life and limb for a few dollars and the applause of free-world crowds.

Texans have two pasts: the one they lived and the one Hollywood created. Cowboys and Cadillacs is a lively exploration of the Texas myth in film.

Book 2 in the Burnt Boot, Texas Series Can a girl ever have too many cowboys? No sooner does pint-sized spitfire Jill Cleary set foot on Fiddle Creek Ranch than she finds herself in the middle of a hundred-year-old feud. Quaid Brennan and Tyrell Gallagher are both tall, handsome, and rich...and both are courting Jill to within an inch of her life. She's doing her best to give these feuding ranchers equal time—too bad it's dark-eyed Sawyer O'Donnell who makes her blood boil and her hormones hum. Burnt Boot, Texas Series: Cowboy Boots for Christmas (Book 1) The Trouble with Texas Cowboys (Book 2) Praise for The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride: "Another heartwarming read from the amazing Carolyn Brown...overflowing with romance and laughter." —Night Owl Reviews Reviewer Top Pick "Will leave readers swooning and wishing they had their very own cowboy." —RT Book Reviews, 4 stars "Another scrumptious, heartwarming story by author extraordinaire Carolyn Brown." —Romance Junkies

The Story of the Dallas Cowboys and That Big Texas Town brings to life for your child the story of the greatest team in the history of the National Football League. Follow the Cowboys from the glory years of the Landry era through the lean years and back to triumph in winning three Super Bowls in the 1990's. And throughout it all your child will learn of the dedication of the fans that led to the Cowboys becoming America's Team. Written as a poem, the wonderful rhymes make the legend of the Dallas Cowboys memorable for the youngest and even the oldest of Cowboys fans. Your child will learn what it truly means to be a fan of America's Team.

In this inspirational romance, a small town veterinarian is reunited with the rodeo cowboy who was her first kiss—and her first heartbreak. A charming cowboy moving in next door shouldn’t be bad news. But veterinarian Ally Curtis knows Cody Warren—she’d never forget the boy who left her when she needed him most. Cody is doing everything he can to show his beautiful neighbor he’s not the wild bull rider he once was, from helping her find homes for her beloved strays, to protecting her when her business is threatened. But Cody has a secret that keeps him from fully reaching out. Yet as they continue to work together to promote her shelter, he can’t keep himself from hoping that Ally might have a home for him . . . in her heart.