Cheryl J. Foote — Women of the New Mexico Frontier, 1846–1912 (UNM Press)

What this book is

Cheryl J. Foote received her doctorate from the University of New Mexico and has taught NM history at Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute (now Central New Mexico Community College, CNM). Her scholarly work focuses on women in territorial-period NM — the period bracketed by the 1846 American conquest at the close of the Mexican-American War and the 1912 grant of statehood. Women of the New Mexico Frontier is her principal monograph in the field.

The book is structured as a collection of biographical and topical essays drawn from primary-source research in newspapers, military records, and women's diaries and letters. The principal essays cover: women in Presbyterian missionary work (the Presbyterian denomination was the most active Anglo-Protestant missionary presence in territorial NM); soldiers' and officers' wives at Fort Union, Fort Stanton, and other military posts; the Albuquerque-area Anglo-American settler women; the documented but often unspoken topics of domestic violence, alcoholism, and prostitution as they shaped territorial-era women's lives. The reissue introduction by Foote highlights research developments in the field since the original 1990 publication.

Per back-cover blurbs, the book has been favorably reviewed in The Western Historical Quarterly, the Journal of Arizona History, and other Western-history journals. Glenda Riley (Alexander M. Bracken Professor Emerita of History, Ball State University) characterizes Foote as having "unearthed some women's documents that were either unknown or have been overlooked."

Why this copy matters

Foote's book sits in a small shelf of NM women's-history monographs from the 1990s and 2000s. The original 1990 University of Oklahoma Press edition is now scarce; the post-2005 UNM Press paperback reissue is the most-accessible version and the one most-frequently held by NM university libraries and personal collections. For NM women's history, territorial-period studies, and Albuquerque-area scholarship, this is a foundational secondary source.

Foote's signature pool is open as of 2026 (she's still actively living and teaching/writing), but her published-monograph footprint is small (a handful of articles and this one principal monograph), so signed copies of Women of the New Mexico Frontier have collector value within their narrow specialty.

Multi-part bibliographic record

How it came in

Donated in May 2026 through NMLP. Donor scenario anonymized per archive policy. Book in clean paperback condition with no marginalia.

Where it's going

Likely route: a UNM women's-history graduate student, a NM territorial-period scholar, an Albuquerque-area regional collector, or a Fort Union / military-history specialist. The book remains in use as a course text and reference at NM universities and is reliably the right destination for someone who wants the principal monograph on the subject.