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On a recent field trip to see historical markers in New Mexico’s capital Santa FeSeventh grade student Raffi Paglayan noted the range of careers and contributions women have made.
Paglayan’s favorite was Katherine Stinson Otero, a skywriter who was one of the first women to obtain a pilot’s license in the US, after Stinson Otero contracted tuberculosis while driving an ambulance. First World WarShe went away new mexico and began a second career as a renowned architect.
“She looks great,” Paglayan said, smiling.
Introducing New Mexicans to the women of the state’s history is the goal of a decades-long program that has installed nearly 100 roadside markers highlighting significant contributions by women from or associated with New Mexico. Now the New Mexico Historical Women’s Marker Program is moving forward to create a curriculum for schools based on her research.
“It is so important that all students, not just female students, but every student have the ability to recognize and see the importance of those who have worked so much to create what we have,” said Lisa Nordstrom, director of education and the middle school teacher who took Paglayan and her classmates on the field trip.
The record is being corrected
Road marking efforts began decades ago. Pat French, founding member of the International Women’s Forum – New Mexico, a leadership and networking group, noticed in the 1980s that hardly any women were mentioned on any of the state’s historical roadside markers. In 2006, the group received state funding to work with the New Mexico Department of Transportation to replace it.
Over the years, the group visited different counties and Native American communities, asking for stories about important women in their history. The research compiled the biographies of dozens of women from the pre-colonial period to the period of Spanish and Mexican territory and the time when New Mexico became a state.
Now those women’s stories are displayed on 6-foot signs across the state and in an online database. While some honor famous historical figures such as American modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe and the First Lady of New Mexico Secretary of State Soledad Chávez de Chacón, among many others, includes local women whose stories have not been widely told.
For example, Evelyn Vigil and Juanita Toledo are remembered for reviving the Pecos Pueblo style of pottery in the 1970s, after the indigenous Pecos Pueblo population had been decimated by years of disease and warfare in the 1890s and pottery-making techniques had been lost.
“There’s just a sense of justice about it,” said program director Chris Petterson. “These women put in so much effort and made all these contributions, and they’re not recognized, and that’s just wrong.”
Other markers are dedicated to women’s groups, such as physicians and the state’s Women Military Veterans. The collection states that the history of the state cannot be told without recognizing the conflicts that came with colonization and the wars fought over the territory.
“However, they are not the first women in our region to take up arms and defend their homes and society,” the veterans’ online vague notes read. “New Mexico is a state of culturally diverse people who have protected themselves for many centuries.”
For now, the group has stopped creating new markers, opting to maintain the current ones and focus on the educational mission.
From roadside to classrooms
10 years ago, Nordstrom had a revelation similar to French’s: the standard state history curriculum lacked women. She found the biographies online from the Marker program and began teaching their stories to her seventh grade students.
In 2022, the New Mexico Historical Women’s Marker Program received state funding to hire Nordstrom to develop a K-12 curriculum from the women’s biographies.
“We have women who wouldn’t be in any textbook,” Nordstrom said.
Funding was renewed with bipartisan support in 2024. Republican state Representative Gail Armstrong, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, believes it is important for New Mexico residents young and old to understand how the world they live in was created.
,HistoryGood or bad, it should not change. We need to remember this so we don’t make the same mistakes again and celebrate the good things that have happened,” she said.
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The Associated Press’s women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropy, a list of supporters, and funded coverage areas on AP.org.
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Vollmert reported from Lansing, Michigan.