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Following Old Trails, Blazing the New:

Museums & Community

June 1 - 5, 2007

Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Order the 2007 Proceedings

 

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Minutes of the 2007 ALHFAM Annual Business Meeting are now available to be read online or downloaded.

Open/Download a PDF Version of the Minutes

Open/Download a MS Word Version of the Minutes

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Marc Simmons is a kindred spirit -- “a historian’s historian,” a “maverick historian,” and possibly “New Mexico’s most important historian, living or dead.” Dr. Simmons is an independent scholar who has published at least forty-three books, over 1,400 magazine and newspaper articles, over fifty scholarly articles, and seventy-four chapters or introductions in books by other authors. He is an undisputed authority on Spanish Colonial New Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail, and the life and times of Kit Carson. Dr. Simmons is a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship to carry out a study of Hispanic agriculture in New Mexico. In 1991, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture recognized him for his work. Marc Simmons is also noted for his maverick lifestyle. He lives in an adobe house he built himself and does all of his writing on a manual typewriter because he resides without electricity and other modern conveniences. Early in his career he worked as a trained farrier and apprenticed with noted blacksmith Frank Turley, of Santa Fe. Together Simmons and Turley researched and published the standard Southwestern Colonial Ironwork: The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition from Texas to California. On Wednesday afternoon Dr. Simmons will join us at Las Golondrinas for a book sale and signing of his many works.

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Dan Shilling, Director of the Civic Tourism Project in Prescott, Arizona and nationally recognized for his work in cultural heritage tourism, has an important message for public historians. He encourages business, civic and cultural leaders to use tourism to serve the preservation and maintenance of place rather than using place to serve the tourism economy.
He argues that towns that focus on building a healthy place for residents will ultimately attract high-value visitors wanting to experience livable communities. Conversely, towns that put too much emphasis on attracting tourists risk destroying place, and alienating residents. Community stewards should help design a vision for tourism that is as good for residents as it is for visitors. To put this message into effect, Dr. Shilling lobbied the US Congress and the Arizona Legislature for museum funding; developed studies on the economic impact of heritage tourists, edited a seminal publication for museums and other practitioners; and worked closely with the Arizona Office of Tourism to advance heritage tourism. Dr. Shilling will share his recent research on this topic and discuss how the tourism industry and cultural institutions can work together to promote both economic development and the preservation of place.

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As a community and public historian, Andrew Gulliford believes that we have much to learn from native peoples about the land and landscape. He has traveled thousands of miles over a ten-year period to meet and interview tribal elders, visit sacred places, and discuss the power of sacred objects in order to present the essential debates surrounding tribal historic preservation. His book Sacred Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions is one of the results of this effort. Dr. Gulliford reminds us that today, Indian communities are defined by the native peoples who live in them, not just by contiguous blocks of land. Present-day Indians reside everywhere. Native peoples can reshape the American preservation movement and lead us to think deeply about the relationship between place and spirituality and the convergence of myth and landscape. They bring to historic preservation and archaeology an entirely different perspective—a perspective that must be both respected and supported. Dr. Gulliford, professor of Southwest Studies and history at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, is the recipient of a Take Pride in America National Award from the secretary of agriculture for “outstanding contributions to America’s natural and cultural resources,” and the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History.