Katherine A. Spilde, Ph.D.
Professor
Special Collections
America’s Great Gamble: NHPRC Grant Project Work Underway, by Hannah Robinson
Hana Gutierrez and Lee Hanover sorting and organizing the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming.
Down on the first-floor processing area of UNLV’s Lied Library, our local National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant project team is busy at work organizing, rehousing, and describing three of the largest gaming collections in Special Collections. The project team includes two graduates of UNLV’s History Department masters’ program, Lindsay Oden and Hannah Robinson, who are employed as full-time project archivists, as well as a graduate student assistant from the History Department, Lee Hanover, and an undergraduate student assistant, Hana Gutierrez.
While we often refer to our work unofficially as the “NHPRC project,” the official project title is “America’s Great Gamble: A Project to Promote the Discovery of Sources About the Expansion of Legalized Gambling Across the United States,” and it is funded by a federal grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. This NHRPC grant is funding an 18-month project to increase discoverability and improve accessibility to the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming (1974-2012), the Eugene Christiansen Papers on Gaming (1970-2008), and the Gary Royer Papers on Gaming (1955-1996). These three collections provide significant evidence of the rapid expansion of casinos, Native American gaming, and legalized gambling in the United States between 1970 and 2010.
Native American Comics from the Katherine A. Spilde Papers, by Hana Gutierrez
A Hero’s Voice, illustrated by Mille Lacs Band member Steve Premo and by Paul Fricke; written by Steve Premo and Cindy Goff. Dreams of Looking Up, illustrated by Mille Lacs Band member Steve Premo and by Paul Fricke; written by Cindy Goff. (Comics published in 1998 by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.)
A young boy posed in a wide stance gazes into the distance. His arms hold a cape outstretched at his sides. The young boy’s name is Georgie and he is an Ojibwe of the Mille Lacs Band in Minnesota. Georgie is one of the many characters depicted in comic books produced by the Mille Lacs Band to educate their children, and also the non-Native American public, on Ojibwe culture. In the comic A Hero’s Voice, Georgie’s grandfather teaches him the importance of recognizing the real heroes in his life, his ancestors, not imagined comic book heroes. Georgie’s grandfather guides him through hundreds of years of Ojibwe history, highlighting how his ancestors fought to protect their rights and land from Anglo interlopers. At the end of the story Georgie is told that he too can be a hero, by protecting the culture of his people, making sure their stories are not erased and that their sovereignty is protected.
These Mille Lacs Band comic books are available through UNLV University Libraries Special Collections in the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming. The comics are illustrated in a typical comic book style and are both a form of entertainment and an educational tool. While the graphics of the comic book style keep the content approachable, the issues addressed within are serious problems that Native Americans have faced in the past and face in the present. The issues include broken treaties with the United States government, illegal encroachment on Native American lands, and forced assimilation into Anglo culture.
A Note on Sovereignty, by Lee M. Hanover
Handwritten note from the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming, 1789-2015. MS-00092. Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
As a Special Collections summer intern turned part-time employee, I have had the opportunity to see the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming sorted and organized, and watch its finding aid grow from 32 pages to an astounding 100+ page document contextualizing its many regional, professional, and subject files. My time working on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant: “America’s Great Gamble: A Project to Promote the Discovery of Sources About the Expansion of Legalized Gambling Across the United States,” proved invaluable as an opportunity to gain archival education and discover future research possibilities. I am a UNLV History graduate student interested in tribal sovereignty and its contested history by both federal and state governments, but specifically its use by tribal nations to regain lost lands and revitalize culture. A small discovery of some handwritten notes in the Spilde Papers has had large implications for my own research on the transnational relationship of tribal sovereignty.
Katherine Spilde’s Papers contain personal notes that provide insights and context not readily available through her collected sources alone. A case in point is the note pictured above, which reads, “Laurence Hauptman: Civil War: Iroquois League declared war on Axis.” This brief comment found in her “Veterans History Project Files, 2002-2004,” highlights the significance of tribal sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries, as the Iroquois declared war against the Confederate states and also against Germany and Japan during WWII. These references to the Iroquois exercising their sovereignty through declarations of war, helped me to contextualize and consider the continuity of tribal sovereignty within gaming, as the Oneida—one of the six nations that make up the Iroquois Confederacy—used casino-gaming to push domestic and transnational sovereignty through a gaming compact with Mexico that I will discuss later in this blog.
Ready for Researchers! Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming, by Hannah Robinson
Photograph of the “Tending the Fire” statue in front of the Potawatomi Bingo in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, approximately 1999-2001. Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming. MS-00092. Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
In the 1990s and early 2000s Native American nations across the United States readily embraced gaming as a new opportunity for economic growth. The Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming include materials collected by anthropologist Katherine Spilde about Native American gaming and the greater gaming industry. Primarily dating from 1995 to 2010, the collection traces how Native American gaming was established, managed, and regulated following the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988. The papers detail Native American gaming enterprises both on and off reservations, the socioeconomic impact of gaming, and the legislative history of Native American gaming in the United States. The papers also include research and subject files created by Dr. Spilde during her employment with the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA), and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (HPAIED). The Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming is a rich archive of documents, photographs, reports, and other materials that document the perspectives of Native American peoples across the United States as well as the federal and state regulators of Native American gaming.
Katherine A. Spilde, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist and Native American gaming researcher, lecturer, and professor who studies the social, economic, and political impacts of casino gaming on indigenous communities in the United States. After completing her PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz Spilde worked for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC), which sought to identify the social and economic impacts of gambling in the United States, including those stemming from Native American gaming enterprises.
America’s Great Gamble: NHPRC Grant Project Work Underway, by Hannah Robinson
Hana Gutierrez and Lee Hanover sorting and organizing the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming.
Down on the first-floor processing area of UNLV’s Lied Library, our local National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant project team is busy at work organizing, rehousing, and describing three of the largest gaming collections in Special Collections. The project team includes two graduates of UNLV’s History Department masters’ program, Lindsay Oden and Hannah Robinson, who are employed as full-time project archivists, as well as a graduate student assistant from the History Department, Lee Hanover, and an undergraduate student assistant, Hana Gutierrez.
While we often refer to our work unofficially as the “NHPRC project,” the official project title is “America’s Great Gamble: A Project to Promote the Discovery of Sources About the Expansion of Legalized Gambling Across the United States,” and it is funded by a federal grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. This NHRPC grant is funding an 18-month project to increase discoverability and improve accessibility to the Katherine A. Spilde Papers on Native American Gaming (1974-2012), the Eugene Christiansen Papers on Gaming (1970-2008), and the Gary Royer Papers on Gaming (1955-1996). These three collections provide significant evidence of the rapid expansion of casinos, Native American gaming, and legalized gambling in the United States between 1970 and 2010. We’re three months into the project and so far we’ve sorted through thousands of files, reports, analyses, statistics, and photographs found within the boxes and are working toward making them more accessible to researchers.