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Research dossier · People & Ideas

James E. Ferguson

American banker and politician (1871–1944)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

James Edward Ferguson Jr., known as Pa Ferguson, was an American Democratic politician who served as the 26th governor of Texas from 1915 to 1917. He was indicted and impeached during his second term, removed from office, and barred from holding further Texas office.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James E. Ferguson” is american banker and politician (1871–1944). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Ferguson and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1915, 1917—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, James, Ferguson and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american banker and politician (1871–1944)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1915 and 1917.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James E. Ferguson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James E. Ferguson primary sources, James E. Ferguson archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James E. Ferguson”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James E. Ferguson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.