Shelby Tisdale Virtual Talk at Museum of New Mexico

When: July 5, 2023, 12:00 p.m. MDT

Where: online via the Museum of New Mexico

Shelby Tisdale will present her book, No Place for a Lady, in an online presentation “Marjorie F. Lambert: Museum of New Mexico’s Curator of Archaeology, 1936-1969.” The event is free and open to the public.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the canyons and mesas of the Southwest beckoned and the burgeoning field of archaeology thrived. Among those who heeded the call, Marjorie Ferguson Lambert became one of only a handful of women who not only stayed and left their imprint on the study of southwestern archaeology and anthropology but flourished.

Shelby Tisale is the Retired Director, Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and Former Director, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe.

About the book:

In this delightful biography, we gain insight into a time when there were few women establishing full-time careers in anthropology, archaeology, or museums. Shelby Tisdale successfully combines Lambert’s voice from extensive interviews with her own to take us on a thought-provoking journey into how Lambert created a successful and satisfying professional career and personal life in a place she loved (the American Southwest) while doing what she loved.

Through Lambert’s life story we gain new insight into the intricacies and politics involved in the development of archaeology and museums in New Mexico and the greater Southwest. We also learn about the obstacles that young women had to maneuver around in the early years of the development of southwestern archaeology as a profession.