Piece Description

Walk into Allen's Boots on South Congress during South by Southwest…

[Sound: walking through the door]

..and you'll have no trouble finding people shopping for a piece of Texas.

[Sound of Beck and her friend trying on boots]

Laura Beck is in Austin for South by Southwest.  She lives in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. And in Williamsburg, Beck says, she's seeing more cowboy boots than ever.

Beck: "They definitely are everywhere."
Me: "Oh really?"
Beck: "Yeah, it's a pretty trendy area."

Now Beck is looking to trade in her Keds for something a little more Texan.

Beck: "I don't know. It is something. It's kind of like a standard piece in the wardrobe. And there's no place better to get it than Texas."

Lawrence Lander is a salesman at Allen's Boots.  He sees a lot of country musicians, and business people, and during South by Southwest, he sees plenty of Brooklyn hipster types too.

Lander: "There's kind of a mystique that comes along with traditional western boots and western wear.  And people wants something that fits in with what they had in mind, in their comfort zone, but we try and push people to try something out, try something a little more exciting."

Lander says South by Southwest is like a second Christmas for them.  [Sound: Congress Ave] Those are the same words Steve Wiman uses to describe business at his store just down the street: Uncommon Objects.  He says in the weeks leading up to Southby, they stock up on all the Texas kitsch they can get their hands on.

Wiman: "We have lots of stuff that qualifies.  You know, Western shirt with Pearl snaps, or horseshoes, or cowboy boots, or belt buckles."

Wiman says objects carry history with them, but not everyone wants to know the real story.

Wiman: "I think there are lots of customers who may buy something for the superficial recognition for what it represents, and are not necessarily finding a genuine piece of Texas history to take back with them."

Hartman: "Well it is a very interesting phenomenon, and you can travel all over the world and you'll see Texas culture and the mythology of Texas everywhere, and there's probably no better representation of that than Texas music."

[Music: Gene Autry - I'll Go Ridin' Down That Old Texas Trail "Lard and bacon in my pack, my old guitar slung o'er my back, and I'll go riding down that Texas trail."]

Gary Hartman is director of the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University in San Marcos.  He acknowledges that musicians – like Gene Autry for example – have played a role in perpetrating a singular narrative of Texas history.

Hartman: "Even the Texas cowboy we often misunderstand. We think of the Marlboro man, but at least a third of Texas cowboys were black or Hispanic or Native American or some ethnic group other than anglo American.  And so I think that's what some of the visitors to Southby are participating in.  I would argue it's not all that different than what Texans themselves buy into."

And that's what frustrates Hartman's boss.  Jesus Fransico de la Teja is the chair of the history department at Texas State.  For two years he was the official historian for the state of Texas.  He spends a lot of time countering the romantic version of 19^th Century Texas history.

De la Teja: "Over time, we have gotten an amnesia regarding Texas as a southern state, as an agricultural state as a cotton state, in preference of this Western, cattle ranching cowboy world, if you will, that dominates the popular culture."

De la Teja says long before Hollywood started making movies about Texas, people all over the world were reading penny novels and illustrated magazines about guys like Bat Masterson and the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

De la Teja: "Texas, around that period of time, latched onto that imagery, that western imagery, and in a way, it was reflecting the notion from the east where this kind of writing was very popular, it was reflecting to them back what they wanted to see.  So in a way, the rest of America wants to see Texas in a certain way, and Texans found it to be economically and cultural worthwhile doing it."

Even today, the myth of Texas appears to be alive and well—for better and for worse.  For the Austin businesses selling that experience to thousands of South by Southwest visitors…they’ll likely tell you it’s all for the better.