The Kim Sisters, composed of three sisters, Sook-ja, Ai-ja, and Mia, came from Korea to Las Vegas in February 1959. Their first contract in America was to perform at the Thunderbird Hotel for four weeks as part of the China Doll Revue, the main showroom program. This engagement led to a successful career. Their popularity reached was at its height at the end of the 1960s when they performed throughout the United States and Europe. Sook-ja Kim is the oldest of the sisters. After his sister Ai-ja died in 1987, Sook-ja teamed up with her two brothers and continued to perform until 1989. Now semi-retired from show business, with occasional performances in Korea, she is working as a real estate agent. In this interview, she talked about her childhood, her career, and the family she has built since coming to America. Sook-ja was born in 1941 in Seoul, Korea as the third child of seven in a musical family. Her father was a conductor and her mother, a popular singer. After the Korean War, her mother arranged to send the Kim Sisters to America. When they came to Las Vegas, there were virtually no Koreans in the area. They depended on each other to take care of themselves. Some of the difficulties they had to adjust to in American were language, food, and cultural differences. Over the span of almost forty years in America, Sook-ja became acculturated without discarding her ethnic identity of family priorities. Her life-long guiding principle has been to adopt certain American values while continuing to keep her cherished Korean ethnic values. Through their performances, the Kim Sister informed the audience about Koreans and their culture. As the oldest of the group, Sook-ja was entrusted the care of her sisters, and later her brothers, the Kim brothers. Once she settled in Las Vegas, she brought more than forty members of her extended family to the city, contributing to the growth of the Las Vegas Korean community.
The Women's Research Institute of Nevada (WRIN) Oral History Records (1995-2015) are comprised of Dr. Joanne Goodwin's research, communication, and publicity relating to the Las Vegas Women Oral History Project. The records include correspondence, photographs of interview participants, news clippings, and working drafts of transcripts. The records also contain oral history interview documentation for projects in which WRIN and Joanne Goodwin provided assistance and consultation.
The Kiel Ranch Preservation Committee Records (1973-2005) document the activities of the North Las Vegas Bicentennial Committee (1973-1976) and its successor, the Advisory Board for Kiel Ranch (1978-1995), in their efforts to restore Kiel Ranch, one of the earliest non-indigenous settlement sites in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. The collection contains various official reports on Kiel Ranch, proposals on how to restore Kiel Ranch, chronological files for each year of the project, and newspaper clippings on the status of Kiel Ranch.
The Southern Nevada Daughters of the American Revolution Records primarily document the activities of three Southern Nevada chapters of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution from 1950 to 2024. The materials center around the records of three chapters from Southern Nevada: Old Spanish Trail, Francisco Garces, and Valley of Fire. Materials include administrative records, scrapbooks, photographs, news clippings, and correspondence about the activities of the Daughters of the American Revolution chapters. Mateirals also include some records and scrapbooks from the Nevada State Society of DAR.
The Tonopah Mining Company Records derive from the office of the company’s general manager in Tonopah, Nevada and consist of documents directly generated by its mining and milling operations from 1901 through 1941. The collection includes daily work reports, assay reports and certificates, employee time cards, invoices and receipts for mining equipment and supplies, monthly stores reports, and the company’s numerous insurance policies. Several of the company’s annual reports, including an original typescript copy of the 1907 annual report, are included in the collection. Additionally, select records from the company's subsidiary, Desert Power and Mill Company, as well as the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad, which include overcharge claims, freight and repair bills, and delivery receipts are included in the collection.
The Richard and Sheilagh Brooks Papers (1919-2003) are comprised of materials collected during their tenure as professors of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Included are correspondence, research papers, photographs, reports, books, article reviews, and student scholarship. There is also a file on reburial issues that contains correspondence and an amendment to Nevada State law regarding the handling of exhumed bodies.
The Eileen Brookman Photographs depict Nevada Assemblywoman Eileen Brookman from 1959 to 1989. The photographs primarily depict Brookman with other Nevada politicians, including U.S. Senators Harry Reid, Alan Bible, Eugene McCarty, and Howard Cannon, and Nevada Governors Paul Laxalt, Mike O’Callaghan, Richard Bryan, and Grant Sawyer. The photographs also depict Brookman at political events with the Nevada National Guard, bill-signing ceremonies, and at events in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Bill Willard Photograph Collection depicts Las Vegas, Nevada, hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Valley, and Laughlin, Nevada from 1905 to 1919 and from 1940 to 1999. The photographs primarily depict hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, including the Sahara Hotel, Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Caesars Palace, Flamingo Hotel, and the Aladdin Hotel. The photographs also depict students at Nevada Southern University (predecessor of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), the city of Las Vegas, industrial plants in Henderson and Apex, Nevada, and events in Laughlin, Nevada.
The North Las Vegas Bicentennial Committee Photographs and Drawings of Kiel Ranch document the buildings on Kiel (Kyle) Ranch in 1974. As part of the commemoration of the United States bicentennial, the North Las Vegas City Council elected to restore Kiel Ranch, which was one of the first non-indigenous settlements in the Las Vegas Valley. The materials include black-and-white photographs of Kiel Ranch as it was in 1974 as well as architectural drawings of planned renovations to the main house, the Brown House, the foreman's house, and the ranch hands' house.