The Handbook of Texas is a digital state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) that is freely accessible for students, teachers, scholars, and the general public. The Handbook consists of overview, general, and biographical entries focused on the entire history of Texas from the indigenous Native Americans and the Prehistoric Era to the state's diverse population and the Modern Age. These entries emphasize the role Texans played in state, national, and world history.

Special Projects

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Handbook of Dallas-Fort Worth

The tremendous growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex from the 19th through 21st centuries far outpaced the recorded history of this economically vital area. Texas is often associated with its rural ranching history, yet as the decades passed, the cultural and economic identities of Lone Star State evolved to reflect the increasing importance and influence of the urban areas. No area in Texas illustrates this transformation better than DFW—a well-traveled location during the cattle trailing and early railroad eras that blossomed into a modern financial and cultural hotspot in the present day. We need a more complete documentation of the DFW metroplex, and the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) seeks to correct this imbalance in the historical record.

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Handbook of Texas Medicine

Texans lay claim to a dynamic medical history. The state has borne witness to deadly disease outbreaks, the establishment of world-renowned medical institutions, and the discovery of new therapeutics and cures. From the first documented surgery on Texas soil by Cabeza de Vaca in the sixteenth century to the innovative research spearheaded by university laboratories to develop vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19, the medical story of Texas is reflective of the many ways Texans have engaged to protect and promote their health and well-being. Today, the healthcare industry represents a significant share of the Texas economy, contributing more than $108 billion to the state’s GDP, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Yet, despite the fundamental role medicine has played in shaping the growth and development of the state, a comprehensive and authoritative medical history of Texas remains unfulfilled. With the development of the Handbook of Texas Medicine, TSHA proudly presents a unique opportunity to address this disparity.

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Handbook of Texas Women

The Handbook of Texas Women project strives to expand on the Handbook of Texas by promoting a more inclusive and comprehensive history of Texas. Texas women make Texas history, and TSHA wants to significantly recognize the various ways women have shaped the state’s history at home, across the state, nationally, and abroad. The impacts of women on Texas history are often overlooked, and as more and more people are accessing information using smartphones, tablets, and other mobile technologies, this project will seize upon the unprecedented opportunities of the digital age in order to reshape how Texas women’s history will be understood, preserved, and disseminated in the twenty-first century.

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Handbook of Texas Music

What is it about Texas music? Trying to define it is like reviewing a dictionary. There is way too much detail to try to pin it down. However, this much is clear: Texans have given American music its distinctive voice, and that's no brag, just fact.

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Handbook of Tejano History

The TSHA is proud to announce the launch of the Handbook of Tejano History, which contains more than 1,200 entries, including 300 new entries, detailing the critical influence of Tejanos on the Lone Star State. Released on March 29, 2016, to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Tejano Monument unveiling on the Capitol grounds in Austin, the Handbook of Tejano History is the culmination of a two-year effort involving dozens of researchers, educators, students, and Texas history enthusiasts committed to capturing and sharing Tejano contributions to Texas life and culture. Originally conceived in partnership with the board of directors of the Tejano Monument, Inc., the Association’s Handbook of Tejano History joins a number of other important initiatives born out of the legacy of the Tejano Monument, including the Tejano History Curriculum Project and Austin Independent School District’s Cuauhtli Academy/Academia Cuauhtli.

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Handbook of African American Texas

African Americans have been part of the landscape of Texas for as long as Europeans and their descendants. Spanning a period of more than five centuries, African American presence began in 1528 with the arrival of Estevanico, an African slave who accompanied the first Spanish exploration of the land in the southwestern part of the United States that eventually became Texas. While African Americans have been subjected to slavery, segregation, and discrimination during this long history, they have made significant contributions to the growth and development of Texas. They have influenced Texas policies and social standards. Living and working with other ethnic groups, they have helped create a unique Texas culture. Historians have not always acknowledged the role that African Americans have played in the Lone Star State. Although numerous studies of Texas’s past appeared in the twentieth century, until 1970 there remained too many empty pages in the history of the state concerning the black population. This situation has changed since the 1970s, but the need to capture more of the African American experience still exists. For this reason, we are happy to launch the Handbook of African American Texas.

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Handbook of Civil War Texas

At 4:30 on the morning of April 12, 1861—one hundred and fifty years ago this spring (2011)—Confederate States of America artillery opened fire on United States troops in Fort Sumter, South Carolina, beginning the American Civil War. Texans, who had voted overwhelmingly in February 1861 to secede from the Union and then watched their state join the Confederacy in March, thus became involved in a four-year conflict that would take the lives of many and leave none untouched. Texas escaped much of the terrible destruction of the war for a simple reason—United States troops never managed to invade and occupy the state’s interior. In sum, the Civil War exacted a huge price, primarily in terms of lives lost and ruined in the Confederate Army and in the privations of those left at home. However, the conflict had two vitally positive results for Texas: It freed the state’s more than 200,000 enslaved people, and it destroyed the curse of the ‘Peculiar Institution’ for the entire society of the Lone Star State.

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Handbook of Houston

The Texas State Historical Association and the Houston History Alliance (HHA) are proud to announce the launch of the Handbook of Houston, which contains more than 1,250 new and existing entries highlighting the significant impact Houston has had on the state, the nation, and the world. Launched on March 2, 2017, the Handbook of Houston is the culmination of many years of historical research.


