Friends of History
Explore 400 years of authentic history, culture, and architecture in the nation’s oldest capital city. From ancient Pueblos to the birth of the atomic age, our museum-trained docents bring to life the incredible true stories, colorful characters, and unique places that make Santa Fe ‘The City Different.’
Scott Andrews Founder, the Wisdom Archive Since 2014 The Wisdom Archive has been producing video portraits of masters of traditional culture for a YouTube archive. Primarily focusing on the work of Northern New Mexican elders, the Archive now includes 51 short films. Ranging from the traditional music of Antonia Apodaca and Cipriano Vigil, to…
Hannah Abelbeck Photo Archivist, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum This talk will dive deep into a set of photographs in Photo Archives collections which feature Samuel Adams, an African American Civil War veteran who later settled in New Mexico. The presentation will put Adams in context with his contemporaries and explore…
Megan Kate Nelson Author and Historian Most Americans believe that the Civil War took place only in the East—Gettysburg, Atlanta, Appomattox—and that the fight involved only the North and the South. Beginning in the summer of 1861, however, the U.S. and Confederate armies clashed with each other and with Indigenous peoples in New Mexico and…
William DeBuys Conservationist and Writer Don J. Usner …
Thomas E. Chavez Director (Retired), New Mexico History Museum; Historian The Santa Fe Trail can be of interest on many levels; from tracing its ruts, reading the journals of those who traversed it, compiling receipts of the food they ate, focusing on biographies of individual travellers, and so on. Yet, the Trail’s history has a…
Robert L. Spude, Ph.D. Regional Historian (retired), NPS Dr. Spude will take the audience on a tour of some of his favorite ghost towns around the Southwest and discuss their histories, legends and preservation. The reality of the boom-and-bust economy of the territorial period and the resultant ghost towns highlights the shockingly transitory nature of…
Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D. Professor of History, University of Texas El Paso This presentation focuses on the Apache Treaty of 1852, which is the only treaty negotiated solely with Apaches and ratified by Congress and the President. Sandwiched between the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the U.S. - Mexico War in 1848, and the…
Stephen Post Research Associate, New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies The talk will provide an overview of the Palace Seen and Unseen exhibit, which integrates documentary records with the material evidence uncovered by more than 100 years of archaeology at the Palace. Through this approach Co-curators, Stephen Post, Cordelia T. Snow, and Alicia Romero guide…
Chris Huggard, Ph.D. Professor of History, Author Terrence M. Humble Local Historian, Preservation Activist, Former Miner This presentation will offer a synopsis of two centuries of copper mining at Santa Rita, New Mexico. We will examine the “discovery” of the copper, the emergent mining techniques in the nineteenth century, and the most important era of…
Rick Hendricks State Records Administrator, New Mexico Former New Mexico State Historian This talk will discuss the way in which Pueblo Indian have fought to preserve tribal sovereignty as it related to issues of land and water from the Spanish Colonial Period to the present day. Case studies of five pueblos will be examined, four…
Leah F. Tookey Curator of History, New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum At the turn of the 20th century, most of the arid land east of Las Cruces, New Mexico was ranch land. Cattle, sheep, and goat ranches filled the Tularosa Basin, the Oscuro Range, and the surrounding countryside. Most of these ranches were…
