Santa Fe—Program Director and Speakers
Scott Nadler ([email protected]) is the Program Director for The Pursuit of History: Santa Fe—creating and directing for the overall theme, organization, speakers, and special events for this event—the first Pursuit of History event not held on the East Coast.
Nadler is Founder and Principal of Nadler Strategy LLC (nadlerstrategy.com) advising corporations, business-to-business service firms, private equity, non-profits, and start-ups. He is also Senior Fellow with the Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI). His consulting work, focused on sustainability and business strategy, has taken him to North America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Scott lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He serves on the Steering Committee of the New Mexico Museum Foundation’s “Friends of History” and is also a Board member of The Keshi Foundation, a public non-profit providing sustainable pathways promoting Zuni arts, education, and economy while respecting the traditions and lifeways of the Zuni People.
Nadler is a Docent for the Walking Tour of Historic Downtown Santa Fe, under the auspices of the New Mexico History Museum. He has presented at History Camps around the U.S., including History Camp Boston, History Camp Colorado, and History Camp America. Scott has a BA in Government from Harvard University.
Nicolasa M. Chávez, MA, is the Deputy State Historian for the State of New Mexico and the former Curator of Latino/Hispano/Spanish Colonial Collections at the Museum of International Folk Art.
She received her masters degree in history with a concentration in Iberian Studies at the University of New Mexico.
A fourteenth-generation New Mexican, Chávez is a writer, curator, and historian passionate about history and the performing arts. She conducts lecture/demonstrations combining flamenco song and dance with its history as well as conducting lectures and programs on the many traditions of New Mexico, Spain and the Americas. Chávez is the author of The Spirit of Flamenco: From Spain to New Mexico and has curated and co-curated nationally recognized exhibits.
Chávez lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and continues to perform lecture demonstrations, conduct presentations and write articles related to the rich history and cultural and artistic traditions of New Mexico.
Estevan Rael-Gálvez, PhD, is the former New Mexico State Historian, and current Director of Native Bound Unbound: Archive of Indigenous Slavery (nativeboundunbound.org), a digital initiative supported by the Mellon Foundation with the goal of documenting Indigenous slavery across the Americas.
Trained as an anthropologist, historian, and Indigenous slavery scholar, Dr. Rael-Gálvez has served as the former Senior Vice President at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, and as the state historian of New Mexico.
Dr. Rael-Gálvez earned a BA in English Literature at the University of California at Berkeley and MA and PhD in American Cultures at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he wrote an award winning dissertation, recovering the experiences and histories of American Indian slavery and the unique legacy and identity in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
Dr. Rael-Gálvez is also a native son of the ancient landscape of the American Southwest, with ancestral connections to both Latino and indigenous communities.
Billy Garrett, MA, is the Executive Director of the New Mexico History Museum where he has led the rehabilitation of the Palace of the Governors and the development of an interpretive framework for the museum focused on inclusion, relevance, and engagement.
A third generation resident of the state, Garrett grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He holds a BA in Architecture and a MA in Anthropology from Arizona State University. Following college, Garrett worked for Arizona State Parks, the City of Phoenix, and as an independent consultant before embarking on a 26-year career as an architect and manager with the National Park Service, retiring in 2009. Following his retirement from the National Park Service, he returned to Las Cruces and served as a Doña Ana County Commissioner from 2010–2018.
At the National Park Service, Garrett was a principal author of the NPS Guideline on Cultural Resource Management (NPS-28), led efforts to redefine the scope and purpose of Historic Structure Reports, and expanded the use of historic buildings for park housing on a system-wide basis.
Scott Green, MA, is a Docent Manager with the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and President of the Friends of Kondike Corridor. He has also taught high school, served as an education coordinator for the Department of Cultural Affairs of New Mexico, and as a museum education curator for the State of New Mexico.
Green received his bachelors in mass communications at Towson University and his masters in public and applied history from New Mexico State University. In his current series on YouTube, shot in the Yukon, he portrays Tin Cup Kelly.
