Statehood Website Opens New Mexico History to All

Hardly anyone remembers that the City of Albuquerque once had a baseball team named the Maroons.  But here they are smiling at us from 1851, a time when New Mexico was barely a territory of the United States.  It is one of the tens of thousands of images on a new website hosted by UNM Libraries. The archive is available online.

Director of the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections and Associate Dean of University Libraries Michael Kelly says the most interesting thing about the New Mexico Statehood website hosted by University Libraries is the unexpected glimpses it offers of New Mexico’s history.

In the following interview Michael Kelly talks about the archive.

 In 2007, the UNM Center for Regional Studies funded the Center for Southwest Research to build a searchable collaborative digital archive for the public.  Images from the collections of  The Albuquerque Museum, Farmington Museum, Hubbard Museum of the West, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, New Mexico History Museum Chávez History Library Photo Archives, New Mexico State University Library, Roswell Museum and Art Center,  Silver City Museum, and University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections, Center for Regional Studies and University Art Museum have been digitized and added to the archives over the past several years. 

Kelly says the real benefit for most people interested in New Mexico history is the opportunity to look at tens of thousands of photographs, films, and documents at one web site.  He says the information has been scattered throughout the state, but has never before been available in one place.  He’s hoping history buffs will go to nmstatehood.unm.edu often.  The website allows anyone to set up a blog and begin discussions about particular historic subjects.  It also has special sections for teachers who want to use it in their curriculum.

It’s a special trip back into New Mexico’s not very distant history.