social media. follow us at c-span history. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the c-span cities tour travels the country exploring the american story. since 2011, we have been to more than 200 communities across the nation. like many americans, our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. next, a look at one of our cities tour visits. >> the history of gaming in nevada, you can say in a sense, begins primarily in reno. the northern part of the state was predominant to up to the 1950's. you have to remember las vegas wasn't incorporated until 1905. so, actually, there was very little gaming in the southern part of the state, initially. and the gaming in the northern part of the state continued to develop primarily along the

cities and towns along the railroad lines in the state. or in mining camps, as they developed, such as virginia city or manhattan, various towns in the state of nevada. and the gaming continued to operate in nevada until 1910, when there was a strong social movement that actually won a referendum and made gaming illegal, in october of 1910. and, at that point, most of the gamblers in the city of reno got on the train and left for san francisco. in 1919, the attorney general said that poker was legal by the statutes. and by 1923, they were licensing slot machines. finally, in 1931, i believe march 23 of 1931, they legalized all forms of gaming. i believe the only form of gaming that is not permitted in

the state of nevada by the constitution is a state lottery. well, the gaming collection here consists of records of gaming, not only in the state of nevada but throughout the united states. and the way that occurred is i was fortunate enough between about 1995 and 2005, to acquire the records of some of the major gaming manufacturing companies. many of them were in chicago. one of them was also out of los angeles. we put those records together along with artifacts that they had and they reflected gaming throughout not only nevada, but throughout the united states and the caribbean. and we have the largest collection of original gaming records, to my knowledge, in the united states and possibly the world. you have to remember that when

gaming started, it was kind of a contest between the person operating the game and the various players. and, if you couldn't control the game in the early days of gambling, say from 1850 on and things like that, you were probably going to lose your money. and the ability of the gambler to basically cheat is what ensured him of a win in the early days of gaming. this eventually changed and was cleaned up a lot. we have some items here that reflect the earlier days of gaming. this is the dice wheel. we also have the one-man tub, which could be operated by a single dealer. so, if this were in a small club or like a basement club during the prohibition, a game like this was easy to operate. now, in order to control a game like this in the early days, they would use various forms of

-- they would use special equipment which was primarily loaded dice or tops or various types of dice that could be controlled, put into a game to ensure a specific outcome. there were other ways to cheat. we have a vest here that can hold a card for you up your sleeve. take a deep breath and it will activate the mechanism. another item we have here is what we would call a dice shop. this would be for a dice cheater who could take some dice off of a club table and substitute dice that he had prepared that could be either loads or tops, spotted dice, things like that. it is quite a complete set up. you wonder, sometimes, why anyone would go through the amount of work to have all this equipment when they could get a

normal job and probably make as much money. but actually, this was a very profitable way of cheating. over here in our showcase, we talked about how early days of gambling, the gamblers wanted to have an advantage. one of the ways that they achieved the equipment or purchased the equipment for cheating was through a number of distributors and manufacturers, many of them primarily in the chicago area, that put out gaming devices such as crooked dice or marked cards. they actually had a catalog of them. one of the more famous catalogs was the kansas city bluebook. this display we have here has portions or information relative to that, the bluebook. these original illustration drawings were used for the catalogs. we have samples of various types

of dice and paraphernalia that they offered. if you come over to this next case here, we have some information that pertains to how these products were made. we have a page out of the kansas city bluebook. and it shows that a lot of the card marking was done by women because they had the ability to hold a very small brush, put very small marks on cards. and one of the ways they had consistently marked cards was they created what they call a mastercard, which showed all the marks, in a contrasting color, they would use those when they marked a deck of cards. we have a fan deck here that shows where the marks on the cards. we also have edge work here. the card on the left, if you notice, has a pointed edge, which indicates that it is an ace. the card next to it has a slight

bump on the design and that indicates it is a king. if you go down all of these cards and look at the marks, you have ace, king, queen, jack, 10. we have a card cutter here, which was a traditional device for marking cards, that would shorten the side of a card. we also have a corner rounder. once you trim a card, the round edge is destroyed, so you have to put a round corner back on the card. we have a number of different things, including one of the last blue books from the kansas city card company. the issue of cheating in gaming was largely resolved beginning in the 1940's, when the state of nevada became more active in the control of gambling. and one of the issues they had was they had to clean up gaming.

