Much like its geographic size, the history of Texas is big. So much so that Texas officials a dozen years ago decided the state should have a designated historian. That person now is a Texas Tech history professor and archivist with the Southwest Collection. Monte Monroe was sworn in to the post in September.
“I’m the fourth Texas State historian. I’m the only one from West Texas and I’m the only one from a tier one institution,” Monroe says.
The position was first filled in 2007. A committee made up of members of the Texas State Historical Association and the Texas Historical Commission comes up with a nominee. Then Governor Greg Abbott makes the final decision on who to appoint.
Monroe, who will stay in the post until September 2020, says the position is unusual is one particular way.
“When they got it going, it was hard to get it through the legislature unless, it stipulated, that no state funds would be used whatsoever. So, I can’t use any Texas Tech funds. I can’t use my Tech email. I can’t use the travel vans or anything like that. I have to fund it myself. Tech does have some non-state funds that they can help me with, so far I haven’t needed any of those. So I’m funding it basically myself.”
The crux of his mission, Monroe says, is to encourage the teaching and learning of Texas history to each generation of students and to the general public.
“I do that by going out and talking to these groups. I talk to groups of students both from kindergarten all the way through higher education, and then the general public through all types of different groups and organizations that I talk to on a regular basis. Also, if members of the legislature, or anyone in state government need advice on Texas history, they can defer to us or ask our opinions on things.”
Monroe characterizes his take on Texas history as eclectic in nature. He trained as an environmental historian, at first writing about the establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. He did his doctoral dissertation on Ralph Yarborough, a former US senator, and his environmental legislative career.
Monroe, who is a founding board member of the Humanities Center at Texas Tech, says the types of history in Texas are wide-ranging.
“There are many types of history. You have local history. You have individual histories. You have family histories. You have every little chronological time period in Texas history, which is very broad from the 1500s all the way to today,” Monroe explains.
Monroe has ideas on what he’d like to accomplish during his tenure. He plans to emphasize the importance of archives, to work to use technology to share information on the more than 16,000 historical markers across Texas and to advocate for an often underrepresented source of the state’s history.
“I want to advocate on behalf of women’s history, because women have contributed mightily to the history of Texas. We’re not just talking about the powerful ranch women, from the 19th century or early 20th century.”
Some people contend that history is written by the victors. Monroe’s not a fan of that perspective, saying historians must dig deeply.
“One person’s facts may not be agreed to by another person, or another group, but the most important thing is, you have to have the nuts and bolts of history to even have facts. The historian has to go in and they have to assess scientifically, we’re all trained in the scientific method to assess, this is one person’s perspective on this thing. You’ve got to look at the other perspective. There has to be one out there. But what if that other perspective was thrown in a dumpster somewhere. Then the only history you have is the history that’s left,” Monroe says.