New Mexico Historic Film Screening
The View from El Delirio: The Home Movies of Amelia Elizabeth White

On Tuesday, October 19, 2004, the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives (SRCA) will hold its fourth annual Historic Film Screening - The View from El Delirio: The Home Movies of Amelia Elizabeth White - in celebration of Archives Week. The preservation of Ms. White’s home movies has recently been completed by the agency through funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation and technical support from Film Technology, Inc. and Erickson Archival Telecine.

Amelia Elizabeth White was born in 1878 to the New York newspaper magnate Horace White and his second wife, Amelia Jane. She grew up on the upper east side of Manhattan and studied at Bryn Mawr College. Following their World War I service as Red Cross nursing assistants, Elizabeth and her sister Martha Root made their primary home in Santa Fe. While Martha passed away in 1933, Elizabeth remained in Santa Fe from 1921 until her death in 1972.

Their Garcia Street estate, El Delirio, was designed and built by William P. Henderson, who, along with John Gaw Meem, was one of the early proponents of the Pueblo Revival style of architecture. This estate, with its combination of Moorish, Mexican, and Pueblo design, served as a social center for the Whites’ circle of artists, writers, musicians, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Often mingling with the guests were the Afghan hounds and Irish wolfhounds the Whites raised and bred. During the Second World War, when Elizabeth served as the head of the Dogs for Defense program in New Mexico, the kennel was opened to train dogs in the region for the war effort.

Through employing her prodigious energy and her generous spirit to enrich the community in which she lived, Amelia Elizabeth White came to recognition as one of the great women of the Southwest. Her love of Santa Fe’s land, history, and cultural heritage drove her to work tirelessly to support and preserve them. In the 1920s and 1930s, Ms. White fought passionately on behalf of the Pueblos and other Native American peoples to advocate against the assimilationist government policy. She was instrumental in founding the Indian Arts Fund, the Old Santa Fe Association, the Laboratory of Anthropology, the Garcia Street Boys and Girls Club, and the Santa Fe Animal Shelter, all thriving institutions which today make up a small part of her living memorial.

The Amelia Elizabeth White Home Movie Collection contains films taken by Ms. White from 1926 to 1933. Many document activities at El Delirio: the construction of adobe buildings on the estate, informal pool parties, the Triple Bar & Horse Show hosted on the grounds, and training and play with the hounds and their pups. Several show Ms. White’s regional travels throughout the Southwest, including two pack trips into the Navajo Nation with the Walker family and a rodeo at Stanley, New Mexico. Of special interest is the Kodacolor footage, which includes Santa Fe Fiesta events of 1928 and 1929, making up one-third of the collection. This obsolete, amateur color format recorded color information on lenticular black-and-white stock, viewable only by projection through a special red, green, and blue filter. Due to the technical limitations on viewing the color information, this footage has been seen only as black-and-white prior to its recent restoration.

The Santa Fe premiere of these preserved films will take place at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 19, 2004, at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts in Santa Fe. In addition to the film presentation, KUNM’s Katherine Sabo will read letters from the School of American Research’s collection of Ms. White’s correspondence and guitarist Roberto Gonzales will provide musical accompaniment. This free event is made possible through the collaborative efforts of the SRCA, the School of American Research, the New Mexico Film Museum, and the Lensic Community Sponsorship.

Brian Graney