Maisels Trading Posts & Fred Harvey Era

Maisels Trading Posts & Fred Harvey Era Once the Great American Southwest was open to travel late 1870-80’s, trains carried ethnologists, archeologists, tourists and others, all curious to explore this sun drenched land and it’s inhabitants. Native arts found a ready market with these newcomers and soon entrepreneurs such as Fred Harvey building his tea houses all along the train route. Trading Posts, like Maisels in Albuquerque along with C. G. Wallace and other traders on the reservations started employing silversmiths, weavers and other native artists to supply this burgeoning market. By the early twentieth century, the efforts of these pioneer merchants were instrumental in developing simple native skills for survival into new and growing art forms.