History Under the Star Lecture Series: Gender and the Runaway Scrape with Linda English

Before it became the Republic of Texas in 1836, the state of Coahuila y Tejas underwent a bloody revolution that commenced in the fall of 1835 with canon fire at Gonzales, Texas and ended with a decisive victory for Texas forces at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836. The “Runaway Scrape,” as it was called, denotes a particularly dire period for the Texas revolutionaries and their families. During this turbulent episode, Santa Anna’s forces were on the march, General Sam Houston and the Texas army fell back towards Louisiana and the United States to avoid the assault, and much of Texas thought the cause was lost. Elderly men, women, children, and enslaved persons left behind on plantations and small farms responded to this crisis by joining the retreat, essentially “running” for their lives. Drawing from my upcoming book, Running for Your Lives! Gender and the Runaway Scrape, this lecture details the period known as the Runaway Scrape through the lens of gender. In March and April of 1836, when the situation seemed most perilous, anxieties among Texians reached a fever pitch, and heated rhetoric proliferated. In the waning moments of the rebellion, fear of defeat prompted larger questions of what it meant to be a man and woman in a period of war and retreat. This is not a history of men’s experiences during the 1836 military campaign, or women’s tribulations during the flight to Louisiana, but both. My research explores dominant perceptions of nineteenth-century gender norms and expectations that pervaded historical accounts of this turbulent period.

Date: Saturday, June 15, 2024

Time: 5:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. | talk 5:00 6:00, Q&A 6:00 6:30, reception 6:30 7:00

Location: San Jacinto Museum

Cost: $5 per person/$3 per museum member; students are free.

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History Under the Star Lecture Series is made possible by a generous grant from the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.

Videographer and Video Production made possible by Humanities Texas.