Oral history interview with Roxton Whitmore conducted by his grandson, Mark Whitmore, on October 22, 1972 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In this interview, Whitmore discusses his personal life, including his marriage and his political affiliations. Whitmore also describes the atomic bomb tests and automobiles.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Max Goot conducted by Charles Collins on March 22, 1976 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Goot recalls the growth of Las Vegas, Nevada after 1945. He also talks about winning the Man of the Year Award from his temple.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Lawrence Nelson conducted by John Turner on February 22, 1977 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In this interview, Nelson discusses the history of early Las Vegas, Nevada. He talks about the Old Mormon Fort, the importance of railroads in Las Vegas, and the construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Lawrence Weekly conducted by Claytee D. White on April 22, 2013 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Lawrence Weekly discusses growing up on the Westside during the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a City Councilman starting in 1999, and becoming a Clark County Commission.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with LaShannon Lewis conducted by Claytee D. White on March 22, 2019 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Lewis discusses her early life in Las Vegas, Nevada and growing up in the Westside. She talks about moving out of the Westside neighborhood, attending a sixth grade center, and the geographical division of the community. Lewis remembers her employment as a social worker for Clark County, and the redevelopment of the Westside.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Emmanuel Ortega conducted by Monserrath Hernandez, Maribel Estrada Calderon, Elsa Lopez, Barbara Tabach, and Laurents Bañuelos Benitez on 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Emmanuel Ortega was born in Artesia, California and was raised in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico before moving to El Paso, Texas with his family at the age of thirteen. In 1998 his family relocated once again from El Paso to Las Vegas, Nevada where his father joined the Carpenters Union. They settled in Green Valley and he began attending a hybrid community college and high school program allowing him to obtain college credits. He continued at the College of Southern Nevada for two more years where he was a photography major and later transferred to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) where he studied art history. He moved back to Las Vegas in 2011 where he began teaching at UNLV and received a PhD in Ibero-American colonial art history from the University of New Mexico in 2017. He is the co-host of the podcast "Latinos Who Lunch" where hosts discuss pop culture, art, and issues of race, sex, and gender in the Latinx community.
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Oral history interview with Nathalie Martinez conducted by Rodrigo Vazquez and Barbara Tabach on June 24, 2021 for Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Nathalie Martinez, one of the original members of the Latinx Voices project team, dicusses her personal history and the history of her parents who immigrated to the United States from Colombia and El Salvador. She shares her educational background and experiences working as an interviewer for the Latinx Voices project before its culmination and her graduation in 2021. Nathalie also talks about her work on the project's podcast and her work linguistically translating the interviews from Spanish to English.
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Oral history interview with Elsie Whipple conducted by Hugo A. Cascos Jr. on March 22, 1978 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In this interview, Whipple discusses Southern Nevada history and recalls the construction of Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Whipple also recalls the first hotels and casinos to open on the Las Vegas, Nevada Strip, and her work as a missionary with the Mormon Church.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Afton Powers conducted by Stephen Johnson on January 22, 1972 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In this interview, Powers discusses living in St. Thomas, Nevada before the town was submerged in water after the construction of Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam). She describes the utilities they had, her recreational activities, and how the town prepared for its eventual submersion.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Claytee D. White conducted by Stefani Evans on November 2, 2023 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Claytee D. White, founding directory of the Oral History Research Center at UNLV Libraries, celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the OHRC by contributing her oral history to the collection.
She begins by explaining how the system of sharecropping worked in her family near rural Ahoskie, North Carolina, and she talks about the field work involved in raising cotton, tobacco, corn, and peanuts. The fifth of eight children and the first daughter, she shares memories of going into town with her mother, of admiring her women teachers, and of attending North Carolina Central College (now University) for two years before moving to Washington, D.C., and working for the telephone company.
After recalling her two years in D.C. and 22 years in Los Angeles, California, she describes "running away" to Las Vegas, Nevada in the early 1990s. Here, at the History department at UNLV, she recalls learning to conduct oral histories. White shares memories of her first interviews with Hazel and Jimmy Gay and Lucille Bryant. She talks of matriculating to the College of William and Mary for her PhD and of returning to Bertie County to live with her mother and administer the office of The Shaw University Center for Alternative Programs in Education (CAPE). She describes how she was offered the position of OHRC founding director, why it matters that she was an "opportunity hire," and how it feels to be the only Black person in a room.
Archival Collection