Lecture Series

This month's presentation has been a collaboration between the Friends of History and Southwest Seminars (southwestseminars.org), a Santa Fe educational non-profit which offers weekly in-person lectures featuring distinguished scholars 50 Mondays a year for the past 26 years.  This nonprofit is the recipient of important historic and cultural preservation awards and a proud partner with…

Melissa J. Homestead Professor, English and Program Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies  University of Nebraska--Lincoln  Willa Cather and Edith Lewis lived together in New York City for nearly forty years. While Cather built her career as a novelist, Lewis worked as a magazine editor and advertising writer while also, behind the scenes, editing Cather’s…

Nick Pappas Journalist, Author In October 1913, 261 miners and two rescuers died when a massive explosion ripped through a mine operated by Phelps, Dodge & Co. in Dawson, N.M. Ten years later, a second blast claimed the lives of another 120 miners. Today, all that remains is a cemetery marked by a sea of…

Dr. William “Billy” Kiser Associate Professor of History, Department Chair, Texas A&M University—San Antonio   Click here for the presentation:  https://bit.ly/3uIjHVd   During the Civil War, Mexico's North overlapped with the U.S. Southwest in the context of diplomacy and military operations.  A disparate group of historical actors vied for power and control along the U.S.-Mexico…

Rick Hendricks Former New Mexico State Historian Editor of the Vargas Project, University of New Mexico   Pablo Abeita of Isleta Pueblo was one of the most important Native leaders in the Southwest in his day. Abeita was an effective advocate for Isleta and other pueblos in New Mexico, testifying before Congress on several occasions.…

Hannah Abelbeck Curator of Photographs and Archival Collections New Mexico History Museum   The “EnchantOrama! New Mexico Magazine Turns 100” exhibition is currently on display at the New Mexico History Museum through February 16, 2024.   Collections Curator Hannah Abelbeck will discuss the EnchantOrama! exhibition and share a behind the scenes view into the Museum’s…

David C. Beyreis Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences  Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, North Carolina At the time of his violent death in 1847, Charles Bent was one of the most powerful men in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.  He first came to New Mexico in 1829 and rapidly became an economic powerbroker in the region.  Bent…

Janet Farrell Brodie Professor Emerita of US History at Claremont Graduate University On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought about the end of World War II, the United States exploded the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Valley…

 Alison Griffiths, Ph.D Distinguished Professor of Film and Media Studies at Baruch College, The City University of New York   This lecture is an ONLINE ONLY presentation, cosponsored by the New Mexico History Museum and the Friends of History in conjunction with the Museum's exhibit, Honoring Tradition and Innovation: 100-Years of Santa Fe's Indian Market,…

Shelby Tisdale. Ph.D Retired Director, Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO Former Director, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, NM In the first half of the twentieth century, the canyons and mesas of the Southwest beckoned and the burgeoning field of archaeology thrived. Among those who heeded the…

The Friends of History are happy to offer an encore presentation of Megan Kate Nelson’s lecture, The Civil War in the Far West. Such productions  are being offered periodically by the Friends of History. They aim to complement original online presentations which we will continue to present in the months ahead.  We think you will…