How Did Oil Change The University Of Texas

Imagine if oil hadn’t been discovered, then Texas would not have been socially impacted. How was our state impacted by the oil discovery in January or 1901. Social change, or a change in behavior patterns and culture values, can be caused by multiple things. Having a social change occur when you are alive and have had thing the same your whole life, must be scary. Social change could impact many things like oil and the University of Texas, minorities in West Texas, and divorce rates in the Permian Basin. Texas was changed and the change was permanente.

In 1858 is when the impact of oil helped change the Universities of Texas. It all started when the Texas legislature in 1858 put aside around a million acres of land for a future university.

A situation that was negative during the oil discoveries in the early 20th century was not everyone benefited from the jobs, discovery, ect. Mexican and African Americans were mostly the the ones who did not benefit from the oil drilling because they could not get good jobs. The only jobs that Mexican an African American’s could get were unskilled jobs. Unskilled jobs like house cleaning, clearing land, and carrying baggages. In 1949, Willsie Lee Mckinney, an African American women, moved to the booming Midland because she realized that she could make more money a day their than in other places. In Willsie’s words “I could make one dollar per hour for domestic work… so if I worked ten hours that day, I had ten dollars.” During this time in East Texas this amount of money per day was a good wage. Willie's jobs that she worked was based off of oil prosperity by a chain reaction because as oil tycoon became wealthier they had bigger houses that needed to be kept, and so these oil tycoons would hire people to clean their houses. Oil brang social change to Mexican and African Americans like Willsie because it offered a chance for these people to make more money. Because these people were making a ‘good wage’ it offered them chances to have better houses, better education, and a better

As more oil was discovered the rates of divorce rose higher and higher. In the U.S during 1926, there was 1.6 total. In 1929 and 1930 the divorce rates were 1.7 and 1.6. The later years of the 1920s had higher divorce rates, but during the 1930s the divorce rates started to lower back down and became 1.5 and 1.3. In 1930 Ector County, Texas had 37.4 people get divorced on average. The reason that oil had the effect on the family’s in the oil business was the more oil they drilled the more money they got. The money was a big issue for families then and now. Oil discovery caused social change in Texas by causing financial issues and that led to higher divorce rates during this