and revealing notes by the editor. Also, at the end of the book are
some cryptic and helpful editorial comments on some of the early
biographies of Jackson. This bit of contemporary literature is
highly recommended to all who thrill at reading Confederate
material written with finesse and daring.
Southwest Texas State Teachers College
Texas Yankee; the Story of Gail Borden. By Nina Brown Baker.
Illustrated by Alan Moyler. New York (Harcourt, Brace
and Co.), 1955. Pp. 129. $2.50.
In her latest book Texas Yankee; the Story of Gail Borden,
Nina Brown Baker adds one more sketch to her fine gallery of
portraits of famous leaders, done for young people. Gail Borden
is presented not only as the inventor of a method of condensing
milk, but also as a skilled surveyor, a school teacher, a customs
collector, a newspaper editor, and a pioneer Texas citizen.
It is an absorbing story, as Mrs. Baker tells it, beginning when
Gail was a twelve-year-old lad in his native New York farm home.
His eagerness to come to the frontier kept him awake through-
out most of one cold January night, while he waited to hear the
boom and crack of the melting river ice. His father had promised
that the family would head for the Kentucky frontier in their
new flat-boat as soon as the ice broke. Gail was waiting up to
The same zeal, coupled with a dogged determination, that held
him alert on that wintry night, triggered him to action and kept
him working on numerous projects all his life. One of these was
the preservation of food. The difficulties of long journeys through
the forests and across the frontier were greatly increased for the
children by the lack of an easily transported food. Gail Borden
knew that clean milk was good food for children, yet the only
way they could have it on an extended trip was to take along the
cow. Rough boat trips often made the cow ill, and thus ruined
the milk for food. Although Borden possessed no scientific train-
ing and had had almost no schooling, he set at the task of finding
a way to preserve milk, using the simple method of trial and error.
It was a long road, but the Borden industry of today is thriving
Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 59, July 1955 - April, 1956. Austin, Texas. The Portal to Texas History. http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101162/. Accessed August 28, 2015.