The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition

by Chris Wilson

A wave of publicity during the 1980s projected Santa Fe to the world as an exotic tourist destination--America's own Tahiti in the desert. The Myth of Santa Fe goes behind the romantic adobe facades and mass marketing stereotypes to tell the fascinating but little known story of how the city's alluring image was quite consciously created early in this century, primarily by Anglo-American newcomers. By investigating the city's trademark architectural style, public ceremonies, the historic preservation movement, and cultural traditions, Wilson unravels the complex interactions of ethnic identity and tourist image-making. Santa Fe's is a distinctly modern success story--the story of a community that transformed itself from a declining provincial capital of 5,000 in 1912 into an internationally recognized tourist destination. But it is also a cautionary tale about the commodification of Native American and Hispanic cultures, and the social displacement and ethnic animosities that can accompany a tourist boom.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Grad School

420 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[Parsa Taheripour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vital pre-Santa Fe trip reading

[Lucrecia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for both newcomers and native New Mexicans. My big problem with this book is that it desperately needs a good edit. Even so, the information in here still makes it worth the read.

[Alex Milton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Wilson’s The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tradition presents the regional identity of Santa Fe as manufactured to serve regional tourism interests. The book focuses on the evolution of regional identity within New Mexico beginning with early infusions of Spanish and indigenous architectural style in the seventeenth century. Most of the chapters focus on Anglo-American rejection of Pueblo aesthetic in the nineteenth century and the subsequent adoption of the style in the early and mid twentieth century. Relying heavily on research into New Mexican art and architecture, Wilson asserts that tai-cultural narratives of Santa Fe as a blend of Anglo-American, Spanish American, and Native American over-simplifies Native American culture, cultural hybridization, and inter-cultural tensions. He contends that the Museum of New Mexico was at the center of the myth of a tri-cultural Santa Fe, emphasizing on their role in removing Anglo-American modifications to Pueblo architecture. His book serves as a powerful resource for public historians in understanding the power that historical institutions hold in shaping identity.

[Nathan Frankel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a frequent visitor to Santa Fe (my in-laws live there), I found this book very interesting and well worth reading. From my first visit when I was intrigued with the entire city, to subsequent visits when I began to sense the place was an "adobe Disneyland", I have been wanting to learn more. I now have a much fuller sense of how the city and region have come to be the way they are.

It took me quite awhile to finish this book, I would put it aside and pick it up again weeks later. Some of the chapters spent many pages going into obscure architectural details I don't think I really needed to know about. At times I felt I was reading an academic work on gothic and Romanesque architecture features. I'd give this a 5 if about 50 pages of architectural details were omitted, or just glossed over. Other than that, I'd suggest this book to anyone with an interest in New Mexican history or cultural myth-making in general.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The adoption of the design-review ordinance also stimulated interest in Santa Fe's historic architecture and in historic preservation as distinct from restoration. When the planning commission surveyed the city to identify significant buildings in 1956, "to its utter amazement, it found that only some twenty-five buildings comprised the great antiquity of this world-renowned tourist mecca!" So successful had the museum been in its romantic image making that not only had many historic structures been replaced with revival style buildings, but people had come to prefer the revival fantasy to the historic reality. [260]

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only a concise architectural history but also a detailed account of the ethnic development of Santa Fe natives. Included is the controversial history of the Spanish conquest and the Pueblo revolt.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good work, detailing how the architecture of Santa Fe is a remarkably clear record of the post-modern world's interest in (and creation of) historicity.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Critiques the "made" SF, which as my friends there say, "was all mudded over."

My favorite building, an adobe that was painstakingly repainted with a federal grant to look like brick, because that's what was done 100 years ago, sitting next to all the brick buildings covered over to look like adobe, because that's what SF is supposed to look like now.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not finish this book simply due to lack of time. If you like Southwest and New Mexico history, this is a good read specifically about architecture in Santa Fe. The next time I travel to Santa Fe, I will have a lot more knowledge of the architecture to put to use! I intend to finish the book someday, but I've had it checked out for 3 months...

[Marcia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. The "myth" proported by the author is really the historical legacy of the Native American Indians and the Spanish invaders -- not the result of a Chamber of Commerce conspiracy to drum up tourism. Jeez!