WPA Life Histories from New Mexico

The Library of Congress has a great website that contains New Mexican life histories recorded by the WPA writer's project. Click on this link to find over 200 stories.

Here's some more information from the website about the WPA Project:

These titles are mostly first-person accounts of life in New Mexico collected during the Great Depression. The WPA project categories include: EARLY SETTLERS, OLD TIMER STORIES, PIONEER STORIES and PIONEERS OF NEW MEXICO.

Subjects include: LOCAL HISTORY, including Civil War, Indian wars/campaigns, outlaws, land grants, architecture, roads, trails, wagon trains, prominent citizens and schools; IMMIGRATION/ETHNICITY, including Hispanic (Mexican) dress, outlook/attitudes, Indians (Comanche, Navajo, Apache) raids, trade, houses, captivity narratives, travel accounts and westward journeys; INDUSTRY/OCCUPATIONS, including ranchers, cowboys, prospector mining, buried-treasure lore, tradesmen and merchants, teachers, soldiers; and RELIGION, including Catholicsm, missions, relics.

Places mentioned include Lincoln Co., NM, Chaves Co., NM, Durango, CO, and Farmington, NM. Famous people mentioned include Kit Carson, Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, Geronimo and the writer Eugene Manlov Rhodes.

Interviews were conducted by project workers E. V. Batchler, Lorin W. Brown, James A. Burns, Marie Carter, Genevieve Chapin, Edith Crawford, W. M. Emery, Muriel Haskell, Carrie L. Hodges, Everet Houston, Joyce Hunter, Mildred Jordan, B. W. Kenney, Belle Kilgore, Bright Lynn, Lester Raines, George B. Redfield, B. A. Reuter, R. T. F. Simpson, Janet Smith, J. Vernon Smithson, Simeon Tajada, Frances E. Totty and Clay W. Vaden.

September 15, 2012 NMGS Program

Botts Hall

Albuquerque Special Collection Library

423 Central NE

Albuquerque, NM

(On the corner of Central and Edith) 

Saturday, September 15, 2012

10:30 AM – Noon

 

The Albuquerque Special Collections Library

and

The New Mexico Genealogical Society

Present

Ron Solimon

Pueblo Nations and State and Federal Government Policies

1912-2012

 The Territorial government in New Mexico did not know exactly what to do about the Pueblo Indians as they were pastoral rather than nomadic.  They enacted many laws governing these Nations and the State and Federal governments added to the confusion and ignorance after statehood was granted in 1912.  Just how did these laws and statutes affect the daily lives of the Pueblo Nations and how were they rectified?

Ron Solimon current president and CEO of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center located in Albuquerque and sits on the National Tourism Board and was a former Board member of the Laguna Development Corporation.  He has written many articles on Pueblo Indians and is in high demand as a speaker and motivator.  

For more information about our programs, check out the New Mexico Genealogical Society’s website at www.nmgs.org.

This program is free and open to the public.