Happy 100th Birthday to the State of New Mexico!

Today, January 6th, marks the 100th anniversary of New Mexico’s statehood. In 1848, the land was cededed to the United States by Mexico via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the territory was later admitted as a state of the union in 1912 when President Taft signed the statehood declaration.

This image, showing the entrance of an adobe home in Paguate,  was taken by photographer Edward S. Curtis, ca 1925. His  tome The North American Indian attempted to chronicle what he called a “vanishing race”. The Smithsonian Libraries holds a complete set of his work, donated by Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, whose husband had conducted an expedition to Alaska, with Curtis as photographer, in 1899. To learn more about Curtis, click through our online exhibit here. To learn more about the State of New Mexico and their centennial activities click here.