An exhibit opening Sunday at the state History Museum aims to show how women shaped New Mexico, Colorado and Washington state.

Home Lands: How Women Made the West was organized by the Autry National Center of Los Angeles. It toured St. Louis, Mo., and Tulsa, Okla., before its last stop in Santa Fe, where local twists have been added.

Upon entering the Herzstein Gallery on the mezzanine level of the museum, you are greeted by the portion of the exhibit focusing on Rio Arriba — "up river," referring to Northern New Mexico.

The first exhibits are a large photograph of a woman plastering an adobe wall and several Pueblo Indian pots, including a large multicolored olla by San Ildefonso Pueblo's Maria Martinez — different from the black-on-black pots that made her famous.

"In Rio Arriba, they look at the way women use earth as farmers, as plasterers, as potters," explained museum director Fran Levine during a sneak peak this week.

Farther on is a portrait of heiress Amelia White, who first visited New Mexico in 1913 and returned with her sister, Martha White, in 1921 to build an estate they called "El Delirio." Then comes a wall of old-time telephone ear pieces, where you can listen to readings of books by Mary Austin, Mabel Dodge Luhan and other New Mexican women writers. That's followed by a section on Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, known for her autobiography, We Fed Them Cactus.

Exhibits added by the History Museum include:

• A display of Bertha Dutton's archaeological tools and personal items.

• A Matachine headdress made from circuit boards and other computer parts by Marion C. Martinez of the Pecos area.

• The blue silk evening dress worn by Gov. Susana Martinez at her inaugural ball on New Year's Day. "We added that because here is the first Hispanic (woman) governor in the United States," Levine said. On Thursday, the curators were debating whether to include the shoes.

Rene Harris, collections and education programs manager for the museum, said she was pleased that Home Lands avoids Annie Oakley, wagon-train matrons and other stock women characters from popular culture of the Old West.

Rather, it aims to present Western women many Americans have never heard of, such as photographer Laura Gilpin. One of the exhibit's half-dozen life-sized statues depicts Gilpin crouching with a camera. She is mentioned in the Colorado portion of the exhibit because she was born in Colorado Springs, but she spent most of her professional life in Santa Fe. Nearby is a copy of her photograph Storm Over La Bajada.

Other New Mexican art in the show includes a landscape by Georgia O'Keeffe and a mural depicting a Pueblo Indian scene by Pablita Velarde.

The exhibit abruptly switches from New Mexico to Denver and the Colorado Front Range — focusing on changing modes of transportation.

The centerpiece is a life-size statue of a Cheyenne woman on a horse, photographs of trolley cars and a Ford Fairlane station wagon framed against Denver's skyline.

Among Colorado's notable women in the exhibit is Justine Ford, the first African American female doctor licensed in that state.

"They wouldn't let her practice in the hospital, so she had a private practice," Harris said. "I think she delivered like 7,000 babies."

The final part of Home Lands deals with Puget Sound in Washington state — how the seafaring culture and plentiful water sources brought in immigrants from Japan and Scandinavia, and how plentiful electricity from hydroelectric dams affected domestic life.

The exhibit includes a piece on the life of Bertha Knight Landes, mayor of Seattle from 1926 to 1928 and the first woman mayor of a major American city.

Home Lands is the last of four exhibits that have opened at the History Museum this year that deal with "unsung heroes" of the West. It runs through Sept. 11.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.

IF YOU GO

What: Opening for Home Lands: How Women Made the West

Where: New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave.

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday (refreshments 2-4 p.m.)

Admission: Free to New Mexico residents. (All state museums are free to New Mexico residents with identification on Sundays.) Out-of-state visitors pay $9 on Sundays.