Tag Archives: women of the west

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert in kitchen
Negative Number 148467

Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert (1895–1991)

Raised on a ranch at La Liendre, Fabiola received a degree from New Mexico Normal School. She worked as a rural teacher and an agricultural Home Extension agent. In the 1930s, she became a charter member of La Sociedad Folklorica. An author and teacher, she dedicated her life to preserving Hispanic traditions. In 1954, she wrote “We Fed Them Cactus,” a book about growing up at La Liendre.

La Sociedad Folklorica de Nuevamexico ten year jubilee celebration at La Fonda, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Date: 1945
Negative Number 009928
Notes: Includes Fabiola C de Baca Gilbert (second from left) and Cleofas Martinez (third from right)

Roadside Marker Location: La Liendre Community, San Miguel County, NM Highway 67 at junction with NM Highway 104

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: St. Francis Women’s Club

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
San Francisco de Asis church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico
Photographer: Edward Kemp
Date: 1920 – 1930?
Negative Number HP.2014.45.15

The St. Francis Women’s Club was instrumental in raising funds to rebuild San Francisco de Asís Church, which had been condemned and demolished in about 1960. Their main fundraiser was the annual Fourth of July ceremonial, featuring dances of Nambé and participating Pueblos. By 1974, the group raised enough money to rebuild the church, and, in the process, helped to renew cultural traditions at Nambé.

Roadside Marker Location: Pueblo of Nambé; Santa Fe County, NM Hwy 4

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Sadie Orchard

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
(The notorious) Mrs. Sadie Orchard on right, in front of Ocean Grove Hotel, Hillsboro, New Mexico
Photographer: George T. Miller (?)
Date: 1895 – 1902?
Negative Number 076560

Sadie Orchard (1860-1943)

Arriving in the silver mining boomtown of Kingston in 1886, Sadie Jane Creech Orchard is arguably the most colorful woman in New Mexico history. Sadie opened brothels, worked as a prostitute, built and operated hotels and restaurants, and co-owned and drove for a regional stagecoach line. During World War I she tended to the less fortunate, and in the 1918 flu pandemic nursed children and cared for the sick and dying. New Mexico writer Erna Fergusson wrote of her, “For a bad woman, Sadie was one of the best.”

Roadside Marker Location: Hillsboro, SierraCounty, NM Hwy 152

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Kewa Women’s Co-op

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Santo Domingo Indian Trading Post, Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mexico
Creator: New Mexico Department of Tourism
Date: 1954?
Negative Number 059349

Kewa Women’s Co-op, Santo Domingo Pueblo

According to oral and recorded history, the Santo Domingo people have always made and traded jewelry. From prehistoric times heishi, drilled and ground shell beads, have been strung into necklaces. Generations of Santo Domingo women have passed down this art. Recent descendants have formed the Kewa Women’s Co-op to retain heishi and other traditions including pottery, embroidery, weaving, and Pueblo foods.

Roadside Marker Location: Pueblo of Santo Domingo; Sandoval County, US Hwy 22

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: María de la Luz Beaubien Maxwell

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Lucien Maxwell house, Cimarron, New Mexico
Photographer: Edward A. Troutman
Date: 1909
Negative Number 014621

María de la Luz Beaubien Maxwell, 1829-1900 / Maxwell Land Grant

(SIDE 1) María de la Luz Beaubien, age 13, wed fur-trapper Lucien Maxwell in 1844, forever linking her to the history of the Maxwell Land Grant and New Mexico. She was born in 1829 to Charles H. Beaubien and María Pabla Lobato. Upon the death of her father in 1864, she inherited a share of her father’s portion of the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant. Luz and her husband purchased the remaining Beaubien parcels as well as the Miranda lands, thereby owning the entire expansive tract that became known as the Maxwell Land Grant. (SIDE 2) The Maxwell Land Grant was the largest privately owned contiguous tract of land in the United States, comprising 1,714,765 acres in northeastern New Mexico and southern Colorado. It originated from the 1841 Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant that Governor Manuel Armijo made to Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda. After Beaubien’s death in 1864, his son-in-law, Lucien Maxwell, and daughter, María de la Luz, acquired the grant through inheritance and purchase. Maxwell was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in New Mexico. The Maxwells sold the land to an English company in 1870. Later disputes between settlers and grant owners characterized the history of northeastern New Mexico in the late 19th century and precipitated the Colfax County War.

