Books:

I'll work from the broadest studies down to the most specific, beginning with a good up-to-date survey of Texas history:

Campbell, Randolph B. Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State. New York: Oxford, 2003.

Recent books dealing with the Alamo in history and in American imagination include:

Brear, Holly Beachley. Inherit the Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Shrine. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Flores, Richard R. Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002.

Matovina, Timothy M. The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

Nofi, Albert A. The Alamo and the Texas War of Independence, September 30, 1835 to April 21, 1836: Heroes, Myths, and History. New York: Da Capo Press, 2001 (Good short study of the Alamo as part of the Texan struggle with Mexico).

Roberts, Randy, and James S. Olson. A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory. New York: Free Press, c2001.

Thompson, Frank T. The Alamo: A Cultural History. Dallas, TX: Taylor Trade Publishing, c2001.

The following is a collection of essays by the author of the article you've just read in this issue of History Now. They cover topics such as the natural and environmental history of the city, its urban development, and its future:

Miller, Char. Deep in the Heart of San Antonio: Land and Life in South Texas. San Antonio: Trinity University Press 2004.

Here is another interesting collection of essays by Miller and other authors:

Miller, Char. On The Border: An Environmental History of San Antonio . Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, c2001.

The history of Texans of Mexican ancestry in the Texas Republic and the State of Texas is discussed in:

Alonzo, Armando C. Tejano Legacy: Rancheros and Settlers in South Texas, 1734 -1900. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, c1998.

Anderson, Gary Clayton. The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, c2005.

De Leon, Arnoldo. Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History. 2d. ed. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1999.

Tijerina, Andrés. Tejanos and Texas Under the Mexican Flag, 1821-1836. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, c1994.

These books examine the lives of Mexican Americans in San Antonio and South Texas:

Garcia, Richard A. Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class: San Antonio, 1929- 1941. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, c1991.

Rosales, Rodolfo. The Illusion of Inclusion: The Untold Political Story of San Antonio. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.

For the fascinating story of German immigration to Texas, see:

Jordan, Terry G. German Seed in Texas Soil: Immigrant Farmers in Nineteenth Century Texas. University of Texas Press, 1966.

Websites

You can find Kennedy's remarks in San Antonio, September 12, 1960, at this Website:

http://www.jfklink.com/speeches/jfk/sept60/jfk120960_alamo.html

His longer, more formal speech to Houston clergy later that day is online at the Kennedy Library site:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk
/Speeches/ JFK/JFK+Pre-Pres/Address+of+Senator+John+F.+Kennedy+to+the+Greater+
Houston+Ministerial+Association.htm

For topics related to Remembering the Alamo, you can't do better than the Handbook of Texas online. This absolutely wonderful online encyclopedia of Texas history is the product of collaboration between the Texas State Historical Association and the libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. You'll find up-to-date articles by qualified scholars with generous bibliographies. The only quibble you might have is that the many cross references between articles aren't hotlinked. The quality of the essays is so high, though, that you won't mind copying the essay titles into the search box:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/

A search for " San Antonio," for instance, produces 2000 hits, reported in order of relevance, beginning, of course, with the essay on San Antonio and continuing with helpful related "hits":

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/hds2.html

There are equally helpful results from searches for "Germans":

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/GG/png2.html

And "Mexicans":

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/MM/pqmue.html

and the Alamo itself:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/uqa1.html

And don't forget Spanish Texas and Spanish Missions:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/nps1.html

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/its2.html

The Texas State Historical Association also has a very active education program. Not surprisingly, their lesson plans are geared to needs of Texas students, but they're useful outside the Lone Star State as well:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/tools/lessonplans/browse/index.php#topic

I'm partial to their "Student Guides" page – lists of topics popular among students and teachers, with links from them to relevant essays in the online Handbook:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/tools/studentguides/guide1.html# 12.%20Late%2019th/Early%2020th%20Century%20Texas

To be on the safe side, keep an eye on the general website for new programs. Who knows what these imaginative folks will come up with in the future:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/education/programs.html

More specialized websites around San Antonio include the one for the Alamo itself:

http://www.thealamo.org/main.html

For the moment, however, the lesson plans here are limited to how to build a model of the Alamo:

http://www.thealamo.org/lesson.html

The "Suggested Readings" page is more helpful:

http://www.thealamo.org/readings.html

As is the list of "links" for further work in Texas history:

http://www.thealamo.org/links.html

You'll find better curriculum material at the site for the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park:

http://www.nps.gov/saan/forteachers/curriculummaterials.htm

Our friends at PBS are here to help as well. The website for the PBS program Remember the Alamo boasts excellent suggestions for "active learning"; i.e., class discussion topics:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/alamo/tguide/index.php

Their "New Perspectives on the West" section provides interesting pieces on less well known figures in South Texas history like Juan Cortina and Juan Seguin:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/

The Library of Congress's "American Memory" continues to provide valuable, well designed collections, too. You might to look first at the "South Texas Border, 1900-1920," collection of photographs of the lower Rio Grande Valley mounted in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/txuhtml/runyhome.html

Don't forget to use the "Collection Connection" link for practical suggestions on using the collection with your students:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/tex/history.html

American Memory boasts transcripts of three interviews with German immigrants to Texas:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/riseind/
immgnts/german.html

I'll close with my favorite discovery for this segment: the Texas German Dialect Project at the University of Texas at Austin. While the project's goal is the preservation of the German-based dialect that developed in Texas, it has an excellent set of links for further study of this immigrant group: