Texas

===Early to mid-20th century===
[[File:Lucas_gusher.jpg|thumb|upright|Spindletop, the first major oil gusher]]
In 1900, Texas suffered the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history during the [[1900 Galveston hurricane|Galveston hurricane]].<ref name="deadhurr" /> On January 10, 1901, the first major [[oil well]] in Texas, [[Spindletop]], was found south of [[Beaumont, Texas|Beaumont]]. Other fields were later discovered nearby in [[East Texas Oil Field|East Texas]], [[West Texas]], and under the [[Gulf of Mexico]]. The resulting "[[Texas oil boom|oil boom]]" transformed Texas.<ref name="Spindletop">{{cite Handbook of Texas|id=dos03|title=Spindletop Oilfield|first1=Robert |last1=Wooster |first2=Christine Moor |last2=Sanders |orig-year=June 15, 2010 |date=April 2, 2019 }}</ref> Oil production averaged three million barrels per day at its peak in 1972.<ref name="Oil_Gas">{{cite Handbook of Texas|id=doogz|title=Oil and Gas Industry|first=Roger M. |last=Olien |orig-year=June 15, 2010 |date=August 19, 2016}}</ref>

In 1901, the Democratic-dominated state legislature passed a bill requiring payment of a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] for voting, which effectively [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchised]] most Black and many poor White and [[Latinos|Latino]] people. In addition, the legislature established [[white primaries]], ensuring minorities were excluded from the formal political process. The number of voters dropped dramatically, and the Democrats crushed competition from the Republican and Populist parties.<ref name="yale">{{cite journal |jstor=791091 |title=Nixon v. Condon. Disfranchisement of the Negro in Texas |journal=The Yale Law Journal |volume=41 |issue=8 |pages=1212–1221 |date=June 1932 |doi=10.2307/791091}}</ref><ref name="texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu">{{cite web |url=https://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_5_3.html |title=Texas Politics: Historical Barriers to Voting |publisher=University of Texas at Austin |date=2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080402060131/http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/vce/0503.html |archive-date=April 2, 2008}}</ref> The [[Socialist Party of Texas|Socialist Party]] became the second-largest party in Texas after 1912,<ref>{{cite Handbook of Texas |id=was01|title=Socialist Party|first=Barr|last=Alwyn|date=June 15, 2010}}</ref> coinciding with a large socialist upsurge in the United States during fierce battles in the labor movement and the popularity of national heroes like [[Eugene V. Debs]]. The socialists' popularity soon waned after their vilification by the federal government for their opposition to U.S. involvement in [[World War I]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=World War I and the Suppression of Dissent {{!}} Wendy McElroy|url=https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=1207|access-date=December 28, 2020|website=The Independent Institute}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title='War against war': Americans for peace in World War I – National Constitution Center|url=https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/war-against-war-americans-for-peace-in-world-war-i|access-date=December 28, 2020|website=National Constitution Center – constitutioncenter.org |quote=Morris Hillquit sought to keep alive the ties of his Socialist Party to its comrades abroad. Senator Robert La Follette filled many a speech with praise for progressives in other countries who shared his hatred for militarism. Henry Ford chartered an ocean liner to transport himself and dozens of other activists across the Atlantic, where they lobbied neutral governments to embrace a peace plan they would press on the warring powers. These Americans, like most critics of the war elsewhere in the world, wanted to create a new global order based on cooperative relationships between nation states and their gradual disarmament. Militarism, they argued, isolated peoples behind walls of mutual fear and loathing. Until April 1917, this formidable coalition of idealists—or realists—did much to keep the nation at peace. They may even have had a majority of Americans on their side until just weeks before Congress, at Wilson's behest, voted to declare war. To prevent that from happening, peace activists pressed for a national referendum on the question, confident that "the people" would recoil from fighting and paying the bills in order to help one group of European powers conquer another.}}</ref>

The [[Great Depression]] and the [[Dust Bowl]] dealt a double blow to the state's economy, which had significantly improved since the Civil War. Migrants abandoned the worst-hit sections of Texas during the Dust Bowl years. Especially from this period on, Black people left Texas in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] to get work in the Northern United States or California and to escape segregation.<ref name=HOT/> In 1940, Texas was 74% [[Non-Hispanic Whites|White]], 14.4% Black, and 11.5% Hispanic.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jillson|first=Cal|title=Texas Politics: Governing the Lone Star State|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fQFZCrbc9mIC&pg=PA11|year=2011|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-82941-7|page=11}}</ref>

[[World War II]] had a dramatic impact on Texas, as federal money poured in to build military bases, munitions factories, detention camps and Army hospitals; 750,000 Texans left for service; the cities exploded with new industry; and hundreds of thousands of poor farmers left the fields for much better-paying war jobs, never to return to agriculture.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lee|first1=James Ward|last2=Barnes|first2=Carolyn N.|last3=Bowman|first3=Kent Adam|title=1941: Texas Goes to War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JwBnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP1|year=1991|publisher=University of North Texas Press|isbn=978-0-929398-29-7}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Fairchild|first=Louis|title=They Called It the War Effort: Oral Histories from World War II Orange, Texas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=syZDE5pBzjoC&pg=PP1|edition=second|year=2012|publisher=Texas A&M University Press|isbn=978-0-87611-259-5}}</ref> Texas manufactured 3.1 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking eleventh among the 48 states.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Peck|first1=Merton J.|author-link1=Whiz Kids (Department of Defense)|last2=Scherer|first2=Frederic M.|author-link2=Frederic M. Scherer|title=The weapons acquisition process: an economic analysis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wfNHAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA111|year=1962|publisher=Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University|page=111}}</ref>

Texas modernized and expanded its [[Education in Texas#Public colleges and universities|system of higher education]] through the 1960s. The state created a comprehensive plan for higher education, funded in large part by oil revenues, and a central state apparatus designed to manage state institutions more efficiently. These changes helped Texas universities receive federal research funds.<ref name="Blanton">{{cite journal |last=Blanton |first=Carlos Kevin |title=The Campus and the Capitol: John B. Connally and the Struggle over Texas Higher Education Policy, 1950–1970 |journal=Southwestern Historical Quarterly |volume=108 |issue=4 |pages=468–497 |year=2005 |issn=0038-478X}}</ref>