The Albuquerque Progress index project was undertaken to increase access to the magazine published from 1934-1965 by Albuquerque National Bank. Albuquerque Progress recorded building permits for larger residences or businesses from 1935 to 1956. The reporting often included a paragraph about or a photo of new residences or businesses. In addition to documenting building permits, new businesses, renovation and infrastructure projects (e.g., Route 66), the magazine published themed issues. Issues devoted to the state fair, winter sports, Boys Ranch, Albuquerque churches, and Albuquerque industries and manufacturers provide a state-of-the-city snapshot for the time. The magazine’s black and white photos are often the best visual record we can locate of individual structures at the time they were first built. The project was funded by a grant from the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board. The project goal is to increase access to Albuquerque Progress. Special Collections Library staff worked with colleagues from UNM Library’s Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication to make copies of all 297 issues of Albuquerque Progress available through NM Digital Collections. The index was developed to support discovery and tagging of those issues as they were put online. We hope that this edition of the index will increase discoverability for researchers who are working with paper or microfilm copies of Albuquerque Progress. Two earlier indexes to Albuquerque Progress have been compiled. One is a headline and caption index that covered the entire run of the magazine but largely omitted personal names and geographic identifiers. The other is a 1934-1947 index of properties referred to by street address, builder, and business or residential owner. This present index aims to capture more information in a fully searchable format and to combine the best features of the previous indexes.
Project Staff: Brandon Gonzales, Kelsey Grubb, Eileen O’Connell, Brianne Raspa
Compiler: Brianne Raspa
Editor: Eileen O’Connell
Publisher: the PUBLIC LIBRARY Albuquerque and Bernalillo County under the auspices of the New Mexico
Historical Records Advisory Board. Albuquerque, NM, 2016.
This project was made possible with a grant from the New Mexico Historical Records Advisory Board, with
administrative and financial assistance from the Friends for the Public Library and the Albuquerque Public
Library Foundation, and with the support of Albuquerque Historical Society and HAI, Inc.
