Visit us for FREE Admission for all as we celebrate Art and History every First Friday evening of every month!

Fiesta dresses have been worn in New Mexico and throughout the Southwest since the early 20th century.  These outfits, also known as patio dresses, were worn during celebrations commemorating community founding, parish feast days, or other significant events.  In honor of the 311th Santa Fe Fiestas, enjoy a delightful display of colorful Fiesta dresses here at the museum. 

Photo credit: Courtesy New Mexico History Museum/T. Harmon Parkhurst

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Please join Janet Farrell Brodie, Professor Emerita of US History at Claremont Graduate University, for an ONLINE talk as she explores the history of the Trinity test and its complicated aftermath, as part of our Friends of History Lecture Series. On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, that brought about the end of World War II, the United States detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico.  Janet Farrell Brodie ...

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Please join us for Late Night Friday as we offer the public the opportunity to extend their visit at the museum and explore our amazing collections, and learn more about the historic people, places, and events, that over time touched New Mexico.

Tonight’s visit is FREE TO NEW MEXICO RESIDENTS

Photo credit: Lensic Theater, San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1935.

Photographer: T. Harmon Parkhurst Negative number: 051556

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Please join us for Late Night Friday as we offer the public the opportunity to extend their visit at the museum and explore our amazing collections, and learn more about the historic people, places, and events, that over time touched New Mexico.

Tonight’s visit is FREE TO NEW MEXICO RESIDENTS

Photo credit: Mission church at McCartys, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico

Photographer: John Candelario, Date: 1940 - 1950?

Negative Number: 165882

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A documentary about secret code shared among lesbian youth in 1970s/80s Albuquerque, New Mexico: They didn’t all know each other, but they knew how to find one another.  Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and explore an overlooked slice of New Mexico’s LGBTQIA+ history by attending “The Whistle: Screening and Filmmaker Discussion” at the New Mexico History Museum. “The Whistle” tells the story of a secret code created by and shared among young lesbians in 1970s & 80s Albuquerque as a means of self-identification and ...

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Ronald W. Davis, II, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and curator of American history at San Antonio’s Witte Museum, will present an illustrated lecture on the history of Black cowboys in the Southwest, particularly Texas, before the Civil War and in the period after Reconstruction. Davis will discuss the lived experience of Black cowboys, particularly how they navigated discrimination and racism in ranch life and during cattle drives, situations in which racial segregation was difficult to implement. Photo courtesy of Ron Tarver More ...

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Please join us for Late Night Friday as we offer the public the opportunity to extend their visit at the museum and explore our amazing collections, and learn more about the historic people, places, and events, that over time touched New Mexico.

Tonight’s visit is FREE TO NEW MEXICO RESIDENTS

Photo credit: State capitol rotunda, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Date: 1970

Photographer: Robert H. Martin, Negative number: 068301

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Please join us for Late Night Friday as we offer the public the opportunity to extend their visit at the museum and explore our amazing collections, and learn more about the historic people, places, and events, that over time touched New Mexico.

Tonight’s visit is FREE TO NEW MEXICO RESIDENTS

Photo credit: Cassell Motor Co., Lincoln Avenue at Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Photographer: T. Harmon Parkhurst, Date: ca. 1929

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