New Mexico Features
Small Business Resource Guide Navajo Codetalkers Civilian Conservation Corps Visiting Washington D.C. New Mexico Senators Historic New Mexico Photos Veterans History Project Students Page

New Mexico Statehood


Introduction and Welcome


New Mexico's entry as the forty-seventh state on January 6, 1912 is a story that begins much earlier and continues to the present.

Welcome, then, to this website exploring that timeline.  The entries on this site are organized around a study of the federal presence in New Mexico, with special emphasis given the years between 1898 and 1945.  Examined are three sets of federal "actors": the president and the Congress, federal departments and agencies, and federal officials. These, in turn, are situated in New Mexico's development as well as within national and even international events.

New additions to the website will appear periodically, clustered into these seven major topical headings (in order of appearance):   

  1. Oil in NM 1900-1930
  2. World War I
  3. Attaining Statehood
  4. The Progressive Era in New Mexico
  5. Business in New Mexico in the 1920s
  6. The Depression Era
  7. World War II

The entries on these pages are excerpts of a much larger narrative being developed by the Center for Regional Studies at the University of New Mexico's Zimmerman Library and coordinated by David V. Holtby.  Please visit the "Credits" section of this site for a further listing of those involved with the project.

I am grateful to the Center for Regional Studies and the UNM Libraries for allowing me to share this information with you.