Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas History Podcast.

Thank you for pulling up a chair to join me in talking about Texas history today.

And the podcast is going to try something new today.

As you may know, last week was our one year anniversary.

I dropped a little bonus episode on November 2nd to commemorate that

milestone and for the past year I've worked very hard to bring you journal level

scholarship and backport storytelling and I think it's worked out pretty well but as much fun as I'm

having with this podcast and as much work as I'm putting into it I'm trying not to

masquerade as an academic I do believe that Texas has more than its fair share of amateur historians, but there

is a tremendous professional history community in this state.

And I wanted to give you a peek behind the curtain and talk to a professional historian about how the pros approach Texas history and create all of the great scholarships, the books, the museums, the films that we all love.

So for today's episode, I interviewed professional historian Dr. Jody Edward Ginn.

Now Dr. Ginn got his master's from Texas State University and a PhD from the University of North Texas.

Dr. Ginn began his career in law enforcement of all things, but he went from being

an investigator for a Central Texas District Attorney to a professional historian.

Dr. Ginn has worked with many great history institutions including the Bryan Museum,

the former Texas Ranger Foundation, the Texas Historical Commission, and many others,

while also being published many times on various topics in Texas history, and he is

recognized currently as one of the premier Texas Ranger Scholars in the United States.

And in this interview you're going to hear about how and why someone goes into the field

of professional history, how professionals do their research, we'll even hear a little

about some Texas Ranger history, and even the first movie made in Texas.

...