Broader cultural appreciation of native Nevadan art forms took hold in the late nineteenth century, as a widespread fascination with American Indian culture spread throughout the United States. One major influence was the rise of the Arts and Crafts movement in the decorative and fine arts, which placed a high value on work created individually by hand, not mass produced by factories.

In the decades after 1900, scholars and researchers from across the United States and Europe began traveling to Nevada to study the area’s existing native tribes and those that preceded them. From the ruins of the Lost City in southern Nevada to contemporary Washoe communities of the eastern Sierra, anthropologists, archeologists, and ethnographers dedicated themselves to understanding the lives and cultures of the region’s indigenous populations.