The last cowboys: Closing the open range in southeastern New Mexico, 1890s-1920s

by connie-brooks

Historians of labor in the United States have given scant attention to Mexican American workers and their trade union activity. Juan Gomesz-Quinones's panoramic history summarizes the origins of this work force and the social and economic changes the workers experienced as industrialization and capitalism transformed employment in the nineteenth century. He focuses on the Southwest and California in particular in recounting worker efforts to organize trade unions over the past one hundred years.

As he traces the historic evolution of struggles to gain economic equity and ethnic and gender equality, Gomez-Quinones introduces the individual experiences of many courageous workers. For example, Francisco Medrano began as a pick-and-shovel man in a Texas quarry in 1939, then got on-the-job training that enabled him to join the United Auto Workers union, where he was the only Chicano in a membership of 30,000, and went on to organize industrial workers throughout Texas and in the 1960s to link labor causes to civil rights and political campaigns.

129 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1993

Reviews

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any time I come across a book with a Ancestor in it makes my day. Good book with lots of information about the area,some I know and some I did not. I have one complaint, the genealogists in me would have like at least the Wives names and kids names included. As a descendant who was born and raised and still live in the area I am very thankful for books like this, it keep our history alive.
The pictures are a nice touch as well as the notes, Bibliography and index.
Can be a quick read if you want or need it to be.

[Mark Saha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This compelling little book runs 129 pages of text and photos, including appendix and index.

This is the story of what happened to the cowboys who participated in the great cattle drives after that era ended. Many came to southeastern New Mexico to settle in one of the last frontiers -- the Llana Estacado -- to work as farmers, ranchers, or members of a local business community. The appendix is a trove of hard data offered without interpretation. Each entry consists of a photograph of a cowboy or rancher of the period, with his entire life summarized in a paragraph. Collectively you gain an impression of who these people were, how they lived, and what everyday life was like at this time and in this place.

The reader can make of this data, of these brief summaries of the lives of real people, what he will. If you are interested in the western lore, it is in my opinion an essential if limited and narrowly focused little study. You will not regret the money spent on this collection of information that for the most part can be found nowhere else.

Another short similar work, "The Cherokee Strip Livestock Association" by William W. Savage Jr., also avaiable from Amazon.

If this is your area of interest, I would suggest snatching up both while they are to be had.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read my review at my blog.