Oil Field Child

Tells of the lives of early-day oil field families in Texas boomtowns.

Daddy is a busy man, and he has to work away a lot on an oil rig. When he goes away he misses Mummy and his sons. Follow Daddy's adventures as he travels to the oil rig, by planes, helicopters and boats! Throughout all this, he still keeps in contact with his family. Luckily, Daddy isn't away for too long and the family count down the days until they can see him again! Andrew Douglas has written this book for any other children whose parents work away from home. He wanted his own children to know that he still thinks of them whilst he's away, and hopes that other children (and parents!) are comforted by his story.

Snuggle up to your loved ones and say goodnight to the oil patch! As the sun goes down, join the car ride around the oilfield - from computer code to lease road - as it gets ready to call it a night. A story for all ages, this oilfield picture book is sure to leave you smiling!

A wall that was five feet high and built of concrete, rock, and mortar split Crane, Texas, in half more than a half century ago—with blacks on one side and whites on the other. Evelyn Rossler Stroder, a longtime teacher, gave little thought to the wall as she ran teacher errands to the former Bethune School for blacks, which in the late 1960s became the Bethune Annex to the Crane school system. In this history, she explores the origins of the wall, the community’s recollection of it, and how it symbolized the ugliness of racial segregation. She also examines the consequences of separating the school systems, swimming pools, movie theaters, and most every facet of life in the small oil field community. The story also celebrates how sports brought the two communities together, beginning with the Bethune basketball team, which had won three state championships in their conference of all-black schools, coming together with their new, white classmates in 1965. The integrated team brought Crane all the way to the state finals. Discover how sports helped a small West Texas town move forward in this inspiring tale about The Wall That Failed.

At the beginning of this century oil transformed the Texas economy and wrought profound and lasting changes on life within the state. Here, in 328 contemporary photographs is an eyewitness record of the early days of the Texas oil industry. When Lyne Barret brought in the first well in 1866 near Nacogdoches, photography was in its adolescence, so the entire history of the Texas petroleum industry fortunately was documented by the camera. Although that well amounted to very little, thirty years later Corsicana proved the commercial success of Texas oil, and when Spindletop roared in on January 10, 1901, a new era began for Texas and the entire petroleum industry. Other fields opened--Saratoga, Sour Lake, Batson, Humble, Electra, Burkburnett, Goose Creek, Ranger, Desdemona, Breckenridge, Mexia, Big Lake, the Permian Basin, Borger, and the incomparable East Texas field--and camera men were there to capture the excitement of discovery and the changes brought by oil. Unforgettable photographs of oil-field folk--drillers, roustabouts, tool dressers, tycoons--of the bustling boom towns and the derrick-crowded fields, dramatically portray the people and how they lived and worked. Recorded too are primitive refineries, oil tankers under sail and steam, pipeline crews, and the "modern" transportation and retailing facilities of the 1930s. Walter Rundell's text provides the historical setting for the photographs, focusing always on the human element. This combination of pictures and text presents a vivid social history of early Texas oil and its tremendous impact on Texas and its people.

"Contextualizes and analyzes the key energy transitions in U.S. history and the central importance of energy production and consumption on the American environment and in American culture and politics"--

Carol Mogensen begins a chronicle of her nomadic life by describing her family's wandering from one Texas oil boom town to another during the 1940s. These wanderings over the dry Texas plains instilled in her a thirst for adventure and led to living in Puerto Rico and, ultimately, on a small island in Alaska. She titles her book Riffraff as that is the way many residents of the small Texas farming communities whee cotton fields sat stop oil fields viewed the influx of nomadic oilfield workers into their communities. Although some may consider her early years a hard scrabble existence, she describes a childhood of being led into mischief by an older brother with humor. Other stories describe the experience of being the first woman to parachute with Sky Divers in Potter County in 1960, a car trip through Mexico in 1961 with her college roommate, an unpleasant incident at the notorious Jack Ruby's nightclub in Dallas, the pathos of loss of a loved one to suicide, and starting a new life with a new love in southeast Alaska, delivering supplies to remote island locations.

Introduction: Play -- Childhood and play in colonial America -- Domesticating children, 1800-1850 -- The arrival of toys, 1850-1900 -- The invasion of children's play culture, 1900-1950 -- The golden age, 1900-1950 -- The commercialization of children's play, 1950 to the present -- Children's play goes underground, 1950 to the present -- Conclusion