Archival Component
Interview with Vicki Richardson conducted by Claytee D. White on August 19, 2003. As a high school junior in Wilmington, Delaware, Richardson was one of twelve African American students chosen to integrate the school system. A civil rights activist in high school and college, Richardson wrote letters to local newspapers and engaged in protests to desegregate public spaces. Inspired by Harlem Renaissance painters, Richardson paid her way through college by teaching art at a recreation center. She went on to Vanderbilt University and later the University of Chicago where she had a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study inner-city education. She taught at Forestville High School in Chicago where she was Chairwoman of the Art Department and later at Rancho High School in Las Vegas. Richardson owns Left of Center Art Gallery in North Las Vegas and several other local businesses.
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Dell Ray recalls how police used to regularly walk through her neighborhood and talking with the residents.
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The Billie Mae Polson Photograph Collection, approximately 1948 to 1978, consists of fifty-one color postcards from Las Vegas, Nevada, the Hoover Dam, and surrounding areas. Also included in the collection are original black-and-white and color photographs of the Valley of Fire Nevada State Park, an Easter parade in Las Vegas, and the Las Vegas 5th Street School prior to demolition. There are also ten negatives included in this collection that correspond with select postcards and the photographs from the Valley of Fire Nevada State Park.
Archival Collection
The Stanley W. Paher Photograph Collection consists of black-and-white photographic prints and corresponding negatives. Images include scenes from the towns of Goodsprings, Goldfield, and Las Vegas, Nevada. The Goodsprings and Goldfield, Nevada images date to 1926; the Las Vegas images date to 1966.
Archival Collection
The Geneva Stark Merwin Photograph Collection features photographic prints and negatives of locations throughout Pahrump, Nevada between 1941 and 1942. Primary locations include a Pahrump school and Pahrump Ranch, as well as locations in local fields and mountains. The photographs capture candid scenes of people walking to school and feeding animals.
Archival Collection
Richard McCracken was born August 21, 1949 and was raised in San Jose, California in a family of farmers. He went to college at the University of California, Los Angeles, but graduated from Berkeley University in 1974. During this time, he married his wife, Marjorie, on July 7, 1972. McCracken moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1974 and started his career as a lawyer.
Person
Helen M. Clark was born in July 1921 in Memphis, Tennessee. In her lifetime she has been a stenographer, real estate secretary, real estate agent, and a cashier. In this interview she discusses why she moved to Las Vegas with her family and why she was homeschooled, and then discusses her life in Las Vegas during the Great Depression, prostition, and the mob influence.
Person
Larry Henley was born in Portland, Oregon in 1957. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1973. He enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1975 and recieved his theatre degree in 1980. He was part of the stage crew at UNLV and segued into a profesional staff position in 1988. As of May 23, 2007 he is the director of artistic programming and production at the Performing Arts Center.
Person
Bruce Layne was born in 1945. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1955. He attended Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He was the President of Layne and Associates Insurance which was the largest Insurance Agency in Nevada. He discovered he had Parkinson's disease in 1999 and wrote a book about it called My Gift.
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