Roadside Marker Location: Colfax County, US Hwy 21

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Maria Ramita Simbola Martinez, Cora Durand, and Virginia Duran

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Picurís Pueblo pottery exhibit at the first “Indian Fair,” Armory building, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Date: 1922
Negative Number 000738

Maria Ramita Simbola Martinez “Summer Harvest” (1884–1969), Cora Durand (1904–1981), and Virginia Duran (1904–1998), Picuris Pueblo

Maria Ramita Simbola Martinez, Cora Durand, and Virginia Duran helped to preserve the distinctive micaceous pottery tradition that is important in Picuris and other nearby pueblos. Made with locally mined mica-rich clay, these unusual pots have a glittery sheen. They are fired at a low temperature which makes them ideal for cooking. While valued for their utility, these pots are also now considered works of art.

Roadside Marker Location: Pueblo of Picuris; Taos County, US Hwy 75/ Indian Road, Mile Marker 11.5

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Maria Montoya Martinez

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Maria Martinez polishing pottery, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico
Photographer: Wyatt Davis
Date: 1938
Negative Number: 044192

Maria Montoya Martinez, Povika, “Pond Lily” (ca. 1886–1980)

Maria Martinez was a self-taught potter who helped elevate Pueblo pottery to a respected art form. She and her husband Julian were successful polychrome potters and together revived black pottery. Their work improved the economic conditions of the community. Recognized internationally, Maria was an innovator with strong spiritual and cultural awareness. Her skills and techniques have been carried on successfully by subsequent generations.

Roadside Marker Location: Pueblo of San Ildefonso; Rio Arriba County, US Hwy 502, Mile Marker 12.537

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Estella Garcia & the Women of the WPA, Fabric Artists

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Stella Garcia and her colcha embroidery class, Federal Art Project (WPA), Melrose, New Mexico. (Estella Garciá standing. Fourth artist from the left identified as Rita Rodríguez Chávez)
Date: circa 1936
POG Negative Number 090204

(SIDE 1) Estella García taught colcha embroidery at Melrose, New Mexico, for the Federal Arts Program in the 1930s. Anglo and Hispana women in Garcia’s class collaborated to design and produce embroidered theater curtains, wall hangings, and seat coverings for institutions across the state including the Albuquerque Little Theatre. Garcia is one of the few Hispanic women artists recorded in FAP documents. Unfortunately, few examples of her work remain. (SIDE 2) Under the umbrella of the WPA, the National Youth Administration, and the Federal Arts Program, instructors and students were recruited to work in community-based art centers that produced fabric arts, including weaving, colcha embroidery, and lace-making. While the artistic creativity of these mostly unrecognized women was considered “women’s work for home use” by WPA administrators, this now popular New Mexican art form has been revitalized.

Roadside Marker Location: Curry County, US Hwy 60/84, Mile Marker 336.18

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Nina Otero-Warren

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Maria Adelina Emilia Otero Warren (1881 – 1965), New Mexico
Date: 1930?
Negative Number: 089756

Nina Otero-Warren (1881–1965)

Maria Adelina Isabel Emilia (Nina) Otero–Warren was born into two of New Mexico’s prominent Spanish colonial families near Los Lunas. A leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement, in 1922 she was the first woman in state history to run for Congress. A political and social reformer, she worked as Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent and for the WPA. In 1936, she wrote Old Spain in Our Southwest.

Roadside Marker Location: Valencia County, Los Lunas, US Hwy 314

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division

Marking NM’s Historic Women: Cleofas Martinez Jaramillo

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Photo Credit: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives
Mrs. Cleofas Martinez Jaramillo In Her Wedding Hat
Photographer: Anderson Studio
Date: 1901
POG Negative Number 009920

Cleofas Martinez Jaramillo (1878–1956)

(SIDE 1) By the early 20th century, Spanish traditions hundreds of years old began to fade from the northern New Mexico landscape. There was concerted effort to preserve them by newly arrived artists and people whose families lived the traditions for generations. Cleofas wrote four books that record oral traditions in writing. Spanish Fairy Tales was published in 1939. A cookbook followed and after that two more about cultural traditions including Shadows of the Past, which describes the fall tradition of gathering piñon nuts in the woods around her native Arroyo Hondo. (SIDE 2) “Cleo” wrote about customs she also helped preserve and revive. By 1935 she had lost her husband and three children, but found inspiration from an article about preserving culture and clothing from the pre-Civil War South. It inspired her to found La Sociedad Folklόrica, which preserves Spanish folklore, colcha embroidery, traditional attire, tinwork, literature, dance, music, and art. The society continues to bring these traditions to new generations by making them a part of annual events and celebrations held in northern New Mexico.

Roadside Marker Location: Taos County, Arroyo Hondo, Intersection of NM Highway 522 and Sangre de Cristo Road

You can view a county by county list of the Historic Women Mile Markers in this pdf.

You can view a map of the Historic Women Mile Markers at www.nmhistoricwomen.org

March is Women’s History Month. During this month we’ll be highlighting some of the women featured on New Mexico’s Historic Women Roadside Markers. Text provided by our colleagues at New Mexico Historic Preservation Division