Richard Croxdale, Author at People's History in Texas https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/author/rcroxdal/ Fri, 23 Jun 2023 22:45:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-logo-32x32.png Richard Croxdale, Author at People's History in Texas https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/author/rcroxdal/ 32 32 Hightower and the Business of Organics in Texas https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/hightower-and-the-business-of-organics-in-texas/ https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/hightower-and-the-business-of-organics-in-texas/#respond Fri, 23 Jun 2023 21:43:59 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=2873 In this Substack, we continue to tell the forgotten story of Hightower and the Texas Department of Agriculture in the 1980s. One of the forgotten stories that should be remembered is the role Texas played in the Organic Food Industry. Texas was the first state to create a certifiable Organic label.  A certifiable label was essential to the expansion of […]

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]]> https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/hightower-and-the-business-of-organics-in-texas/feed/ 0 The Battle of Waller Creek https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/the-battle-of-waller-creek/ Wed, 07 Jun 2023 21:11:41 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=2855 The Felling on the Erwin Drum PHIT website has a section called Movement Folk Tales that recounts the stories in Austin during the 1960s and 70s.  As part of our RAG underground newspaper trilogy, we collected a lot more stories than we could tell in a short documentary.  We are telling them here. Frank Erwin currently has a huge basketball […]

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]]> Supermarkets, the Cold War, and Hightower https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/supermarkets-the-cold-war-and-hightower/ https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/supermarkets-the-cold-war-and-hightower/#respond Wed, 24 May 2023 22:42:08 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=2841 I recommend Supermarket, USA, by Shane Hamilton, a grand book that details the role that supermarkets played in the Cold War.  The author calls it the Farm Wars.  Not as deadly as the nuclear bomb, but apparently a lot more effective.   In the 50s, the U.S imported a fully functioning supermarket into Tito’s Yugoslavia.  It was mightily impressive to […]

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]]> https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/supermarkets-the-cold-war-and-hightower/feed/ 0 Casey Hayden deserves a Statue at UT https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/casey-hayden-deserves-a-statue-at-ut/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 19:56:19 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1794 Casey Hayden passed away on January 4 of this year.  People’s History in Texas  was honored to interview her in 2012 for our Stand-ins Documentary.  NBC’s TODAY show with Willie Geist featured her as “A Life Well Lived” on January 22, 2023.  Footage from PHIT’s Stand-Ins documentary was included in the tribute. Casey Hayden was a key figure in the Austin anti-racist activities […]

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]]> Haskell House and the Clarksville Tour https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/haskell-house-and-the-clarksville-tour/ Tue, 14 Mar 2023 21:34:44 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1786 The story of Clarksville, a Freedom Colony. by Richard Croxdale On MLK day, PHIT was blessed with a tour of the Haskell House, an historic house in the National Historic District of Clarksville. Clarksville was one of the first freedom colonies that sprang up across the south as previously enslaved people created their own communities. It was presented by Kathy […]

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]]> Texas and the National Organic Label part 6 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/texas-and-the-national-organic-label/ Wed, 10 Aug 2022 20:09:21 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1640 Kathleen Merrigan was a key player in the legislative creation of a National Organic Standard.  Passage of a national organic standard had to be accomplished without the help of the United States Department of Agriculture.  Fortunately, Merrigan had the support of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Kathleen Merrigan hailed from Massachusetts. For some bizarre reason, she went “abroad” and enrolled […]

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]]> Organic Blog 5 Keith Jones https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/organic-blog-5-keith-jones/ Wed, 06 Jul 2022 19:47:41 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1605 This is the fifth blog on the subject of Texas creating the first organic label. Please read the first 4 which explains the background of organics in Texas. Once the process of organic certification had been set up, someone needed to enforce it.  In Texas, that someone was Keith Jones.   “I was looking to get back into agriculture. I […]

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]]> Texas Organic Label part 4 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/texas-organic-label-part-4/ Wed, 15 Jun 2022 18:53:22 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1592 Dennis Holbrook was appointed by Hightower to the Texas Organic Advisory Board that Dan Kelley was assembling that would craft a Texas Organic Label.  We talked about that process in the previous blog. Holbrook has farmed organic in South Texas for over 40 years. Holbrook is a bit of a legend in Texas organic circles.  He has a story to […]

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]]> Texas Organic Label part 3 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/texas-organic-label-part-3/ Wed, 25 May 2022 19:52:52 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1565 Hightower, in his crusade to save the family farmer, focused on efforts to market higher value-added food products in niche markets, markets that wouldn’t interest the big commodity farmers and the big agribusinesses.  Organic vegetables, organic grains, and organic meats were seen as one of those efforts. Growing food organically also just happens to aid the reduction of exposure to […]

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]]> Organic History in Texas Part 2 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/organic-history-in-texas-part-2/ Thu, 05 May 2022 13:45:54 +0000 https://peopleshistoryintexas.org/?p=1560 The twentieth century produced a revolution in agriculture. This was the third such revolution, the second being the one associated with during the Industrial Revolution, and the first being the domestication and breeding of grain plants—I think that one was called the Neolithic Revolution.   Today, the agricultural industry churns out a cornucopia of cereals and fruits and vegetables and […]

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