Background
McLemore, Laura Lyons was born on July 21, 1950 in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. Daughter of Val Alexander and Bobbie Chennault Lyons.
( Bluebonnets and tumbleweeds, gunslingers and cattle bar...)
Bluebonnets and tumbleweeds, gunslingers and cattle barons all form part of the romanticized lore of the state of Texas. It has an image as a larger-than-life land of opportunity, represented by oil derricks pumping black gold from arid land and cattle grazing seemingly endless plains. In this historiography of eighteenth and nineteenthcentury chronologies of the state, Laura McLemore traces the roots of the enduring Texas myths and tries to understand both the purposes and the methods of early historians. Two central findings emerge: first, what is generally referred to as the Texas myth was a reality to earlier historians, and second, myth has always been an integral part of Texas history. Myth provided the impetus for some of the earliest European interest in the land that became Texas. Beyond these two important conclusions, McLemore’s careful survey of early Texas historians reveals that they were by and large painstaking and discriminating researchers whose legacy includes documentary sources that can no longer be found elsewhere. McLemore shows that these historians wrote general works in the spirit of their times and had agendas that had little to do with simply explaining a society to itself in cultural terms. From Juan Agustin Morfi’s Historia through Henderson Yoakum’s History of Texas to the works of Dudley Wooten, George Pierce Garrison, and Lester Bugbee, the portrayal of Texas history forms a pattern. In tracing the development of this pattern, McLemore provides not only a historiography but also an intellectual history that gives insight into the changing culture of Texas and America itself. Early Texas historians came from all walks of life, from priests to bartenders, and this book reveals the unique contributions of each to the fabric of state history . A mustread for lovers of Texas history, Inventing Texas illuminates the intricate blend of nostalgia and narrative that created the state’s most enduring iconography.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158544314X/?tag=2022091-20
McLemore, Laura Lyons was born on July 21, 1950 in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. Daughter of Val Alexander and Bobbie Chennault Lyons.
Bachelor, Southern Methodist University, 1971. Master of Arts, Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, 1991. Doctor of Philosophy, University of North Texas, 1998.
College archivist Austin College, Sherman, Texas, 1987—2004. Adjunct instructor Grayson County College, Denison, since 1998. Archivist Louisiana State University, Shreveport.
( Bluebonnets and tumbleweeds, gunslingers and cattle bar...)
Member History Preservation Advisory Board, Denison, 2003—2004. President Red River History Museum, Sherman, 1996—1997. Member Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, since 2005.
Member of North Louisiana History Association, Louisiana History Association, Texas State History Association (John H. Jenkins Research fellowship 1996), Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association, Academy of Certified Archivists (regent for outreach since 2004), Society of Southwest Archivists (president 1998-1999), Society of America Archivists, Phi Kappa Phi.
Married Jim Ray McLemore, June 7, 1975. Children: Havard Roland, Austen Laurence, Ivy Elizabeth.