American Material Culture and the Texas Experience

This volume following the proceedings of the second David B. Warren Symposium opens with a discussion on the "roots of home" by architect and historian Russell Versaci. The essay journeys across the American South, examining the wide range of architectural styles that developed there during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Building on Versaci's introduction of the Germanic tradition behind the Texas rock house style, Kenneth Hafertepe delves into a study of these mid-nineteenth-century houses that were built by German immigrants to central Texas--examining how the living spaces were arranged, and what materials and methods were used in their construction. Three art historical essays by Sam Ratcliffe, Maurie D. McInnis, and Michael R. Grauer follow, demonstrating the equally broad range of influences and traditions identified in art produced in Texas, the South, and the Southwest prior to 1900.