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Commander of "Kirby Smith's Confederacy" dies

131 years ago today


Confederate guerilla leader arrested by own side

159 years ago today


Texas Confederates whipped in New Mexico

161 years ago today


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Every one of our entries is written, fact-checked, and reviewed by our team of professional and academic historians. It is the time, dedication, and support from both our staff and people like you—through your recurring memberships and donations—that makes it possible for us to continue producing quality work that you can trust.

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Hok, Ng Che 1 day ago

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Rabb, Frank 1 week ago

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Whiting, Hervey 1 week ago

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Riley, Polly Ann 3 weeks ago

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Pool, Adrian C. 1 month ago

Search the Handbook

Commander of "Kirby Smith's Confederacy" dies

131 years ago today


Confederate guerilla leader arrested by own side

159 years ago today


Texas Confederates whipped in New Mexico

161 years ago today


Get the FREE! Texas Day by Day delivered straight to your inbox:

Recent Additions

Every one of our entries is written, fact-checked, and reviewed by our team of professional and academic historians. It is the time, dedication, and support from both our staff & people like you—through your recurring memberships & generous donations—that makes it possible for us to produce quality work that you can trust.

photo

Hok, Ng Che 1 day ago

photo

Rabb, Frank 1 week ago

photo

Whiting, Hervey 1 week ago

photo

Riley, Polly Ann 3 weeks ago

photo

Pool, Adrian C. 1 month ago

handbook of texas logo image of the analog version of the handbook

The Handbook of Texas is a digital state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) that is free and accessible on the Internet for students, teachers, scholars, and the general public. The Handbook consists of overview, general, and biographical entries focused on the entire history of Texas from the indigenous Native Americans and the Prehistoric Era to the state’s diverse population and the Modern Age. These entries emphasize the role Texans played in state, national, and world history. The TSHA continuously expands the Handbook through multi-year special projects that focus on diverse topics to preserve all Texans’ history. In 2016 the Handbook website experienced 10,454,137 page views with 4,657,707 unique users from 201 countries and territories, making it not only a Texas resource, but a global one.

The Handbook of Texas project began in 1939 as an effort led by University of Texas Professor Walter Prescott Webb to preserve Texas history and create “the most useful book that has ever been published in Texas.” Webb admitted that his goal might be “an impossible dream,” but his leadership facilitated the funding, staffing, and publication of the original two-volume Handbook in 1952 with a supplemental third volume in 1976. The University of Texas at Austin supported scholarship focused on Texas history and maintained a continuous relationship with the TSHA by providing office space and employing staff members as University faculty. In 1996 the six-volume Handbook included 23,640 entries and 687 illustrations within 6,945 pages. Leadership at the TSHA recognized the growth of personal computers and chose to bypass an interactive CD-ROM in favor of digitizing the entire Handbook for release on the Internet. The Handbook of Texas Online launched in February 1999 and was among the first digital encyclopedias accessible for free on the Internet to the general public.

The Handbook currently includes 27,790 encyclopedic entries. These entries are written by volunteer historians and professionals, reviewed by TSHA staff, vetted by scholars, and approved by the TSHA Chief Historian before appearing online. The development of new entries is driven by current events, user suggestions, and internal identification of missing topics, which are reviewed by the Chief Historian for consideration. Existing entries are continuously revised or updated according to user suggestions and a routine revision schedule. Authors utilize secondary and primary sources such as books, census records, newspapers, military service records, obituaries, diaries, and letters to craft historically accurate entries. The sources are compiled into a bibliography and updated regularly to provide readers with the most current scholarship. The Handbook editors fact-check, copyedit, and format entries using appropriate language for users ranging from middle school to college.

The Handbook began as a printed reference resource without images, but the expansion to six volumes included the addition of photographs and other illustrations. The Handbook staff recognized the need to update the digital Handbook with appropriate media, such as images, videos, audio, and interactive maps. The staff now includes media with every new entry and has added media to the most viewed entries. As a result, the Handbook now includes thousands of images, hundreds of audio samples, and dozens of video clips from the TSHA Texas Talks webinars. The media captions identify the title, copyright owner, and location of the media, as well as link to the original source. The staff disabled the right-click feature within the Handbook website to limit reproduction of the images and encourage users to visit the participating digital repositories and archives for access and republication. The TSHA has compiled promotional eBooks composed of Handbook entries focused on a variety of topics including: African Americans, Civil War, Tejanos, Texas Revolution, Women, and Music in Texas. Furthermore, Handbook content facilitated the development of Texas Day By Day, a program that provides daily updates to users’ computers, tablets, and smartphones on notable people, places, and events Texas history.

After more than 72 years the Handbook project continues to promote scholarship and encourage the study of Texas history. The TSHA and Handbook staff collaborate with historical associations within Texas and across the United States to promote the study of state and local history. The Handbook project provides opportunities for graduate students, lay historians, scholars, and professors to preserve history by researching and authoring concise entries for educational purposes and the betterment of society. The Handbook entries are cited in thousands of books, articles, documentaries, and webpages such as Wikipedia, Legislative Reference Library of Texas, Find-a-Grave, and Ancestry. Professor Webb could not have possibly imagined the ways in which the Handbook has grown and changed over time, but he certainly would be pleased that the public demand for scholarship remains so strong. We strive to assure the Handbook remains accessible, inclusive, accurate, and meets current scholarly standards.

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