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The UNLV History 117: Nevada History Photograph Collection contains photographic prints, negatives, and slides of Las Vegas and Boulder City, Nevada between approximately 1900 and 1959. These images were collected by students for University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) professor Ralph Roske’s class, History 117: Nevada History. The images primarily depict Las Vegas in the 1950s with people posing in front of and inside the El Rancho Vegas and the Last Frontier Village, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Joe E. Lewis, and Paul Newman. Earlier photographs from the 1920s include businesses, such as fireproofing stores, and significant individuals such as Ed W. Clark. Lastly, it contains two photographs of the Boulder City Airport.
Archival Collection
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Archival Component
Oral history interview with Lavern Cummings and Tony Midnite conducted by Dennis McBride on August 29, 2000 for the Las Vegas Gay Archives Oral History Project. In the interview, Cummings and Midnite discuss their work as female impersonators in Las Vegas, Nevada during the late 1960s and 1970s. They also talk about other impersonators and performance venues in Las Vegas and around the United States. They explain the distinctions between transgender and straight performers, and the perceptions of transgender and straight audience members. Other subjects Cummings and Midnite cover include their early lives and arrivals to Las Vegas, and the history of sex reassignment surgeries beginning in the 1930s.
Archival Collection