Friday, March 14, 2014

Oral History Project Report

In 2001 the John Ben Snow Memorial Trust granted $15,000 to the Nevada Joint Oral History Project, consisting of the Nevada Judicial Historical Society, the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society and the University of Nevada Oral History Program.  Matching funds were provided by the State Bar of Nevada, Washoe County Courthouse Historic & Preservation Society,  and the U.S. District Court for Nevada.

Our proposal was to take the oral histories of persons of interest in the history of the Nevada legal system, both state and federal, and to make them available to the public.  After the passage of some time we have now completed the oral histories of the following people, each edited and with an introduction:

        State judges Cliff Young, John Barrett, Cameron Batjer, Peter Breen  and Al Gunderson,                     Federal judges Proctor Hug, Howard McKibben, Bruce Thompson and Harry Claiborne,                     Attorneys Charlotte Hunter Arley,  Frank Daykin and Herb Jones.

These histories are available online through the Special Collections office of the University of Nevada, Reno.  They can be found if you search for "University of Nevada Oral History Program" and select Archives and enter "Nevada Judicial Historical Society".  You will see a full listing of our oral histories completed and published to date.

 We anticipate using the introduction for each history as an article in the Online Nevada Encyclopedia, with links to the full transcripts, in order to make them more accessible to the general public.  This is scheduled for completion this coming fall.  We are also arranging for the production of hard copies to be supplied to a selection of Nevada libraries and educational institutions.

We have a couple more histories taken and transcribed but for which we have not yet obtained releases from the families of the subjects.

The original grant of $15,000 from the  John Ben Snow Trust was matched by $15,000 of other funds and we now have $17,665 remaining to be applied to further efforts on the same subject.  The balance of our funds is being held  and managed by the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society.

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