San Jacinto Symposium – Expanding the Horizons of Texas History

This year’s San Jacinto Symposium will be on Saturday, April 19, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the University Hilton an the University of Houston campus.

This year’s program will feature:

Steve Harrington, author of The Gates of the Alamo, a New York Times best-seller and winner of the Spur Award for the Best Novel of the West, and Comanche Midnight. Mr. Harrington’s presentation will be “Historical Fact, Historical Fiction: Early Texas Through a Novelist’s Eyes.”

Drenna Belden, from the University of North Texas, will “Explore the Texas Revolution Online Through the Portal to Texas History” as she demonstrates this new digital gateway to the collections of some seventy museums, libraries and universities. The Portal is sponsored by the University of North Texas. Belden is coordinator of grants and development at the UNT libraries.

Betsy Davis, ties to–and unbounded passion for–the history of Texas and the revolution have made her one of the state’s best fourth grade school teachers. Her ability to bring history to life for her students has won awards from the Austin Historical Society and the Austin Federation of Teachers. Her topic: “Making History Personal.”

Stuart Reid, author of The Secret War for Texas, a recent book about British agent James Grant and the Texas Revolution will place the Texas Revolution into the context of the “great game” played out during the first half of the nineteenth century between Washington and London over mastery of the North American continent. Reid, a Scot and author of The Secret War for Texas (Texas A&M University Press, 2007), is the great-great-great grandson of his book’s protagonist, Dr. James Grant.

Miguel Angel Gonzales Quiroga, of the U.A. De Nuevo Leon in Monterrey, Mexico, will discuss “Commonality and Conflict: Northeast Mexico and the Texas Revolution and Republic, 1835-1845.

The cost of the symposium is $45, which includes lunch and free parking in the Hilton garage. Registrations may be made by check to Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground, P.O. Box 940536, Houston, TX 77094-7536. Payments should be made by April 11. After April 11, the registration fee will be $50, based on availability.

Photograph: San Jacinto Monument; Courtesy of David Melasky.