Background
Worcester, Donald Emmet was born on April 29, 1915 in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Son of Thomas Emmet and Maud (Worcester) Makemson.
( Arizona was, I knew, a land of cowboys and Indians, a...)
Arizona was, I knew, a land of cowboys and Indians, and both ranked high in my esteem. It was also where our father lived, and even though our mother had divorced him after he wandered off and didn’t return, we knew he was somewhere in Arizona and always hoped he’d come and take us there.” So writes Don Worcester, and for everyone else who ever dreamed of riding off to the West his tales will hold the poignancy and truth of that dream. Worcester, his brother and sister lived most of their childhoods with their grandparents on the homestead” in the Southern California desert, scraping by during the Great Depression. Some seasons they joined their mother, who was creating an academic career as an astronomer. Those times with herin Berkeley, Winter Park, Florida, or Poughkeepsiewere welcome respites in the hard routine of life. Most days, though, were spent on the homestead doing chores or at school. But there were horses. Some wild, some tame. All teasing with a freedom and a power that kept hope alive. There were friends, like A.P. Aldrich, the surrogate father who told the boys they could amount to something. There were escapades with brother Harris. And there was the day their father showed up at schooldriving a powerful, shiny late-model carfor a half-hour visit. With understated narrative and vivid detail, Worcester spins tales of childhood and growing up between the two World Wars, of the West lived as both fact and myth, of family and loneliness. It is sprightly telling of a most human story, a nostalgic memoir of an unusual rite of passage, evoking times and places that today have reality only in the mythos of the American Dream.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890964297/?tag=2022091-20
(Essays by distinguished scholars cover the Choctaw, Chero...)
Essays by distinguished scholars cover the Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, Southern Cheyennes, Comanche, Teton Sioux, Apache, and more topics, all of which provides 'a better understanding of the unequal struggle of native against immigrant while the nation was being explored and settled.' Thoroughly illustrated. 470 pages. Publisher: The Caxton Printers Ltd., 1975. First Edition. Hardcover.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0870042467/?tag=2022091-20
(The role of the horse in the Old West was so vital it is ...)
The role of the horse in the Old West was so vital it is difficult to imagine how the region could have been settled without it. The cowboy would never have become a universally popular folk hero without his cowpony. Nor would the plains Indians have attracted so many writers, artists, and filmmakers without their spirited war ponies and buffalo runners. Perfect for horse lovers and lovers of Western lore, this book delves into the wild ones, the fast ones, rodeo horses, famous sires, harness horses, horses in military service, and much more.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556223161/?tag=2022091-20
(Although the Chisholm Trail was open for less than two de...)
Although the Chisholm Trail was open for less than two decades, millions of cattle traveled north over it. More than any of the other trails from Texas, it was the major route of cattle and horses, cowboys and cowmen, to Kansas railheads as well as the new ranches springing up all over the former ranges of the buffalo and the Plains Indians between 1867 and the Big Die-up of 1886 - 1887. In fact, the name Chisholm Trail came to be applied indiscriminately to all of the cattle trails north out of Texas. This book is an attempt to portray, in text and photographs, the way of life created by the Chisholm Trail during the period of the great drives.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566193974/?tag=2022091-20
( This brief and entertaining history of the Texas Longho...)
This brief and entertaining history of the Texas Longhorn details the development of the first distinct American breed of beef cattle. The Spanish herds that had roamed Texas for generations, when mixed with English Longhorns brought by Anglo settlers in the early 1800s, yielded a rangy hybrid that could thrive in Texas’ climate and was ideally suited to ranchers’ aspirations. Almost extinct by the turn of the century, the Texas Longhorn was preserved by the efforts of just a few people who recalled with fondness the days when the cattle had thundered on the trails. Some U.S. Forest Service officials, several ranchers, and even a folkloristJ. Frank Dobiegathered the animals for breeding and successfully managed the small herds until they stabilized and began to increase. The Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America was formed in 1964 to preserve and promote the breed, and a growing interest in improving health by eating leaner meat has spurred renewed interest in the lean Longhorn as more than just a nostalgic novelty.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890966257/?tag=2022091-20
( Until now Apache history has been fragmented, offered i...)
Until now Apache history has been fragmented, offered in books dealing with specific bands or groups-the Mescaleros, Mimbreños, Chiricahuas, and the more distant Kiowa Apaches, Lipans, and Jicarillas. In this book, Volume 149 of The Civilization of the American Indian Series, Donald E. Worcester provides a synthesis of the total historical experience of the Apaches, from the post-Conquest era of the Spaniards to the present day. In clear, fluent prose he provides a panoramic coverage, with the main focus on the nineteenth century, the era of the Apaches' sometimes splintered but always determined resistance to the white intruders. They were never a numerous tribe, but, in their daring and skill as commando like raiders, they well deserved the name "Eagles of the Southwest." The book highlights the many defensive stands and the brilliant assaults the Apaches made on their enemies. The only effective strategy against them was divide and conquer, and the Spaniards (and after them the Anglo-Americans) employed it extensively, using renegade Indians as scouts, feeding traveling bands and trading with them at their presidios and missions. When the Mexican Revolution disrupted this pattern in 1810, the Apaches again turned to raiding, and the Apache wars that erupted with the arrival of the Anglo-Americans constitute some of the most sensational chapters in America's military annals. Not until the United States' policy of extermination had succeeded in decimating them was the Southwest secure for white settlement. The author describes the Apaches' life today on the Arizona and New Mexico reservations, where they manage to preserve some of the traditional ceremonies, while trying to provide livelihoods for all their people. Tragically far removed from the soaring eagles of yesterday, the Apaches still have a proud history in their struggles against overwhelming odds of numbers and weaponry. Worcester here recreates that history in all its color and drama.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806123974/?tag=2022091-20
Worcester, Donald Emmet was born on April 29, 1915 in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Son of Thomas Emmet and Maud (Worcester) Makemson.
AB, Bard College, 1939; Master of Arts, University of California, 1940; Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, 1947.
Lecturer, California College Agriculture, Davis, 1946; Lecturer, University of California, 1947; assistant professor, U. Florida, 1947-1951; associate professor, U. Florida, 1951-1955; head Department, University Florida, 1955-1959; professor of history, U. Florida, 1955-1963; department chairman history, Texas Christian U., 1963-1972; Lorin A. Boswell professor of history, Texas Christian U., 1971-1980; Ida and Cecil Green emeritus tutor, Texas Christian U., 1981-1994. Visiting professor U. Madrid, 1956-1957. Chairman of the Board University Press Mgrs., 1961-1963.
(Essays by distinguished scholars cover the Choctaw, Chero...)
( Until now Apache history has been fragmented, offered i...)
( This brief and entertaining history of the Texas Longho...)
(The role of the horse in the Old West was so vital it is ...)
(Although the Chisholm Trail was open for less than two de...)
( Arizona was, I knew, a land of cowboys and Indians, a...)
( Arizona was, I knew, a land of cowboys and Indians, a...)
(Book by Worcester, Donald)
(Worcester, Donald E. - The Growth and Culture of Latin Am...)
(.)
Served to Lieutenant commander of The United States Navy Reserve, 1941-1945. Member Western History Association (Vice-President 1973-1974, president 1974-1975), Western Writers American (vice president 1972-1973, president 1973-1974, Saddleman award 1988), New Mexico History Society, Westerners International (director 1975-1980, president 1978, 79), Texas Institute Letters, Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Alpha Theta (president 1960-1962).
Married Barbara Livingston Peck, July 5, 1941. Children: Barbara Livingston and Elizabeth Stuart (twins), Harris Eugene.