Every Trick in the (History) Book
New Mexico has long been known for its personalities—be they artists, architects, outlaws, or otherwise. Three thoroughly researched accounts published in late 2007 delve into lesser-known details about movers and shakers who shaped our state, from a gifted gambler to a pair of clashing generals.
Doña Tules: Santa Fe’s Courtesan and Gambler ($21.95, unmpress.com), by Mary J. Straw Cook, explores this eccentric doña’s journey from her birth in Mexico, circa 1800, to her gradual rise to become one of this city’s most powerful, celebrated, and notorious women. This biography of Gertrudis Barceló, known simply as “La Tules,” examines not only the goings-on at her reputed brothel and gambling hall—as well as her prowess as a cardsharp—but also reveals such sensitive and surprising facts as her adoption of a girl after her own children died in infancy. Tules has long been known as a prostitute, but Cook reveals her to be much more: a gifted opportunist with political clout and genuine depth.
It’s easy to make caricatures out of historical figures. Without context, they fall into overly simplified categories— damsel in distress, villain, hero. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt for Pancho Villa ($21.95, nebraskapress.unl.edu), by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and onetime Albuquerque Tribune reporter Eileen Welsome, avoids this pitfall with a narrative that reads as much like a novel as a historical account. Welsome’s fantastically detailed book tracks General John Pershing’s 1916 invasion of Columbus, New Mexico, in pursuit of the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, supplying a dynamic view of two extraordinary fighters and the attitudes that fueled their game of cat-and-mouse.
Before the artwork of New Mexico’s pueblos had die-hard collectors, it had Josephine Foard. Josephine Foard and the Glazed Pottery of Laguna Pueblo ($39.95, unmpress.com) tells of a Delaware-born “spinster” who in 1899, at the age of 56, journeyed to Laguna Pueblo and spent the next
several years showing its potters how to waterproof their ceramic wares by glazing the interiors. Fueled by an ambitious nature, a love of art, and an entrepreneurial bent, she also traveled—often on her own dollar—throughout the eastern United States, convincing reluctant dealers to sell the then-unknown pottery. Authors Dwight P. Lanmon, Lorraine Welling Lanmon, and Dominique Coulet du Gard augment their solid narrative with letters written by Foard detailing her experiences there.
