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.