Quote:
Originally Posted by CAVA1990
Best one so far is the one on the NM State Historian's site that Clairz recommended.
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x2 and more. It's one of the best, if not the best, history sites run by a state that I've ever seen. Lots of interesting info and lots of different ways to look at it. Kudos to NM state government for this site. Anyone interested in NM history should check it out. It also includes the NM History Forum Discussion, a space for people to engage and debate about topics related to New Mexico history
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There are many other interesting websites on NM history as well. Most of these aren't really forums but are rich in historical information for any who care to read about it. Some of them are listed below with short summaries of what they contain (some are on the NM State Historian's site; others are independent sites).
Placitas Interactive WPA Story-Map - Between 1938 and 1942, WPA employees collected almost 100 stories from the century old village known today as Placitas. During this process a unique map of the villages was sketched locating each of these stories. As part of a ‘lasting impression’ collaboration, the sketch map was re-created as an interactive map with integrated stories. See
newmexicohistory.org/placitas/placitas.html.
BTW, to Spanish-speaking people the pronunciation of WPA sounded very much like El Diablo a Pie, meaning “the Devil on foot,” which became a popular name for the program. The WPA had a tremendous impact on the national crisis and the Southwest, which was suffering from both the stock market crash and a severe drought that had created the infamous Dust Bowl. By 1935 over one half of all New Mexicans were enrolled in one of the various New Deal programs.
By 1941, total WPA expenditures were approximately $11.4 billion. About 75% of this went to public facilities and infrastructure. Lesser known is that 7% was allocated to arts projects, which included some 225,000 concerts and almost 475,000 pieces of art. Writers were also employed to document the life stories of folks across the country.
New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State is a New Mexican example of written materials produced by the WPA. It has since been republished as the
WPA Guide to 1930s New Mexico.
Sangre de Cristo Land Grant - In 1843, Mexican Governor Manuel Armijo gave Narciso Beaubien and Stephen Luis Lee one of the largest New Mexico Territory land grants in history. It would become the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, and measured over 1 million acres at the date it was granted. The NM Office of the State Historian has developed an online exhibit that focuses on a few men who helped in some way to shape the land’s story, and their partners in history, the community of people that carved from this land their homes and lives. See
www.newmexicohistory.org/landgrants/sangre_de_cristo/.
New Mexico Military History - See
www.cabq.gov/veterans/history, a website maintained by the City of Albuquerque, which contains a military history of New Mexico from the Colonial Period through the Korean War.
New Mexico Wanderings -
This was a great website, originally developed by David Pike, which when active had extensive linked pages that describe the historical background for many New Mexico sites. The original site had in-depth historical information on many places, big and small. Unfortunately, David passed away in 2005 and his site went inactive. According to his son, Art Pike, in May 2009 he was in the process of changing the site URL to
www.newmexicowanderings.com/ and planned to maintain it. The main page of this site is now up but none of the detailed pages are yet linked in. I'm hoping that Art will be able to resurrect David's work; it truly was a gem.
Art also has an interesting site of his own at
www.vivanewmexico.com/ghosts/ that has lots of information about NM places and history.
Another very interesting website is
broncoroads.com/, which has audio-video clips of New Mexico places and travels, along with some good accompanying songs/music. Some of this is more about places than history, but they're related in a lot of different ways.
New Mexico GenWeb Project - This contains a genealogical database for New Mexico, including assorted interviews/bios, birth and death notices and data, obits, etc. See the primary web page at
www.nmgenweb.us/ and also
www.usgwarchives.org/nm/nmfiles.htm for archives like the bios. The table of counties at
www.nmgenweb.us/table-of-counties.html provides county-specific links; e.g.,
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nmsierra/index.htm. This is a great historical and genealogical research resource. Drilling down into the county and personal histories makes for great supplementary reading if you’re interested.
Also see
newmexicoalhn.net/index.htm, the main page for the New Mexico American Local History Network (NM ALHN), which contains lots of genealogical and history information, including more than 2 million names and thousands of pages. Much more information than you’ll ever be interested in, but it’s a great searchable source if you’re looking for something in particular.
New Mexico American Local History Network - This is another great historical and genealogical New Mexico database resource, see
newmexicoalhn.net/index.htm for the main web page. According to the site, NM ALHN is New Mexico's history through its people. It also includes family histories and interviews, short county history summaries, birth and cemetery records, post office histories, and much more.
Southwest Crossroads - This is a dynamic, interactive, online collection of original texts, poems, fiction, maps, paintings, photographs, oral histories and films; see
southwestcrossroads.org/index.php. The site indicates it “allows users of all ages to explore the many contentious stories that diverse peoples have used to make sense of themselves and the region.” Many pages even feature 3-D images. This contains more WPA treasures. Between 1936 and 1942, writers working with the New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project, a department of the WPA, fanned out across New Mexico. They gathered information and wrote several thousand pages describing the state’s landscape and people, reporting on social and economic conditions, and recording folklore and oral histories. Many of these WPA file ended up at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives in Santa Fe, where anyone can go in and read them. In addition, the website cited above also contains a number of the oral histories related by old timers to the federal writers. Many of these histories are fascinating stuff.
New Mexico Ghost Towns - There are two good websites that have descriptions and photos of New Mexico ghost towns, as well as in other states; they are
www.ghosttowns.com and
www.ghosttowngallery.com. The latter in particular has very good photos. The former also has links to a few great old maps of New Mexico—after opening the website, select New Mexico from the pick list of states at the top of the main page and then scroll down to the list of Old Maps of New Mexico toward the bottom of the next page.
Sorry for the long-winded reply, but as you can probably tell, NM history is a bit of a hobby of mine.
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