An Artists' Home: Gender and the Santa Fe Culture Center Controversy‪.‬

In the spring of 1926 the writer Mary Austin went on a tirade. Such behavior was not uncommon for Austin, but within weeks she had allies as esteemed as the satirist Sinclair Lewis. Austin's target was a proposal for a summer Chautauqua (alternately called a culture center) in her adopted home of Santa Fe, New Mexico. (1) Austin railed. She railed against middlebrow, watered-down cultural expression. She railed against homogeneity. She railed against censorship. She railed against the refusal of many Americans to recognize and praise the contributions of artists to the nation. She railed against the marginality of descendents of Spanish colonial settlers, a sizeable portion of Santa Fe's residents. Austin saw a country at risk. Not just Santa Fe--but the entire nation--risked losing its most valuable cultural expressions if people stood idly by and let the town of Santa Fe accept a Chautauqua. The source of Austin's ire was not a major corporation, the forces of modern advertising, or even a local business. The group that had driven Austin to the brink of apoplectic anger was the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs, an organization composed of women not all that different from Austin herself. As an author of several novels as well as numerous works of nonfiction on the American Southwest's environments and indigenous cultures, Austin's interest in creative work and her enthusiasm for the Southwest were well known. (2) Though more private in their enthusiasm, the women of the Texas Federation shared several similarities with Austin. Like Austin, they wanted more exposure to artistic expression. They delighted in what they saw as the unique natural and cultural qualities of Santa Fe. They wanted art to receive daily recognition in American society. They wanted, like Austin, a place where they could revel in the cultural development of a community devoted to artistic expression. (3)