New guide to papers of historian Maria Elena Martinez

The Maria Elena Martinez Papers are now open for research.

Dr. Martinez (1966-2014) was an historian of colonial Mexico. She received her PhD in History from The University of Chicago in 2002 and taught as an associate professor of history and American studies and ethnicity at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences until her death from cancer in 2015.

Martinez’s first book, Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico was well-reviewed by the academic community upon publication and received numerous accolades. This collection contains her academic and professional work, personal correspondence, and teaching and research notes. Her extensive archive of photocopied probanzas – proofs of the blood lineage of Spaniards in colonial Mexico – from libraries and archives in the United States, Mexico, and Spain may be of particular interest to researchers.