“Made in Texas by Texans”

“Made in Texas by Texans” was a bumper sticker in the 1940s proudly displayed by vehicles from Texas’s Ford plant. In 2006, Toyota trucks began to manufactured at a San Antonio plant, using the same “Made in Texas by Texans” slogan.
 
 
Dallas Historical Society
Dallas History Message Board
Re: Ford Plant 1900’s
Posted By: Lee Chevalier

Date: Thursday, 15 November 2001, at 4:51 p.m.

In Response To: Ford Plant 1900’s (Tim)
The Ford plant was opened in 1935, I think. It was on Grand Avenue, approximating the location of the very large plant that grew with war production in the 40’s. “Made in Texas, for Texans, by Texans” I think the stickers said in the fifties and sixties in many windows. The physical plant was the biggest industry in East Dallas for decades. The site is now sub-let to various industries, chiefly for storage. It did include UAW production for most, if not all, of its life: like General Motors’ plant in Arlington, a union-based profit center in a right-to-work state.   
 
Motor Trend Community
Toyota Introduces 2007 Tundra, the Pickup Truck Made in Texas, By Texans, for Texans
As New Truck Comes to Market, Texas Region’s Sales for Toyota Counter
Industry-Wide Trends
 
DALLAS, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/—At the State Fair of Texas preview today, Toyota rolled out for the first time two prototypes of its 2007
Tundra pickup truck, which will be assembled in its new billion-dollar truck plant in San Antonio. 
   
13 April 1930, Dallas Morning News, part 1, pg. 12 ad:
TRINITY
THE DEPENDABLE BRAND OF PORTLAND CEMENT
Made
in TEXAS
by TEXANS
for TEXANS
     
Google Books 
1947, Western Folklore, pg. 148:
...where partisan and ultrapatriotic attempts to stamp the tradition as made in Texas by Texans may be seen for the vanities which they are. 
       
22 May 1949, Dallas Morning News, section XV, pg. 6:
“Built in Texas by Texans.”
A simple slogan that, but it is the key to the success of the Dallas Ford plant.
   
12 January 1950, Waukesha (WI) Daily Freeman, “Wisconsin Skeptics,” pg. 6:
Chuck Kirkeeng got a chuckle from a car he saw parked on Main street the other day.It had one of those signs above the license plate plugging the driver’s home territory. This one said: “Made in Texas by Texans.” Above it someone had scrawled in the dust that covered the car, “How did you ever get this far?”
   
14 September 1950, Lowell (MA) Sun, pg. 33, col. 3:
When the Detroit Lions invaded Texas for an exhibition, Rookie Gus Cifelli, from Philadelphia via Notre Dame, was fascinated by displays of stickers reading: “Made in Texas, by Texans.”
 
23 June 1955, Los Angeles Times, pg. A5:
Texans have a way of infuriating people unnecessarily. Like those automobile stickers, “Made in Texas by Texans.” Who else would live there?
       
13 December 1959, Dallas Morning News, “Ford to Note Texas Years,” section 1, pg. 6:
Ford, the auto that made famous the slogan “Built in Texas by Texans,” celebrated its 50th birthday in the state this week.
(...)
Ford has built 2,300,000 passenger cars and trucks in Texas since establishing its Dallas plant Dec. 17, 1909.
(...)
The “built in Texas” slogan started in 1936 at the Centennial Exposition. Actually it first was “Assembled in Texas by Texas Labor.” That was boiled down to the present saying in 1948. It is easily one of the most parodied ad slogans in existence.
 
Google Books
Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam
by Larry Berman
W. W. Norton & Company
1991
Pg. 114:
We have a story in Texas about Ford automobiles carrying a slogan on the trunk of each car that said, “Made in Texas by Texans for Texans.” My motto now is, “Peace in South Vietnam for South Vietnam and by South Vietnamese.”
—President Lyndon Johnson’s private remarks to the Pope,
December 22, 1967. The Vatican.
       
Google Books
Car People: America’s Love Affair with Cars
by Richard Merrill Dalton, Jr.
Xlibris Corporation
2001
Pg. 29:
The best-recorded year for the auto sales industry was probably 1955. That was the high water mark and the people in the business have since through hook, crook and American Ingenuity held the business together. That was the era when Fords with bullet noses rolled around with a back window sticker that read “Made In TEXAS By Texans.”