The First World War exhibition investigates the contributions of New Mexicans to the war, through letters, photographs and objects.

“New Mexico played an important role in both world wars,” said Andrew Wulf, Director of the New Mexico History Museum. “We are proud to be able to recognize and remember that contribution and add The First World War as a permanent exhibition, to underscore the sacrifice and heartfelt letters home from these brave soldiers.”

Santa Fe is widely recognized as a city of museums. These beloved institutions and their exhibitions have long been integral to the fabric of local culture. On Exhibit: Designs That Defined the Museum of New Mexico, presents a fascinating look back at more than a century of changing exhibition design in the historic state museum system. This “exhibit about exhibits” reveals how presentation techniques evolved and helped establish the unique character of the Santa Fe’s museums.

The Atomic Histories exhibit explores the most famous events, sometimes little known stories, and inventions born here which impact our lives, and helps to recognize the remarkable contributions of thousands of people involved in writing New Mexico’s Atomic Histories for the last 75 years. 

Curated by Melanie LaBorwit, Educator with the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors.

Photo courtesy of the Los Alamos Historical Society Archives 

Before radio and television, when making music at home was the evening’s entertainment and playing the piano was considered an essential talent among the middle class, sheet music was the music consumer’s gateway to the world.”  The New Mexico History Museum celebrates this era with sheet music of popular songs about the State of New Mexico, dating from the mid-19th through the mid-20th centuries, in the new exhibition The Land That Enchants Me So. The show spotlights graphically striking sheet-music covers published from 1840s through about 1960, along with other printed materials, sound recordings, and memorabilia relating to New Mexico and its musical life.

Will Rogers noted that Fred Harvey “kept the West in food—and wives.” But the company’s Harvey Girls are by no means its only legacy. From the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway’s 1879 arrival in New Mexico to the 1970 demolition of Albuquerque’s Alvarado Hotel, the Fred Harvey name and its company’s influence have been felt across New Mexico, not to mention the American West. The company and its New Mexico establishments served as the stage on which people such as Mary Colter were able to fashion an “authentic” tourist experience, along with Herman Schweizer who helped drive the direction of Native American jewelry and crafts as an industry.

Setting the Standard: The Fred Harvey Company and Its Legacy, a new section that joins the New Mexico History Museum’s main exhibit, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now, helps tell those stories. Opening December 7, Setting the Standard uses artifacts from the museum’s collection, images from the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives and loans from other museums and private collectors. Focusing on the rise of the Fred Harvey Company as a family business and events that transpired specifically in the Land of Enchantment, the tale will leave visitors with an understanding of how the Harvey experience resonates in our Southwest today.

Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now, the main exhibition of the New Mexico History Museum, sweeps across more than 500 years of stories - from early Native inhabitants to today’s residents - told through artifacts, films, photographs, computer interactives, oral histories and more. Together, they breath life into the people who made the American West: Native Americans, Spanish colonists, Mexican traders, Santa Fe Trail riders, fur trappers, outlaws, railroad men, scientists, hippies and artists.

Begin collecting art, jewelry, pottery and more from the next generation of Native American artists and craftspeople.

Children and Grandchildren of artists associated with the Palace of the Governors’ Portal Program will demonstrate and sell their own arts and crafts in the New Mexico History Museums’ Meem Community Room.

Free event

Come learn about block printing and print out your own patterned wrapping paper.

Custom make your own to take home!

All ages welcome. NM residents free first Sunday of each month.

Please join Jack Loeffler, Author, Aural Historian, and Radio Producer, and Frank McCulloch, Fine Artist and Folk Musician, for a free Auditorium talk, as part of our Friends of History Lecture Series.

Seating is limited-Bottled water only please

Santa Fe’s beloved Christmas at the Palace brings the community together for an evening of hot cider, cookies, live music, a chance to operate an antique printing press, old fashioned activities, a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Claus -- all in the legendary magic of the Palace of the Governors. A free, family event. (Donations of non-perishable food welcomed.)

The History Museum and Palace will close at 3 p.m. to prepare for this event. 

Enter through the Palace at 105 W. Palace Ave. The History Museum will remain closed during the event.

Free event

The annual candle-lit procession of Las Posadas travels around the Santa Fe Plaza and concludes in the Palace Courtyard. This version of an old Hispanic tradition, celebrated around the world, recreates Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to give birth to the Baby Jesus—and includes innkeepers who deny the Holy Family a place of rest. You are invited to stay for carols, cookies and hot cider in the Palace Courtyard. Free.

The History Museum and Palace will close at 3 p.m. to prepare for this event.

Free event

Museum Christmas Holiday Closure 10:00 am to 5:00 pm

Notice:The New Mexico History Museum and Palace of the Governors will be closed for the Christmas Holiday on Tuesday, December 25, only. We will re-open on Wednesday, December 26.

Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!