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Manuscripts by Subject | Alphabetical List of Manuscript Collections

What Are Manuscripts?

Manuscripts are original records, either handwritten, typed, or printed, that have been created or gathered together by individuals, organizations, institutions or agencies to document their transactions, ideas, decisions, or discussions. They may be in the form of correspondence, diaries, ledgers, memoranda, minutes, accounts, reports, literary creations, title deeds, or legal documents. Manuscripts serve as primary sources that provide first-hand documentation and evidence of the events, decisions, ideas, and actions that shape the development of a society or community.

Research using manuscripts involves several steps such as consulting a guide to the collection to determine which boxes may be of use to you, retrieving the boxes, and then analyzing the materials to determine if they are pertinent to your research. For guidance in using manuscript collections, please consult the following websites (both open in new window):

Using Archives & Manuscripts: A Tutorial

Library Research Using Primary Resources


About the Collections

UNLV Special Collections house approximately 5000 linear feet of manuscripts in over 500 discrete collections. They include government records such as the original Las Vegas City council minute books, business records from the Union Pacific Railroad, the papers of political figures such as Nevada Senators Howard Cannon and Chic Hecht, Las Vegas Mayor Oran Gragson, as well as state legislators, and city and county commissioners. Other collections include the files and drawings of prominent hotel architect Martin Stern, Jr.; the papers, maps, photograph and monograph collection of eminent geologist Chester Longwell; and the files of William Hannah, public relations representative for Howard Hughes. The papers of numerous Las Vegas pioneers including notables such as Helen Stewart, "Pop" Squires, and Leon Rockwell also figure prominently in the collections. As a whole, the UNLV manuscript collections document the history and development of the city of Las Vegas and its region -- from the perspectives of engineering to real estate, the U.S. Senate to local church and civic organizations, journalism and the arts to political and environmental activist groups, and from the construction of Hoover Dam to the explosions at the Nevada Test Site.



Nevada Women's Archive Project

UNLV Special Collections is the southern depository for the Nevada Women's Archive Project, a statewide program instituted to identify and collect material documenting women in Nevada. As a result, new material specifically documenting women in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada are being added to the UNLV manuscript collections. A listing of these collections is available.

Access to the Manuscript Collections

Once you have located a manuscript collection that fits your research needs, you will need to consult the guide to the collection known as the finding aid.

The finding aid will provide you with detailed information on who or what the collection is about, and will list the individual items that can be found in the collection.

Finding aids to the UNLV manuscript collections can be found in the Department of Special Collections on the 3rd floor of Lied Library. Staff are on hand to assist you should you have questions regarding the finding aids or the collections.

For further information on the manuscript collections at UNLV Special Collections,
please contact the Manuscripts Librarian, Su Kim Chung.

Manuscripts by Subject | Alphabetical List of Manuscript Collections

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Updated: Tuesday, 29-Jul-2008 15:55:06 PDT
Content Provider: Su Kim Chung
Page Editor: Thomas Sommer