Who Worked Here?
The staff at the Roswell Museum was small in scale, with an average of 3-4 people working here at any given time. Prospective employees became certified through the WPA, and assigned positions based on skill level or experience. Available positions at the Roswell Museum included custodian, gallery attendant, secretary, and director, with volunteers assisting with daily tasks. Directors oversaw all the Museum’s operations, and reported to the FAP’s State Director for New Mexico, based in Santa Fe. In New Mexico, the State Director was Russell Vernon Hunter (1900-1955). A highly involved administrator, he visited Roswell and the other community center sites regularly, and contributed to various projects. He also maintained an active career as a painter, with his stylized, abstracted landscapes and portraits exhibiting stylistic and topical affinities with Regionalism. Years later, during the early 1950s, Hunter became the Roswell Museum’s director, and served here until his death in 1955.
Thanks to the Roswell Museum’s extensive archive, the names of the people who worked here during the WPA era have been preserved. Rainey Woolsey served as director from the Museum’s October opening until the arrival of Robert B. Sprague in November 1937, and she continued to work as a gallery attendant until 1938, hanging exhibitions, conducting research, and providing gallery talks. Sprague remained through June 1938. An artist by training, he often described his work as missionary in nature, and focused on introducing Roswell audiences to art appreciation. His successor, Roland Dickey, was a UNM graduate who worked here intermittently between 1938 and 1940. He later became a noted New Mexico historian and author, publishing such works as New Mexico Village Arts. Ruth Covey, Lucy Bond, and Bertha Rose also served as directors between 1939 and 1942.
The archive also mentions custodians, art attendants, and other staff, with Chester Faris, Leonard Hunt, and Rafael Villalobos being a few of the names that appear in various documents.
In addition to helping with gallery operations, Faris, Hunt, and other staff constructed furniture for the Museum, including a mineral cabinet and a firescreen, the latter of which is still part of the collection. Mary Katherine Higgs, an archaeology student from the University of New Mexico, worked here as a cataloguer in 1938 while helping to direct excavations at nearby Bloom Mound, a significant Native American site. Due to its location in a relatively rural region with limited access to museum professionals, the Roswell Museum often relied on nonprofessionals to keep curatorial and administrative roles filled. Staff assignments were not permanent, moreover, but were revisited every six months, with personnel regularly moving to different locations. A staff member assigned to work at the Roswell Museum might only have their position renewed for a year or two before being relocated to a different project.
