Western History and Genealogy

Peoples and Cultures

The United States of America, like most countries in the western hemisphere, is a nation of immigrants, willing or not. Pre-contact American Indians are a fraction of the people who occupy the Americas today, while the majority of Americans can trace roots to every other continent on Earth.

Many people lost track of their family and cultural histories after arriving in the New World, some by chance or misfortune, and some deliberately. People today find meaning and purpose in discovering the history and origins of who they are, gaining a sense of connection, continuity and rootedness to history and the world at large. Ethnicity that was once effaced is now restored, shared and celebrated.

As different ethnic groups develop their history, our collection grows with the constant flow of new interpretations, retellings, and inspired gleanings.

Some Collection highlights :

• The Knapp-Rhoads Family
• Burnis McCloud's photographs, which document the social life of Denver's African American community in the 1940s and 1950s.
• Hispanic and Mexican American contributions to the growth of the West including Civil Rights efforts.
• Stories of Japanese and Chinese Americans that helped build the West.

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Dr. James Underhill poses with Chinese-American miners (probably) in the Colorado School of Mines' Edgar Experimental Mine near Idaho Springs, Colorado [between 1920 and 1930].