Abstract
The Byrd Wall Sawyer Photograph Collection contains color photographic slides depicting Byrd Wall Sawyer’s home, the Carson House, in Carson City, Nevada; towns and cities; and landscapes throughout Nevada between approximately 1950 to 1970. Nevada towns and cities primarily depicted include Belmont, Manhattan, Reno, and Dixie. Nevada landscapes include Carson River, Carson Mountains, Olinghouse Canyon, Washoe Lake, King’s Canyon, Lake Winnemucca, Washoe Valley, and Lake Tahoe.
Finding Aid PDF
Date
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Scope and Contents Note
The Byrd Wall Sawyer Photograph Collection contains color photographic slides depicting Byrd Wall Sawyer’s home, the Carson House, in Carson City, Nevada; towns and cities; and landscapes throughout Nevada between approximately 1950 to 1970. Nevada towns and cities primarily depicted include Belmont, Manhattan, Reno, and Dixie. Nevada landscapes include Carson River, Carson Mountains, Olinghouse Canyon, Washoe Lake, King’s Canyon, Lake Winnemucca, Washoe Valley, and Lake Tahoe.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Materials remain as they were received.
Biographical / Historical Note
Historian, teacher, and writer Byrd Fanita Wall Sawyer was born May 5, 1895 in Missouri. She traveled around the United States; received her Master of Arts degree in American History at the University of California, Berkeley; and finally settled in Reno, Nevada in 1923 where she married Dr. Harry Sawyer. They subsequently moved to Fallon, Nevada, where Sawyer worked as a midwife in the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1940s, Sawyer returned to education, working as a history teacher and librarian at Churchill County High School in Fallon for seventeen years. They moved back to Reno in the late 1950s and lived together until Dr. Harry Sawyer died in 1961. Sawyer continued to work as a librarian, writer, historian, teacher, and political activist throughout Nevada, the United States, and internationally until her death on October 15, 1981 in Carson City, Nevada.
Sawyer's stepsons were "Pete" Harry W. Sawyer, Jr., obstetrician and chief of staff at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco, California; Milo Sawyer, Baptist minister in Toledo, Ohio; and Grant Sawyer, Nevada Governor and Las Vegas, Nevada lawyer.
Source:
Falcone, Kitty and Patti Bernard. "Byrd Fanita Wall Sawyer." Nevada Women's History Project. June 2018. Accessed March 11, 2020. https://www.nevadawomen.org/research-center/biographies-alphabetical/byrd-fanita-wall-sawyer/
Preferred Citation
Byrd Wall Sawyer Photograph Collection, approximately 1950-1970. PH-00256. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated in 1971 by Byrd Wall Sawyer; accession number 1971-012.
Processing Note
In 2020, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, Jimmy Chang wrote the finding aid and entered the data into ArchivesSpace.