Jedadiah Douglas, who he is portraying for us, is a bit of a Zelig, having known many prominent figures of the early 1900s and been part of many important events of the era. He was a cattle drover, worked as a deputy, served during the Civil War and in the cavalry, and even performed in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Jedadiah often tells stories about his Native American friends, the Mexican vaqueros he rode with, strong women ranchers he worked for, Buffalo soldiers he befriended, and Jewish merchants from whom he bought goods.
Anne Hillerman (annehillerman.com) grew up in Santa Fe, surrounded by stories of New Mexico’s people, places, and fascinating history.
After many years as a journalist, she began writing the Chee, Leaphorn, Manuelito mysteries. Her books are inspired by the work of her father, author Tony Hillerman, who began the series. All her novels have been New York Times best sellers and her books are the basis for the Dark Winds series produced by AMC.
Ellen Bradbury Reid grew up in Los Alamos, where her father worked on the Manhattan Project. She became an art historian, and worked on Mabel Dodge Lujan’s papers at the Beinecke Library, Yale University. She served as Curator of Primitive Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and also as the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe (now the NM Museum of Art). She has published several books, including From the Far Away Nearby (on Georgia O’Keeffe); Contemporary Mexican Art and Design; I Wear the Morning Star, a catalog of material culture related to the Native American Ghost Dance of the 1890s; and, A Nuclear Family: Coming of Age in Oppenheimer’s Secret City (2023). More recently she has been working on the history and legacy of the Manhattan Project, serving as a consultant for Race for the World’s First Atomic Bomb: A Thousand Days of Fear (PBS/BBC, 2015). She has published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, and organized the conference, “Legacies of the Manhattan Project,” held in 2015 at the Santa Fe Institute.
Hampton Sides, PhD, (hamptonsides.com) is the author of New York Times bestselling narrative histories Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, In the Kingdom of Ice, On Desperate Ground, and most recently, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook.
Hampton has been a contributor to Outside, National Geographic, Smithsonian, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and many other publications. A native of Memphis and a Yale graduate, Dr. Sides is a board member of the Society of American Historians, the Author’s Guild, and the School for Advanced Research. He has an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Colorado College and lives in Santa Fe.
Lee Wright, MS, moved to New England in 2005, bought an old house (ca. 1780), and was soon serving on the boards of his local historical society and historical commission. He started The History List (thehistorylist.com) in 2011 and History Camp (historycamp.org) in 2014.
In 2019 he co-founded The Pursuit of History after seeing the success of History Camp and believing that there was a need for more History Camps and more innovative ways to engage people with history.
Wright has spoken at the New England Museum Association conference and the annual conference of the America Association for State and Local History. He has held product and marketing management positions at Fortune 500 firms and has worked extensively with new ventures, including as a founder, consultant to founders, and as a member of the management teams in several different technology fields.
Wright is from the Midwest and has lived in Washington, Chicago, and Dallas before moving to New England. He holds a Masters of Management from Northwestern University and lives in Marlborough, Massachusetts.
Participating Sites
Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in the U.S., founded in 1610, and the highest in elevation at 7,000 ft. The city is the historic hub of the southwest, connecting three national historic trails: El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the Santa Fe Trail, and the Old Spanish Trail. This tour leads your from the busy plaza and other major tourist locations to lesser known sites along quiet, old Santa Fe streets. [Source: U.S. National Park Service, nps.gov/places/palace-of-the-governors.htm]
Friends of History (friendsofhistorynm.org)
Thank you to the Friends of History for their research into the history of Santa Fe—which we used extensively in the timeline that appears in the program.
The Friends of History is a non-profit organization that offers history programs, including walking tours, in order to raise awareness of the exhibits and programs of the New Mexico History Museum. Proceeds from their activities are donated to the museum to further their educational efforts.
