Richard Bruce Winders, Ph.D.

Curriculum Vita

Current Employment

Historian & Curator for the Alamo

Education

Ph.D.  Texas Christian University, Department of History, December 1994
            Dissertation: "Mr. Polk’s Army: Politics, Patronage, and the American
             Military in the Mexican War"

            Major Field: United States History
            Minor Fields: Spanish Borderlands & Military History
            Dissertation Director: Dr. Grady McWhiney

M.A.    University of Texas at Arlington, Department of History, December 1990
            Thesis: "The Role of the Mississippi Volunteer in Northern Mexico"

            University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Education, December 1981

Teacher Certification

B.A.     Murray State University, Department of Geology, December 1977

    Major: Geology
    Minor: Spanish

Professional Experience

The Alamo
Historian & Curator
July 1996 to Present

Texas Christian University
Graduate Faculty/Adjunct Faculty
Teaching Duties: United States History Survey (To 1877 & Since 1877)
1991 to 1996

          Tarrant County Junior College
           Instructor, United States History Survey (To 1877)
          August 1992 to December 1992

          Arlington Independent School District
          Classroom Teacher and Chairman of Social Studies Department
          November 1981 to May 1990
          Primary Teaching Fields: United States History, 19^th Century Social and
          Political History, Civil War and Reconstruction, Old South, Jacksonian
          America
          Secondary Teaching Fields: Spanish Borderlands, Military History, Texas
          History, Mexican History

Honors and Awards

        2003: Crisis in the Southwest Winner of the Sons of the Republic of Texas Summerfield G. Roberts Award

        2003: Crisis in the Southwest Runner Up for TSTA Bates Award

        2002:  Crisis in the Southwest named "Outstanding Academic Title of 2002" by
                    Choice

        2001: "Yellow Rose" Award from San Antonio Women’s Club for excellence in
                   education

        2000:  Chair of Local Arrangements for Western History Association Annual
                    Meeting

        1999:  The United States and Mexico at War awarded Sanchez Lamego Book
                    Prize

        1998:  The United States and Mexico at War named Editor’s Choice by Book List

        1997:  Mr. Polk’s Army awarded The Jerry Coffey Memorial Book Prize

        1997:  Mr. Polk’s Army designated a History Book Club Selection

        1997:  Named a Fellow of the Grady McWhiney Research Foundation

        1991-94: Texas Christian University, Graduate Fellowship

        1990:  DAR’s American History Teacher of the Year for Arlington Independent
                    School District

        1987: 1^st Place Winner of E. C. Barksdale Student Essay Contest

        1986-87: Teacher of the Year for Workman Junior High School

Publications: Books, Articles, and the Web

      

        Sacrificed at the Alamo: Tragedy and Triumph in the Texas Revolution.  State House Press, 2004

        Davy Crockett: The Legend of the Wild, Frontier. Rosen Publishing Group.
        August 2003.

        Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle for Texas.
        Scholarly Resources, Inc., 2002.

        Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. 3^rd
        printing, paperback edition; College Station: Texas A & M University Press,
        2002.

        Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. 2^nd
       printing, paperback edition; College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2001.

        Regular contributor to San Antonio Food & Leisure and San Antonio Visitors
        Guide. 1999-2001.

        Mapping Texas History: Colonization to Statehood. Daughter of the Republic of
        Texas, 2001.

        "Will the Regiment Stand It? The 1^st North Carolina Mutinies at Buena Vista,"
        Dueling Eagles:

        Reinterpreting the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848. Fort Worth: Texas Christian
        University, 2000.

        "The Mexican War," The Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth
        Century. New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 2000.

        Assistant Editor & Contributor. The United States and Mexico at War:
        Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict. New York: Macmillan, 1998.

        Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War.
        College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1997.

        "Alamo Visitor Brochure." San Antonio: Clark Printing. 1997.

        "Composed of Different Material: Democracy, Discipline and the Mexican War 
        Volunteer," Papers of the Bi-National Conference on the War Between Mexico 
        and the United States. Brownsville: National Parks Service, 1995.

        "Puebla’s Forgotten Heroes." Military History of the West. (Spring 1994) :1-23.

        "Mr. Polk’s Generals," Papers of the Second Palo Alto Battlefield Conference. 
        Brownsville: National Parks Service, 1994.

        Co-author. Instructor’s Resource Manual: Mary Beth Norton et. al. A People and A 
        Nation: A History of the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

        "The Boys for Mexico: The Organization of the United States Army on the Eve of 
        War with Mexico," Proceedings of the First Palo Alto Battlefield Conference. 
        Brownsville: National Parks Service, 1993.

        Cartographic Illustrator. Richard N. Current, et al., eds. Encyclopedia of the 
        Confederacy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

        "Fighters For Freedom: The Texas Volunteers," Essays in History: The E. C. 
        Barksdale Student Lectures. 1987-88. Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington 
        Campus Printing Service, 1988.

        "The Alamo."

        "The American Army in the Mexican War: An Overview." KERA PBS Online.
        http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/

Publications: Reviews

        –A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict During the 
         Mexican-American War, Paul Foos. Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 
         Forthcoming.

        Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol, Richard R.
        Flores. Western Historical Quarterly. Forthcoming.

        Bound for Sante Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 
        1806-1848, Stephen G. Hyslop. East Texas Historical Quarterly. Forthcoming.

        The Frontier Army in the Settlement of the West, Michael L. Tate. Great Plains 
        Quarterly. Summer 2001.

        Aztec Club of 1847, Military Society of the Mexican War: Sesquicentennial 
        History, 1847-1997, Richard H. Breithaupt, Jr. Civil War History. 1999.

        Alexander William Doniphan: Portrait of a Missouri Moderate, Roger D. Launius, 
        and Doniphan’s Expedition: An Account of the Conquest of Mexico, John Taylor 
        Hughes. Journal of Military History. 1999.

        Defiant Peacemaker: Nicholas Trist in the Mexican War, Wallace Ohrt.
        H-SHEAR. July 1998.

        Three Roads to Texas, William C. Davis. The San Antonio Express News. May 
        31, 1998.

        On the Prairie of Palo Alto: Historical Archaeology of the U.S.-Mexican War 
        Battlefield, Charles M. Haecker and Jeffrey G. Mauck. Public Historian. (Spring 
        1998) : 100-103.

        The March to Monterrey: The Diary of Lt. Rankin Dilworth, ed. by Lawrence R. 
        Clayton and Joseph E. Chance, and Mexico Under Fire: Being the Diary of 
        Samuel Ryan Curtis, 3^rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment During the Military Occupation 
        of Northern Mexico, 1846-1847, ed. by Joseph E. Chance. West Texas Historical 
        Association Yearbook, 1997.

        An Immigrant Soldier in the Mexican War, Frederick Zeh. Southwestern Historical 
        Quarterly. (Summer 1996) : 108.

        The Class of 1846, by John C. Waugh. Journal of Southern History. (August 1995): 
        604-605.

Philosophy of Education

        Many people associate education solely with school, a notion that says that 
        learning takes place within the walls of a classroom. It also implies that a person 
        who completes a course of study has learned all there is to know about a subject 
        or group of subjects. Thus, a person who has attended school is said to have been 
        educated. Nothing could be further from the truth.

        Education is a life-long endeavor, the success of which depends largely on the 
        individual. A person has to be open to learning before knowledge can be 
        achieved. He or she also has to be willing to embrace opportunities to learn that 
        occur outside a formal educational setting. In this paradigm the educator is a 
        guide who starts his or her students on a life-long journey of discovery. The main 
        task of the educator is to create a desire to learn the will last after his or her time 
        spent with the student has passed.