Reviewed by:

• Amon Carter: A Lone Star Life by Brian A. Cervantez
• Robert Schoone-Jongen

Amon G. Carter is the sort of Texan whom most of us would likely encounter only in the pages of detailed biographies of someone like President Lyndon B. Johnson, unless one lived in Fort Worth, where Carter's footprints remain visible more than half a century after his death. In Brian A. Cervantez's new and very readable biography, Carter's impact on both Fort Worth and West Texas is rescued from the footnotes and indexes. The book is also a refresher course in how newspaper publishers were once the movers and shakers of the cities that they served.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, for decades the largest circulation paper in the Lone Star State, was the megaphone through which Carter promoted politicians, public works, tourism, and the oil business—to name just a few of his pet projects. From publishing, he expanded into broadcasting (first radio, [End Page 355] then television), while plowing his profits into real estate and oil exploration. His political ties and personal connections extended to the likes of Will Rogers, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carter's support of Eisenhower's presidential bid foreshadowed the Lone State State's subsequent evolution into a bedrock of the Republican Party.

Fort Worth stood at the heart of everything Carter did. He saw his adopted city as the place where the West began. He wooed automobile and airplane companies to settle there. He did most anything he could to one-up his greatest nemesis—neighboring Dallas. By turns, Carter could be prophetic (seeing the space between the two cities as the ideal site for an airport), quixotic (clinging to the notion that Fort Worth could be linked to the sea via a canal along the Trinity River), and pragmatic (securing federal funds for Fort Worth's own Texas centennial celebration, in competition with the one in Dallas, of course).

This biography is much more than a catalog of dates and milestones. Cervantez mines the sources to uncover Carter's inner motives. Born into meager circumstances in 1879, he set out to be a salesman, becoming a very effective one at a young age. That brought him to Fort Worth to sell advertisement space for the newspaper he soon came to own. As Cervantez relates, Carter found his muse in P. T. Barnum—another showman who never forgot his background and never hid his roots. Throughout his career, Carter reveled in being the Texan with a capital "T"—a hard-driving, gun-toting, Stetson-wearing, cowboy-boot-shod son of the Plains. Carter's flair for promotion (handing out signature Shady Oak Stetsons to his ranch house visitors) and generosity (lavishly donating to Texas Christian University and endowing a museum to house his art collection) could be self-serving. But he genuinely hoped his largesse would make Fort Worth a better place to live. Cervantez gleans these insights from Carter's papers, contemporary newspapers, and a vast array of secondary sources. The author's eye for detail can be seen on almost every page.

Amon G. Carter's name still graces Fort Worth buildings and West Texas college campuses. Big Bend National Park and Texas Tech University stand as two more monuments to his life. He never tired of reminding folks that his first earnings came from selling chicken (or was it rabbit?) sandwiches to railroad passengers. As Cervantez's biography so ably shows, Carter's ego and largesse transformed Fort Worth from a modest market town into a national destination.

审核人：

• 阿蒙·卡特（Amon Carter）：《孤独的星星生活》，布莱恩·塞万提斯（Brian A. Cervantez）
• 罗伯特·肖恩·琼根

阿蒙·卡特（Amon G.他的过世。在布莱恩·塞万提斯（Brian A. Cervantez）的新传记中，他的脚注和索引可以挽救卡特对沃思堡和西德克萨斯州的影响。这本书也是一门进修课程，介绍报纸出版商如何曾经成为其所服务城市的推动者和摇动者。

沃斯堡星报（Fort Worth Star-Telegram）是孤独星州（Lone Star State）几十年来最大的发行报纸，是扩音器，卡特通过扩音器宣传政治人物，公共工程，旅游业和石油业务-仅举几个他的宠物项目。从出版业起，他扩展到广播业（第一个广播，[End Page 355]，然后是电视），同时将利润投入房地产和石油勘探领域。他的政治关系和个人关系延伸到威尔·罗杰斯，富兰克林·罗斯福和德怀特·D·艾森豪威尔。卡特对艾森豪威尔总统竞选的支持，预示了独联体国家后来演变为共和党的基石。

沃思堡是卡特所做一切的核心。他将自己的收养城市视为西方发源地。他向汽车和飞机公司求情，要求他们在那里定居。他竭尽所能，使自己最大的敌人–达拉斯（Dallas）附近。反过来说，卡特可能是预言家（将两个城市之间的空间视为理想的机场所在地），是古怪的（遵循沃思堡可以通过三位一体河沿运河与大海相连的观点），并且务实。 （当然，要与沃思堡的德克萨斯州百年庆典并获得联邦资金，以与达拉斯的庆典相抗衡）。

这本传记不仅仅是日期和里程碑的目录。塞万提斯（Cervantez）挖掘源头来揭示卡特（Carter）的内在动机。他于1879年生于微薄的环境中，开始做一名推销员，从小就成为一名非常有才能的推销员。那把他带到沃思堡为他不久就拥有的报纸出售广告位。正如塞万提斯（Cervantez）所说，卡特在PT巴纳姆（PT Barnum）中找到了自己的缪斯女神-另一个演艺人员，他从不忘记自己的背景，从不掩饰自己的根基。在他的整个职业生涯中，卡特（Carter）痴迷于以大写字母“ T”表示的德克萨斯人-勤奋，举枪奔放，戴斯泰森式，牛仔靴式的平原儿子。卡特 他的晋升天赋（向他的牧场访客们分发签名的Shady Oak Stetsons）和慷慨（慷慨地捐赠给得克萨斯州基督教大学，并捐赠一个博物馆来收藏他的艺术收藏品）可能是自私的。但他真诚地希望他的慷慨解囊能使沃思堡成为一个更好的居住地。塞万提斯（Cervantez）从卡特（Carter）的论文，当代报纸以及大量的第二手资料中收集了这些见解。几乎每一页上都能看到作者对细节的关注。

阿蒙·卡特（Amon G.Carter）的名字仍然是沃斯堡（Fort Worth）建筑和西德克萨斯大学校园的名字。大弯国家公园（Big Bend National Park）和德克萨斯科技大学（Texas Tech University）是他一生中的另外两个纪念碑。他从不厌倦地提醒人们，他的第一笔收入来自向铁路乘客出售鸡肉（或兔子？）三明治。正如塞万提斯的传记所充分展示的那样，卡特的自我和慷慨大方将沃思堡从一座普通的集镇转变为一个全国性目的地。