“Agents of Social Change: Influential Women Architects and Artists in New Mexico and the American Southwest”

This study considers the influences of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Reform Movement on Native American and Anglo American women and compares how each group adopted strategies, adapted to changing social conditions, and made personal choices regarding race, culture, family, gender, and the changing political realities of the time. Native American Pueblo cultures of the southwest inadvertently inspired some Anglo American women to break from tradition as reform efforts of Anglo Americans opened avenues of expression for Native American women. As agents of social change, the contributions of women, both White and Indian were, if not yet fully discovered and truly appreciated, paramount to the artistic and social development of the American Southwest.