Women of New Mexico: Depression Era Images

by Marta Weigle (Editor)

An intriguing collection of archival photographs from the late 1930s and 1940s, depicting women's lives in rural New Mexico. Noted photographers Dorthea Lange, Russell Lee, John Collier, Arthur Rothstein and others produced these compelling images for the Farm Security Administration as part of the WPA project. The images, many showing women cooking, washing, and celebrating, are supplemented by descriptive accounts of women's life and work. Women tell, in their own words, how they made soap, quilted, made bread in primitive horno ovens, canned foods, and celebrated life's joys and life's passings. Women of New Mexico shows the human side of a time when both hard work and community effort was essential to survival. The New Deal and Folk Culture Series."... a vivid portrait of a vanished existence". -- Los Angeles Times, Book Review

"... offers a glimpses of the authentic world of rural New mexico beyond the stereotypes ..". -- The Santa Fe New Mexican

129 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1993