Comments on: Murdo Mackenzie: The most influential cattleman in America was from Scotland

By: Leland Turner

Leland Turner — Mon, 25 Apr 2016 18:27:35 +0000

By way of introduction, I am Leland Turner, Ph.D. and history professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. We are about 1 and 1/2 hours from the Matador Ranch where Mackenzie was, I believe, most effective and influential during his career.

I am currently finishing an analytical biography of Mackenzie’s career. The central question I ask is why is Mackenzie, in the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, “the most influential of cattlemen.” I posit that his influence two-fold: he introduces managed care influenced by his experience in Scotland, and he leads cattlemen, through various cattle raisers associations, on a pathway to political influence. The national cattle association, I argue was influential in the passage of important Progressive Era legislation, particularly the Hepburn Act.

Please feel free to contact me at leland.turner@mwsu.edu or (940) 397-4153.

My Master’s Thesis, “CEO on the Range: Murdo Mackenzie and the Matador Ranch in an Age of Reform, 1891-1911,” is available at the Texas Tech University library.

I have published the following on Mackenzie:

“A New Business Plan for the Matador: Murdo Mackenzie, Modern Management, and the Operational Transformation of the Matador Land and Cattle Company, 1891-1897,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 79 (2006-2007): 3-20.

“The Livestock Lobby: Murdo Mackenzie, Railroad Reform, Cattlemen’s Associations, and Progressive Legislation,” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 77 (2004): 14-34.

“A Most Influential Cattleman: Murdo Mackenzie and the Business of Ranching,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 80 (2004): 18-32.

The upcoming biography will be the first in new series at Texas A&M University Press – the Heritage of Ranching Series.

Maybe we can all share what we know of Mackenzie.
Cheers,
Leland

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 16:55:36 +0000

i am trying to get a hold of a Mackenzie clans men if you are one and read this get a hold of me at mac020999@gmail.com

By: Susan McIntosh

Susan McIntosh — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 18:18:18 +0000

Thanks so much Davine, for your comment and for the links to such fantastic resources. I am keen to know more about Murdo Mackenzie’s life in Scotland, and his own family history telling how he got to the Tain Royal Academy and then to Colorado. He certainly was not one of the starving and his life in America was never difficult. During the very brief research I have been able to undertake into his life, I have gathered the intuitive feeling that Murdo was unhappy in Scotland in the role that he was given. Was the speed and determination with which he ‘went native’ in America, i.e. became a naturalized citizen and built a life in Trinidad, indicative of having long ago ‘given up’ on Scotland? We don’t know, and it might have been a million other stories. As I said, “more to learn.”

By: Davine Sutherland

Davine Sutherland — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 23:54:49 +0000

This is one of history’s anomalies – exiled / displaced peoples seemingly unquestioningly willing to displace others in their new countries, or at least profiting from previous settlers’ clearances of indigenous peoples. The Scots are no exception. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the mantra of ‘improvement’ was a pervasive one, and Easter Ross, in some ways a fertile ‘Lowland’ outlier in the Highlands, was an area where it began early.
http://www.seaboardgaidhlig.com/2014/05/01/2014-an-ceitean-gaidhlig-ann-an-eachdraidh-machair-rois-2/
Apart from Balnagown, we see the same developments, for example, on the Novar estate of Sir Hector Munro, famous for his Fyrish monument. (http://www.seaboardgaidhlig.com/2014/01/30/2014-an-gearran-cnoc-fhaoighris-feb-fyrish/ )
The Battlefield band have a very apposite song on the topic of displacement, covering the Clearances, the Irish Potato Famine, the North American Trail of Tears, and even the Western invasion of Iraq: – worth a listen: https://youtu.be/IX3jACSixA8