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Arizona Approaching Statehood

A Time of Contrast and Change

A woman shops for ready made clothes at an Arizona business.

Before statehood, Arizona was wide open to development and commercialization. The settlers joining the indigenous people were attracted by the freedom of the countryside and opportunities in the rapidly growing cities. Living in Arizona offered unique everyday challenges in the way they had to dress, travel, get medical care and build communities. This was further complicated by the campaign for statehood.

Patients' beds placed outside an Arizona Hospital.

At the time, leaders in Washington D.C. may have felt that the Territory was a sparsely populated, barren desert full of rattlesnakes, stage coach robbers, cattle rustlers, and sufferers of tuberculosis, but was this true?

A farming family outside an adobe house.

What was everyday life really like out here in the Arizona Territory?

How did changes in communication, transportation, and social values affect Arizona’s goal of statehood?

Children play outside a neighborhood of Victorian townhouses.

Using current resources like Digital Newspaper and Arizona Memory Projects, in combination with traditional artifacts transformed into hands on activities, the exhibit will explore these questions as well as show the transformation from a frontier to an urban society.

Image of Phoenix featuring Neoclassical architecture, public streetcars, and wiring for telephones and electric lights.

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