In 1984, while studying textiles in the collections of the School of American Research, Kate Peck Kent discovered a manuscript on Spanish-American weaving by the late H.P. Mera, curator of archaeology at Santa Fe's Lab of Anthropology. This forgotten manuscript describes the origin and history of the distinctive textiles woven by Spanish-Americans in New Mexico.
Kate Peck Kent was professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Denver, a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a resident scholar at the School of American Research. Dr. Kent has also written Pueblo Indian Textiles and Navajo Weaving: Three Centuries of Change which describes and interprets the textile collections at the School of American Research's Indian Arts Research Center.