Tag Archives: Texas

Lyndon Johnson Library

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The Lyndon Johnson library website hosts numerous fully transcribed and searchable oral history interviews. Topics span Johnson’s full political career, including his time in the House and Senate, as vice president to John Kennedy and as president. Some interviewees themselves had long political careers as civil servants and elected officials. Therefore, researchers interested in regulatory politics of the entire post-war period should search the LBJ library for relevant content.

Unlike some other presidential library oral history projects (see for example the summary of the Carter library), regulation is not a focal point of the LBJ library interviews. Consequently, relevant discussions are scattered throughout the interviews and are often only incidental to any given interview’s general themes.

Nevertheless, some themes of interest do emerge. Interviews that focus on LBJ’s Congressional career include topics pertaining to energy policy and the challenges and opportunities these posed for Johnson as a delegate from Texas. Oil and gas regulation, particularly pertaining to the 1956 “Bill to Amend the Natural Gas Act,” receive attention for its importance of LBJ’s career trajectory and establishment of his position as a national figure. Great Society and Civil Rights legislation, hallmarks of the LBJ administration, also contained regulatory provisions. The follow is a partial list, roughly in descending order of prevalence, of regulatory topics addressed in the transcribed and searchable LBJ library interviews.

  • Oil and Natural Gas (Texas Railroad Commission (in the context of energy policy))
  • Antitrust enforcement though the Justice Department (especially during the Kennedy administration)
  • Regulation of the outdoor advertising industry
  • Lobbying by interest groups and influence on regulatory policy making
  • Kennedy-era attempts to reorganize regulatory agencies
  • Route assignments by the Civil Aeronautics Board
  • Regulatory commission appointments
  • FDA response to the thalidomide tragedy
  • USPS regulations
  • Interviews pertaining to the institution of Medicare and Medicaid and certain provisions of the Civil Rights Act may also have content pertaining to regulation

This list is not exhaustive. It only reflects topics that emerged in an initial survey.  See suggested search strategies for ideas on how to more thoroughly explore this archive’s offerings.

Summary by:  Elizabeth Brake

Texas House Speakers Oral History Project

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Project description: The project overview indicates that the primary emphasis of these interviews is on party politics and the power of the Speaker of the House in Texas politics, covering the era from 1951 to the present. The overview does not indicate specific legislation or policy areas covered. These issues seem to be of secondary importance to party and institutional concerns.

Repository: University of Texas – Austin

Interview dates: 1992, 2004 – 2006

Digital access: No online access.

Physical access: For access to interview materials, visit the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas.

Link: Project overview, finding aid

Oral History of the Texas Oil Industry

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Project description: This collection consists of 179 interviews transcribed and indexed interviews recorded with participants in the Texas oil industry. The finding aid characterizes interviewees as “roughnecks, drillers, promoters, financiers, contractors, leasemen and law officers.”

Regulatory significance: Difficult to assess given that the collection is not available online. If you are familiar with this collection, please contact us with more information.

Repository: University of Texas – Austin

Interview dates: 1952 – 1958

Digital access: No online access.

Physical access: For access to interview materials, visit the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. Finding aid says that audio recording is by appointment only at archive, but seems likely from description of project that transcripts are available.

Link: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00282/cah-00282.html

University of North Texas Legislative Project

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Project description: This project was established by the Oral History program of North Texas State University in 1966, and it was still ongoing in 1985. The program appears to be discontinued now and the interviews absorbed into the broader UNT oral history program archives.

Regulatory significance: The project interviewed legislators and other state government officials, including regulatory board and commission members. Interviews occurred every two years, at the close of biennial legislative sessions and topics ranged across the spectrum of policy issues encountered during the session. (For a detailed description of project history and methodology, see Ronald E. Marcello, “Interviewing Contemporary Texas Legislators: An Atypical Approach,” The Public Historian 7:4 (Fall 1985): 53-64.)

Repository: University of North Texas

Interview dates: 1966 ~ 1990

Digital access: No online access. The UNT interview guide (linked below) has abstracts of archived interviews, including those produced though the Legislative Project.

Physical access: For access to transcripts, visit the Wills Library at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

Link: There is no dedicated link to this project, but see this pdf oral history guide for information that includes these interviews.

Southern Rural Poverty Collection

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Project description: This project contains more than 30 interviews with individuals who worked to address southern poverty in their communities up to the early 1990s. The focus of the interviews is on efforts after the passage of major federal civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, including those related to Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.

