On the Lives of Women and Children in the Aftermath of the U.S.- Mexican War

On the Lives of Women and Children in the Aftermath of the U.S.- Mexican War

Deena J. González

John Bloom, Ed. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: Its Impact in New Mexico (Las Cruces: Doña Ana County Historical Society and Yucca Tree Press, 1999).

Recently, in the field of history, social historians especially have begun to unpack the larger meanings of such tired and true topics as frontier history, pioneer women, western history and ethnohistory. Many have contributed to this effort, not to debunk but to place into the world of history different notions about how people lived in the last century, about what they valued, whom they admired, and what place or space they occupied. Moving away from the notion that history is a science, that it can be unbiased or objective, historians these past forty or so years have unraveled many topics, including that of women and children, to arrive at conclusions we might not have thought possible in our lifetime. The impact of the United States-Mexican War is one such topic.