Search results for ""Author Catherine Nixon Cooke""

To create the Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas mural commissioned for the 1968 World's Fair in San Antonio, Texas, Juan O'Gorman collected natural stones from all over Mexico—twelve colors in all—field stones that the artist knew would never fade or change their hue. Juan O'Gorman: A Confluence of Civilizations follows the life of O'Gorman and covers the creation of this spectacular piece of midcentury public art, which stands the test of time not just in vibrancy but as one of the most influential works created by a Mexican artist.Juan O'Gorman was a not only a painter and a muralist, a mosaic artist, a critic, and a professor; he was also an architect and a revolutionary, possibly most famous for his close friendship with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and as the designer of their two-house studio in Mexico City—Casa Azul—linked by a symbolic bridge.To celebrate San Antonio's HemisFair Exposition in 1968, O'Gorman created the giant mosaic mural that still adorns one wall of the Lila Cockrell Theater along San Antonio's famed River Walk. The five-ton mosaic measured 2,600 square feet and consisted of 540 numbered panels, each weighing about 90 pounds.

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At the center of San Antonio’s growth from a small pioneering town to a major western metropolis sits CPS Energy, the largest municipally owned energy utility in the United States and an innovator in harnessing, conserving, and capitalizing on natural energy resources.The story of modern energy in San Antonio begins in 1860, when the San Antonio Gas Company started manufacturing gas for streetlights in a small plant on San Pedro Creek, using tree resin that arrived by oxcart. The company grew from a dark, dusty frontier town with more saloons than grocery stores to a bustling crossroads to the West and, ultimately, a twentieth-first-century American city. Innovative city leaders purchased the utility from a New York–based holding company in 1942, and CPS Energy as we know it today was born.In Powering the City, Catherine Nixon Cooke discusses the rise and fall of big holding companies, the impact of the Great Depression and World War II--when 25 percent of the company’s workforce enlisted in the armed forces--on the city’s energy supply, and the emergence of nuclear energy and a nationally acclaimed model for harnessing solar and wind energy.Known and relatively unknown events are recounted, including Samuel Insull’s move to Europe after his empire crashed in 1929; President Franklin Roosevelt’s Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which made it possible for the city to purchase the San Antonio Public Service Company; the city's competition with the Guadalupe Blanco River Authority, whose champion was Congressman Lyndon Johnson, in which the city emerged victorious in a deal that today returns billions in financial benefit; legal wranglings such as one that led to the establishment of Valero Energy Corporation; and energy’s role in the Southwest Research Institute and the South Texas Medical Center, HemisFair 1968, Sea World, Fiesta Texas, and Morgan’s Wonderland.Images from CPS's archive of historic photographs, some dating as far back as the early 1900s; back issues of its in-house magazine; and the Institute of Texas Cultures provide rich material to illustrate the story.As CPS Energy celebrates seventy-five years of city ownership, the region's industrial, scientific, and technological innovation are due in part to the company’s extraordinary impact on San Antonio.

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Lila Banks Cockrell has been an important voice in San Antonio politics and public life for more than six decades. In Love Deeper Than a River, she recalls her life as a public servant in the city she loves and, as member of the Greatest Generation, recounts how coming of age during Prohibition, the Great Depression, World War II, and the burgeoning civil rights movement influenced her political views and kindled her passion to serve her country and community. Love Deeper Than a River details the era of Cockrell’s life that many San Antonians are familiar with, including her four terms as the first woman mayor of San Antonio, between 1975 and 1991, and her service on countless municipal commissions, civic boards, foundations, and conservancies in the 1990s and into the early twenty-first century. Her life stands as an inspiration for everyone, including new generations of civic leaders.

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