Centennial Bibliography: Annotated Selections on the History of the Petroleum Industry in the United States

1959 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-447
Author(s):  
Walter Rundell

This bibliography represents an effort to survey and evaluate selected literature dealing with the history of the petroleum industry in the United States. The goal has not been to include everything ever written, but rather, to produce a compact reference work that I hope will be useful to the industry, to students, and to the public.My research has revealed that only one of the four major phases of this industry has been given anything approaching a full historical treatment. This phase is production.

Author(s):  
Will Fowler

Antonio López de Santa Anna (b. Xalapa, February 21, 1794; d. Mexico City, June 21, 1876) was one of the most notorious military caudillos of 19th-century Mexico. He was involved in just about every major event of the early national period and served as president on six different occasions (1833–1835, 1839, 1841–1843, 1843–1844, 1846–1847, and 1853–1855). U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary Waddy Thompson during the 1840s would come to the conclusion that: “No history of his country for that period can be written without constant mention of his name.”1 For much of the 1820s to 1850s he proved immensely popular; the public celebrated him as “Liberator of Veracruz,” the “Founder of the Republic,” and the “Hero of Tampico” who repulsed a Spanish attempt to reconquer Mexico in 1829. Even though he lost his leg defending Veracruz from a French incursion in 1838, many still regarded him as the only general who would be able to save Mexico from the U.S. intervention of 1846–1848. However, Mexicans, eventually, would remember him more for his defeats than his victories. Having won the battle of the Alamo, he lost the battle of San Jacinto which resulted in Texas becoming independent from Mexico in 1836. Although he recovered from this setback, many subsequently blamed him for Mexico’s traumatic defeat in the U.S.-Mexican War, which ended with Mexico ceding half of its territory to the United States. His corruption paired with the fact that he aligned himself with competing factions at different junctures contributed to the accusation that he was an unprincipled opportunist. Moreover, because he authorized the sale of La Mesilla Valley to the United States (in present-day southern Arizona) in the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, he was labeled a vendepatrias (“fatherland-seller”). The repressive dictatorship he led donning the title of “His Serene Highness” in 1853–1855, also gave way to him being presented thereafter as a bloodthirsty tyrant, even though his previous terms in office were not dictatorial. Albeit feted as a national hero during much of his lifetime, historians have since depicted Santa Anna as a cynical turncoat, a ruthless dictator, and the traitor who lost the U.S.-Mexican War on purpose. However, recent scholarship has led to a significant revision of this interpretation. The aim of this article is to recast our understanding of Santa Anna and his legacy bearing in mind the latest findings. In the process it demonstrates how important it is to engage with the complexities of the multilayered regional and national contexts of the time in order to understand the politics of Independent Mexico.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann C. Hodges

The petitioners in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association seek to overturn longstanding law relating to union security in the public sector. A decision in favor of the petitioners will invalidate provisions in thousands of collective bargaining agreements covering millions of workers. Additionally, it has the potential to upend the labor relations system in the United States. To understand how this might be the case, this Issue Brief will review the history of union security and the Supreme Court decisions that upheld union security agreements in the public sector. The Issue Brief will then look at the Friedrichs case itself, engaging in an analysis of the case which concludes that the Court should reach the same result as in prior cases.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Coumes

Failure to address climate change or even slow the growth of carbon emissions has led to innovation in the methods activists are using to push decisionmakers away from disaster. In the United States, climate activists frustrated by decades of legislative and executive inaction have turned to the courts to force the hand of the state. In their most recent iteration, climate cases have focused on the public trust doctrine, the notion that governments hold their jurisdictions’ natural resources in trust for the public. Plaintiffs have argued that the atmosphere is part of the public trust and that governments have a duty to protect it. These types of lawsuits, known as Atmospheric Trust Litigation, have foundered on the shoals of courts wary of exceeding their powers, whether granted by Article III or state constitutions. The trouble in many cases, including Juliana v. United States, has been standing. Courts balk at declaring that any one actor has the power to affect climate change. Since they usually think one actor can’t fix the climate, redressability is out the window. Even if courts get past redressability, they believe the scale of any potential relief is just beyond the ability of a court to order. The number of lawsuits that have been filed suggests that that reasonable minds can differ, but most judges have found plaintiffs do not have standing before clearing the cases off their dockets. This Note contends that at least one state remains fertile ground for an atmospheric trust lawsuit. Michigan’s 1963 Constitution implies that the atmosphere is within the public trust, and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, passed to carry out the state’s constitutional duties towards the natural world, does away with most, if not all, of the standing issues that have stymied climate cases across the nation. Motions, briefs, and equitable relief are not the only way to avoid the onset of what could be the greatest calamity in the history of humanity, but in Michigan, at least, Atmospheric Trust Litigation may well be what breaks and rolls back the carbon tide.


Author(s):  
Dick Spottswood

Richard K. Spottswood, who is respected by scholars, record collectors and music enthusiasts for his ground-breaking work documenting sound recordings of ethnic music, focuses on “Greek Record Making in the Early Days, 1896-1937. ”Early recording companies not only documented musical expression, but distributed music and were were an enormous influence on the tastes of the public. Spottswood recounts the history of recording activity, recording companies, major artists, instruments, and genres in Greece, Turkey, and the United States.


Author(s):  
David Nasaw

A history of American public schooling reduced to graphs would tell a simple story of almost continuous growth. In every category, the graphs would incline upwards, recording a steady rise in the number of students in school, the time they spent there, the teachers who taught them, the schools that housed them, and the dollars expended. The upward trend would continue unbroken from the 1820s until the 1970s. We cannot, at this time, chart the downward course that has commenced (if only temporarily) in the mid-1970s. We know only that that part of the American public that votes on school bond issues and makes its opinions known to professional pollsters is no longer willing to spend as much money or place as much trust in public schooling as it once was. It is too soon to predict the future course of public schooling in America, but a good time to reconsider the past. To understand why Americans have grown disillusioned with their public schools we must look beyond the immediate present to the larger history of the United States and its public schools. The public schools of this country—elementary, secondary, and higher—were not conceived full-blown. They have a history, and it is the social history of the United States. This essay will not attempt to present that history in its entirety but will focus instead on three specific periods decisive for the social history of this society and its public schools: the decades before the Civil War, in which the elementary or “common schools” were reformed; the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century, in which the secondary schools “welcomed” the “children of the plain people”; and the post-World War II decades, which found the public colleges and universities “overwhelmed” by a “tidal wave” of “non-traditional” students— those traditionally excluded from higher education by sex, race, and class. In each of these periods, the quantitative expansion of the student population was matched by a qualitative transformation of the enlarged institutions.


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