La Fonda on the Plaza™—An Integral Part of Santa Fe History (lafondasantafe.com)
La Fonda on the Plaza holds a coveted place in Santa Fe history, a component in a rich tapestry of hospitality that predates American independence. City records indicate that La Fonda sits on the site of the town’s first inn, established when the city was founded by Spaniards in 1607—making our property the oldest hotel corner in America.
Vibrant and eclectic, and a proud member of Historic Hotels of America®, La Fonda’s history can be traced back 400 years. In 1821, Captain William Becknell and his party found their way to the La Fonda during the maiden commercial route across the plains from Missouri, establishing the Santa Fe Trail as well as La Fonda’s reputation for hospitality. Throughout the 19th century, La Fonda quickly became the preferred lodging option among trappers, soldiers, gold seekers, gamblers and politicians. The adobe structure changed hands several times as the years progressed, enduring milestones such as the Civil War, railroad expansion and New Mexico statehood, while maintaining its status as a Santa Fe landmark.
The structure that guests enjoy today was built in 1922 and features the influence of architects Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter and John Gaw Meem. Authentic elements including hand carved beams, stained glass skylights and a 25 foot cathedral ceiling create a romantic aura unique to La Fonda’s Santa Fe history. Elements of the original design are still evident throughout the hotel, with La Plazuela situated on the hotel’s original 1920s outdoor patio, as well as breathtaking skylights, terracotta tile and hammered tin chandeliers in our event venues.
In 1925, the building changed hands again when it was acquired by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. The company leased the property to Fred Harvey, a gentleman renowned for his keen sense of hospitality. Harvey introduced his own personal touch and made the inn a Harvey House, a hotel chain noted for its high standards, fine dining and the signature “Harvey Girls,” a staff of exceptionally well-trained waitresses.
[Courtesy of La Fonda on the Plaza]
New Mexico History Museum (nmhistorymuseum.org)
The New Mexico History Museum occupies three distinct buildings: the Palace of the Governors (1610), Fray Angélico Chávez Library (1907), and Pete V. Domenici Building (2009).
The Palace of the Governors was first used to exhibit the collections of the Historical Society of New Mexico in 1885. In 1909 the New Mexico Territorial Legislature authorized use of the Palace of the Governors for use by the Museum of New Mexico.
Over the next 100 years, the single museum developed into a system of state-run museums and agencies, and with the addition of the Domenici Building in 2009, the Palace became a part of the new New Mexico History Museum.
Operating as part of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, the New Mexico History Museum is now part of the largest state-sponsored museum system in the United States.
[Courtesy of New Mexico History Museum]
Palace of the Governors (nmhistorymuseum.org)
Dating back to 1610, the Palace of the Governors is the oldest public building in continuous use constructed by European settlers in the continental United States. Built by the Spanish for colonial administration, the structure has been extensively modified over the centuries to meet changing needs and stylistic interests. In addition to Spanish colonial life, the Palace has associations with the Pueblo Revolt (1680–1692), a brief period of Mexican rule (1821–1848), settlement as an American territory (1848–1912), and statehood for New Mexico (1912–present).
In 1909 the building was designated as the home for the Museum of New Mexico. To reinforce its connections with earlier cultures the building was renovated using features drawn from local building traditions. The resulting Spanish-Pueblo Revival style helped influence the architectural character of Santa Fe and much of the state. With a few minor changes, this is the Palace of the Governors we see today.
In recognition of its historical and architectural significance, this modest one-story adobe structure has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 2015 it was also recognized as a National Treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
For many visitors to Santa Fe, the Palace is best known for its block-long portal where Native American artisans sell handmade jewelry and other crafts. Behind the adobe walls, visitors can find interpretive galleries, the Palace Press, and a large courtyard that connects with the rest of the museum campus. Although work has been done to improve heating and cooling, lighting, and visitor access, care has been taken to maintain the building’s historic character.
[Courtesy of New Mexico History Museum]