Book description
The year was 1909, and a youthful Jesse Nusbaum had resigned his
teaching position at the Normal School at Las Vegas, New Mexico, and had
ridden his “…four-horse-power, twin-cylinder, chain-belt-driven,
two-speed Excelsior motorcycle over the rough and rocky Santa Fe Trail
route, to enter on July 1 at the Old Palace of the Governors.” He was
the first employee of the newly-formed Museum of New Mexico and School
of American Archaeology. From that day, Jesse Nusbaum's life was
inextricably bound to Santa Fe: it was he who undertook the remodeling
of the Palace of the Governors into a museum; from 1909-1913, it was he
who supervised the razing of the old Army barracks at the corner of
Palace and Lincoln Avenue I 1916 and also supervised the construction of
the Fine Arts Museum on that site; and he was one of the organizers of
the Laboratory of Anthropology, Inc., and was its first director when
the doors opened in 1930. Additionally, Jesse was one of the foremost
Southwestern archeologists, and he was a first-rank photographer, as
many of the illustrations in this volume (although reproduced here from
less than excellent sources) will attest. For all his other
accomplishments, however, Jesse Nusbaum is most closely associated with
the Palace of the Governors. In this book, dedicated in memory of her
husband, Rosemary Nusbaum has delineated the history of the “Old
Palace.” Much has been written elsewhere about that historic structure,
but only in this volume can the insight and experiences of Jesse Nusbaum
be found. ROSEMARY L. NUSBAUM was born in Marquette, Michigan and
graduated from the Baraga High School in that city. In 1929, she
received the R. N. degree from the University Hospital in Chicago,
Illinois and then worked as a Medical Pathologist for the Eight Corps
Area of the Army stationed at Bruns General Hospital in Santa Fe in
World War II. She studied sculpture with Eugenie Shonnard and ceramics
with Warren Gilbertson in Santa Fe. She was also the author of numerous
short stories and poems which appeared in many well-known publications.
Ernest Thompson Seton said of her: “She possesses the virtue of
intelligence.”