Regulatory significance: Many of the interviewees discuss issues that stem from overlapping regulatory jurisdictions at the local, state, and federal level. Health care, housing, employment, and agriculture are major themes, and some interviewees discuss environmental regulation to improve the health of the rural poor.

Repository: Duke University, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy

Interview dates: 1992-1994

Digital access: Video recordings of the oral histories are available for many interviews, and transcripts are available for almost all of them.

Link: http://dewitt.sanford.duke.edu/rutherfurd-living-history/southern-rural-poverty-collection/

Benedum and the Oil Industry Project

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Project description: A record of the oil industry from 1890 to 1950 as shown in the development of the Benedum oil interests and the experiences of Michael Late Benedum (1869-1959) and his associates, notably Joseph Clifton Trees (1869-1943). The material consists of interviews with people having special knowledge of leasing, financing, geology, oil and gas production, legal and tax problems. The interviews contain several accounts of Benedum and Trees as wildcatters; problems of oil exploration outside the U.S. (Mexico, 1911-1916, Colombia, 1915, Rumania, 1918-1919, the Philippines, 1920, and China, 1936); development of companies and corporate holdings; storage, transportation, marketing, and refining; and conservation and proration practices leading to Interstate Oil Compact Commission, 1933. [Description from finding aid]

Regulatory significance: The project provides a glimpse at the emergence and development of oil industry regulation during the early 20th century. It likely addresses to a limited degree how oil companies navigated uneven regulatory terrain across states in the U.S. and across national boundaries while exploring for oil in Mexico, Colombia, Rumania, the Philippines, and China. Additionally, the collection promises some discussion of standardization and self-regulatory organizations.

Repository: Columbia Center for Oral History

Interview dates: Circa 1951

Digital access: Only abstracts. No online transcripts or audio.

Physical access: For transcripts and audio, researchers may visit the Columbia Center for Oral History.

Link: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4072325

Interviewees: John Charles Adams; William W. Arnold; Darwin Benedum; James Claxton Benedum; Michael Late Benedum; Paul Benedum; Sophie and Pearl Benedum; Charles E. Beyer; Al A. Buchanan; Clem S. Clarke; A.B. Dally, Jr.; Margaret E. Davis; John W. Dieringer; Bascom Giles; William Morris Griffith; Walter Simms Hallanan; Houston Harte; Harry B. Hickman; David Dean Johnson; Caswell S. Jones, Thomas J. Newlin and Alex U. McCandless; William J. Jones; Winchester Kelso; W. B. Lane and Roy Gardner; Charles A. MCClintock; Will E. Odom; Alexander P. Olivey; Foster B. Parriott; Andrew Donaldson Robb; Ovid Daniel Robinson; Frank B. Shepard; Tom Slick; Ernest A. Stiller; Milton E. Witherspoon.

Texas Cotton Farmers

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Project description: This project includes fourteen interviews with cotton farmers in central Texas. The primary focus is on technological change, industry organization, and global markets for cotton. Most interviewees discuss their family history and how they came to cotton farming before delving into specifics of farming and the cotton business.

Regulatory significance: Some interviews include discussion of cotton allotments, subsidy payments, farmer cooperatives, and international standard setting for cotton grades by industry organizations.

Repository: The Institute for Oral History at Baylor University

Interview dates: 2006-2007

Digital access: These interviews have digital transcripts available online.  (Two of the fourteen are not yet digitized.)

Physical access: For audio, researchers may visit the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University.

Link: http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/buioh/id/3844/rec/1

Houston Mayor Bill White Collection

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Description: Collection consists of approximately 100 interviews, commissioned by Houston mayor Bill White and conducted circa 2007. Users can browse interviews by subject, and relevant subjects include: community development, conservation of the environment, environment, legislators, oil and gas industry, and politics and government. Historians at the University of Texas, Texas Southern University, and Rice University advised on the project, but many interviews were not conducted by historians but by community volunteers. The focus of the series is on exploring how Houston has changed from the 1950s to the present.

Regulatory significance: These interviews are particularly rich regarding local regulation (including the lack thereof) of urban growth, real estate development, and historic building preservation. Some address the oil industry, environmental regulation, and the relationship between banking and real estate development.

Dates: Most interviews were conducted from 2007-2008

Repository: Houston Library

Digital access: Yes. Video and transcripts available on-line through links in the finding aid.

Physical access: Material housed at the Houston Library.

Notable interviews: On environmental regulation, Terry Hershey; on real estate development and building preservation, Bob Eury, Gerald Hines, George Mitchell, and Betty Chapman; on bank and financial regulation, Marc Shapiro.

Link: http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/oralhistory