Library: Texas by Credo Reference: Culture and Economy

Culture

Adobe Architecture
In The New Encyclopedia of the American West
Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest, as well as those in historic times, built single-and multi-storied houses of rock or adobe.
Blues Music: Topic Page
African-American music that originated in the work songs and Negro spirituals of the rural American South in the late 19th century.
Country Music: Topic Page
Country music is a genre that developed out of the folk traditions of primarily white, working-class Americans living in the rural south and Appalachia. It is a blend of Anglo-Celtic fiddle tunes, traditional ballads, cowboy songs, and African American blues and work songs.
Cowboy: Topic Page

US cattle herder working on horseback; one of the great figures of American history and part of the folklore of the rugged adventurous West portrayed in books, films, and plays.
Hispanic Americans
Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
Perhaps no other group in the United States is as diverse in culture, nationality, phenotype, tradition, political sophistication, ethos, migration trends, acculturation rate, and even language as Hispanics, or Latinos.
Humor in the American West
In The New Encyclopedia of the American West
Three environmental forces shaped the humor of life on the frontier and in the West: the physical world, the political dialogue, and the heterogeneous society.
The Southwest
In Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History
The Southwest as a cultural region is characterized by a pervasively arid climate that has compelled the development of adaptive behaviors and by its persisting overlap of Native American, Mexican American, and Anglo-American cultures.
Spanish Language in the Southwest
In The New Encyclopedia of the American West
Spoken in the five-state region of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California, Spanish has shown remarkable persistence despite predictions of its demise under overwhelming pressure from English.
SXSW (South by Southwest)
iN Cultural Studies: Holidays Around the World
SXSW, also known as South by Southwest, is a ten-day event comprised of three concurrent festivals that take place in Austin, Texas. The inaugural South by Southwest Music and Media Conference was held in 1987. Organizers hoped to create an event to draw artists and music industry professionals from around the country to Austin, giving local musicians the opportunity to perform for a wider audience.
Western Music
In The New Encyclopedia of the American West
The first music heard in the West was that of American Indians, but it had no influence on western music. Spanish and Mexican music followed, and although the Spanish-Mexican culture was the dominant factor in determining cowboy dress, tools, working knowledge, and terminology, it had little effect on western musical expression.
Western Style
In 100 Ideas that Changed Street Style
Inspired in no small part by the romantic iconography and mythology of the cowboy figure - as outsider, law-giver, traveller; as solitary, tough, self-sufficient and at one with his environment - many subcultures have taken elements of western dress and made them their own.

Economy

Aerospace Industry
In Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The U.S. aerospace industry is a network of private and public organizations that develop, engineer, build, and operate all manner of crafts designed to fly within the atmosphere, orbit the earth, or launch into space
Cattle Industry
In Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The cattle industry, in which livestock farmers and ranchers raise and sell cattle for consumption, has been a substantial part of the U.S. agricultural economy since the nineteenth century.
Cotton: Topic Page
Most important of the vegetable fibers, and the plant from which the fiber is harvested.
Information Technology: Topic Page
Although the term did not evolve until the 1970s, it has been used to describe any technology engaged in the inputting, processing, storage, transmission, and retrieval of information, such as the codex, printing systems, facsimile machines, satellites, and others.
Natural Gas: Topic Page
Mixture of flammable gases found in the Earth's crust (often in association with petroleum). It is one of the world's three main fossil fuels (with coal and oil).
Petroleum Industry and Trade: Topic Page
The business of discovering oil (petroleum), extracting it from the ground, refining it into a variety of products, and distributing it to the public.
Texas Longhorn
In The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language

Any of a breed of beef cattle originating in the Texas area, probably from interbreeding of Spanish and English cattle, and having very long horns.