Comics as historical source material: Race, ethnicity and power according to Texas History Movies

Texas History Movies was first published as a comic strip in the Dallas Morning News from 1926 to 1928 after which it was distributed to Texas schools and used as a history textbook until the late 1950s. The collection of 428 comic strips mainly reproduces the dominant historical narrative of the time, with the Anglo Americans as the real Texans and with other ethnic groups (Native Americans, African Americans and Mexican Americans) as historical enemies or counter-images to the Anglo American. However, Texas History Movies also differs from this dominant narrative, and it does so in particular ways due to its combination of media and genres. With Texas History Movies as the example this article discusses how the interaction of narrative conventions, medium-specific characteristics and genre expectations both strengthen and undermine dominant narratives about the past and, in this case also, more particularly, of the ethnic dynamics in the comics’ present. The study of a comic such as Texas History Movies constitutes a relevant contribution to historical research by recognizing comics as historical sources and by suggesting a strategy to study comics as such. With relevance more specifically for comics research, the article shows how it is possible to include a broader historical and media-related context in the study of comics while at the same time maintaining an explicit focus on their medium-specific characteristics.