there was a tremendous concern, i think, by the state of nevada that federal authorities would come in, and if they found cheating, they would institute federal legislation. so the state took it upon themselves to develop rules for gaming that would prevent cheating. and today, when you really think about a gaming house or a casino in operation, it has put millions of dollars into the hotel or the casino, it is not going to go and cheat and risk their license. they still have problems today with regards to customers cheating, but the state of nevada's gaming control board officers are constantly trying to police gaming to make sure there is no cheating involved. in the case down here, we have one of the first control board officer's badge. and that is sitting next to a small display with regard to the black book.

now, the nevada black book is a listing of what they call undesirable individuals who were not allowed access to a casino. you could lose your license if one of these individuals was found in your casino. this particular display shows one of the original black book entries. and so by setting the rules for a gaming institution, it allowed the state to control it, ask questions like, where is your backing coming from? who is supporting you? initially, it was very hard for casinos to develop in the 1950's because regular banks were very reluctant to loan the money for development. and so the gaming industry went to various things like the teamsters pension fund, to obtain funding for the casinos.

by 1967, howard hughes came into the state of nevada, and one of the effects of hughes in the state of nevada was that it legitimized gaming operations. and by 1974, harrah's had gone public on the stock exchange. and that heralded the new era of gaming throughout nevada and eventually, of course, throughout the united states. what we have here are things from our educational collection, which allows people to look at things, physically hold them, handle them, like this. the purpose of the hga is to gather, protect, and present the history of gaming. and so this allows us to give demonstrations of various types of, in this instance, things that are considered to be special work or cheating devices. and, if you see, i take a magnet

here, you have a dice cube. it is what they call magnetic dice. it can sometimes also work in an opposite direction. this is a magnetized lead ball. as you can see, it will stick to the magnet. this is an unprocessed dice cube out of the 1920's. and this cube here is very interesting because it is what you call a tap die. this one has not been spotted yet, but you can see there is a mechanical device in the cube itself. by tapping the dice solidly against the table, it will shift the center part to one side of the cube to make it special. you can tap the opposite side to bring it back to fair. these records allow us to do research into various clubs and casinos that were operating throughout the united states. many of them, as we would put it, unlicensed, which is a

polite way of saying they were illegal. a lot of these companies were forced by the commission of the u.s. senate to reveal their records when they were investigating interstate racketeering, interstate gambling, and things of that nature. also the mcclellan committee of the united states senate. the records represented where gambling was occurring, not only in the state of nevada but throughout the united states. >> you can watch this, and other programs on the history of communities across the country at c-span.org/citiestour. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> sunday, robbie certain, describes how she received the news of his disappearance. here is a preview. >> there was a knock on the

door. outside were two white topped blue cars. that is how you know in the air force at that time, there was a problem. if you saw a white car blue top drive-up you knew it was going to be notification of some kind. i did not have one car but i had two cars. of people, i had a chaplain, i had kernels. a base commander, wing commanders, i don't remember, but mixed. it was a large contingent from 4-6 people, which is an unusual amount. normally it is just to people who notify you. so they all trooped in the house. -- colonels. of course, they apologized for being there. and [sighing] the tension was thick.

my mother put her arm around as they read this letter telling me, he was mia. my first response was, you said hanoi? he was flying over hanoi? b-52s don't fly over hanoi? what was he doing in hanoi? the first time they had ever been allowed to fly that far north, in the whole war. so, they have to read this letter to you. they cannot just come out and tell you. they have to read it to you. so it was very, um, it was hard to listen to somebody reading to you, for one thing. because you have so many questions that are running through your head, and a very short time. but you had to listen, so i did.

of course, the tears came, and the gnashing of teeth and the whole nine yards. but my notification was so different from other people. >> tell us about that? >> welcome with a number of people for one. the amount of friendship that was already in the room was very difficult. they had never made a notification that b-52 had gone down over hanoi. so, for them, it was a very different story. they did not know how to do it either, you know [laughter] it was very strange. >> watch the full program on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, 11:00 a.m. pacific, here on american history tv. >> next, on history bookshelf, jennifer armstrong discusses her book, when women invented television, the untold story of

the female power houses who pioneered the way we watch today, which looks at the creative forces of television in the 1940's and early 1950's. the kansas city public library hosted this event and provided a video. in an hour and 15 minutes, seri fidel smith talks about her book, elizabeth the queen, which accounts the life of queen elizabeth the second. in two hours, michelle crowell, the civil war and reconstruction specialist with the library of congress reconstruction manuscript division talks about the civil war collection.