Pahrump Valley Gazette, Thursday, November 27, 1997 17
Wash. and Ore.
BILL ISOM -- Retire
restaurant owner - "Love."
BING WHITE -- Retired store
owner-- "Love."
Gazette onthe street.
What makes a family close and strong?
Pahrump
Ridgecrest
JOE GOMEZ -- Retired military JOHN TUCKER -- Retired
-- "Caring for each other." building inspector -.
"Communication."
Hawaii
SISTER LANGI - Missionary
- "A belief in God, parents who
teach their children that."
:ii
lecopa
LOUISE FISK - Housewife --
"Love and faith."
Compiled by PVG staff photographers
i
482-3016 No to Abuse 1-1118
Tonopah 24 Hr. Crisis Line Pahrump
Nevada- then and now
New perspectives and readings on Nevada
by Phillip I. Earl
Nevada Historical Society
n recent years, the Nevada Historical Society has
become involved with the public schools of the state
and the teaching of our state's history. Some twenty-
five years ago, we wrote and produced a series of slide
shows on selected topics designed to supplement in-
structional materials in the elementary and middle
schools. In the late 1970s, we designed a new interpretative museum
gallery and followed up with a series of multimedia kits for the
middle schools. The organization of a docent council in 1984 and the
implementation of guided museum tours became another element in
our efforts to assist teachers. We have also sponsored history clubs
in the schools, conductedbus tours, worked on local history projects,
helped establish a new state museum in Las Vegas which focuses
upon the southern section of our state and have sought to interest
Nevadans in their own history through the popular history column,
"This was Nevada," now into its twenty-third year.
We have now entered upon another project, "Nevada: Readings
and perspectives." Funded by the Melton Publication Fund at the
Nevada Historical Society and edited by Michael S.
Green and Gary E. Elliott of the Community Col-
lege of Southern Nevada, the book consists of forty-
five articles which have appeared in various schol-
arly publications over the past thirty years. Al-
though designed as a supplementary text for the
required community college and university courses
on Nevada history, this book contains a great deal of
important material that has not been widely distrib-
uted and will be of much interest to the general
reader. Many of the articles included first appeared
in the "Nevada Historical Society Quarterly," which
is sent four times a year to the Society's members.
For those interested, the cost of the new book is $18
at the Reno Museum, 1650 North Virginia Street,
Reno, 89503. For mail orders, add $2 postage and
handling. For further information, call the Society
at (702) 688-i 191.
Jeanne Elizabeth Wier's "The Washoe Indians,"
never before in print, is taken from the senior thesis
at Stanford University of the Nevada Historical
Society's founder and first director. It introduces the
reader to a view of Nevada's Native Americans
from the perspective of one of the in'st scholars in
the state. Grace Dangberg's essay on Wovoka and
the Ghost Dance, which follows, delves into an extremely important
facet of early Native American history. These two articles are comple-
mented by an original contribution from Kevin Rafferty, "Great Basin
prebistory," and the modern focus on the Shoshone of Smokey Valley
by Steven J. Crum.
Early Euro-American history includes an essay on Jedediah Strong
Smith by Dale L. Morgan and a chronicle of the Mormons of the western
section of present-day Nevada in he 1850s authored by Juanita Brooks.
Although the southern section of the state is often slighted in the
literatureoftheearly years, Ralph J. Roske and MichaelS. Green remind
us that there is much history there in an essay on Octavius Decatur Gass,
Las Vegas Valley pioneer.
The sage of the mining frontier is reflected in an essay on Senator
William Morris Stewart by Russell R. Elliott. Donald Abbe's account of
the "Rush to Reese River" and Roger D. McGrath's "The Esmeralda
Excitement" document the fact that scholars might look elsewhere than
the Comstock for mining history. Elliott's survey of Senator Stewart and
the Central Pacific Railroad and William Rowley's portrait of Francis G.
Las Vegas Strip, 1975
iii
photo eo of Nevada Historical Society
Newlands bring additional focus to other aspects of the economic
growth of Nevada in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Selected aspects of the careers of five twentieth century political
figures, George Wingfield, Senator Patrick A. McCarran, Governor
Grant Sawyer, Senator Alan Bible and Senator Howard Cannon, are
the focus of a section on the political life of the state. Several articles
on twentieth century mining, from the booms at Tonopah and Gold-
field through the industrial and nonmetallic era of recent decades, add
much to the reader's understanding of our own times
Such land and resource issues as James Hulse's Jeffersonian perspec-
tive on the "Sagebrush Rebellion," federal reclamation policy and the
Southern Nevada Water Project are particuladyenlightening, as are essays
on the legalization of casino gambling in 1931, gambling and tourism as
a business, the place of gambling in post-World War II America and the
relationship of the gaming industry to Nevada's welfare system.
Essays by Joseph A. Fry on the MX Missle controversy of the 1980s
and Eugene P, Moehdng and William T. Dodds on Hoover Dam, Basic
Magnesium Incorporated and federal military activities provide another
context for understanding the growth of Las Vegas and
southern Nevada in recent decades. Dina Titus's "A-
Bombs in the Back'yard: Nevada Adapts to the Nuclear
Age" is singularly unique in helping us understand our
own times.
A section on Nevada's ethnic, racial and gender
mosaic introduces readers to the late Wilbur S.
Shepperson's musings on Nevada's foreign born,
Alan Bolboni on Las Vegas's Italians, Sue Fawn
Chang on the Chinese of southern Nevada and Anne
B. Howard's writing on Anne Martin and the Women's
Suffrage Movement. The African-American experi-
ence is touched emphasized by Roosevelt Fitzgerald
in "Blacks and the Boulder Dam Project."
Cultural and artistic perspectives are provided by
Charles Greenhaw and Susan Racine in "Desert of
Riches," Ann Ronald, "Reno: Myth, Mystique, or
Madness," and Candace C. Kant, "City of Dreams:
Las Vegas on Film, 1980-1989." Alan Hess's "Strip
City," a commentary on the themed architecture of
the Les Vegas Strip illustrates other aspects of con-
temporary urban development in the American West.
As a comprehensive set of views on the Silver
State's history, his book should have a place in your
Nevada library.
