Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.1 | The History Cooperative

From Sail to Steam: Four Centuries of Texas Maritime History, 1500-1900. By Richard V. Francaviglia. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. xx, 324 pp. $34.95, isbn 0-292-72503-5.)

For most people the words "Texas transportation history" bring to mind images of cowhands crossing the dusty plains on horseback, covered wagons, and railroad tracks stretching to the far horizon. In his book From Sail to Steam, Richard V. Francaviglia, a professor of history at the University of Texas, Arlington, provides us with a saltier view of the Lone Star State's transportation history. It is the story of the ships, mariners, and ports that formed a vital connection between Texans and the rest of the world. 1

Texas has a remarkable maritime history, a heritage revived in recent decades through new historical research and shipwreck excavations, celebrated by the restored tall ship Elissa, and featured in maritime-oriented museums in Corpus Christi, Galveston, and Rockport. Francaviglia closes the loop by pulling together in one book a vast quantity of material on four hundred years of Gulf Coast and river navigation. It is the first comprehensive overview of Texas maritime history ever published and will undoubtedly remain a standard "first-stop" reference on the subject for years to come. . . .

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