The Santa Fe Trail can be viewed as a nation-changing east-to-west trade corridor, but a deeper history lies along its path. In recent and ongoing research, Dr. Frances Levine details the long-overlooked stories of women and children who also traveled the trail. They were teachers and nuns, African Americans and Jewish, captives and orphans, diarists and writers, Army and merchants’ wives. Through marriages, businesses, and educational institutions, they forged a living link between Santa Fe and St. Louis.

In this special program, Dr. Frances Levine, author of Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail, and writer and editor Kate Nelson will highlight the stories of a few of these remarkable women and their contributions to a shared history. In ways both tragic and triumphant, their stories reveal how the Trail transformed the histories of New Mexico and Missouri..