A wild history: Boise State champions a pioneering silent filmmaker

Among the many treasures housed in Boise State's Albertsons Library is the world's largest and most significant collection of materials related to filmmaker Nell Shipman. A trailblazer of early cinema, Shipman produced and starred in action-packed films featuring strong female leads and wild animals. In the 1920s, she lived and worked in Idaho, filming at Priest Lake and founding a studio, embracing the imposing landscape as a backdrop.

"If anyone wants to study Shipman's life and writing, they come to Boise State," said Cheryl Oestreicher, head of the library's Special Collections and Archives. The university's collection, available to the public, includes films, photos, documents, Shipman's published and unpublished writing, correspondence and film posters.

All of this exists, Oestreicher added, thanks to the late English professor and film historian Tom Trusky. He was tireless in tracking lost relics related to all Idaho film, even locating, in 1987, two reels of "Told in the Hills" in the State Archives of the Soviet Union. The 1919 film, though not a Shipman work, is among the first features made in Idaho. It was revolutionary for its realistic depiction of the Nez Perce.

Celebrating a 100-year milestone

Gwyn Hervochon, librarian/archivist and director of the Idaho Center for the Book, decided to mark the 100th anniversary of Shipman's time in Idaho with an exhibition centered on the library's collection.

"Of course, I was familiar with what we have," Hervochon said. "But I spent part of my 2022 sabbatical doing additional background research into Nell's story. After that, I realized that this would be a great project to engage a student with to help me curate from the collections and produce the exhibit itself."

In came public historian and alum Kate Howk (MA, history, 2025), who, after receiving her degree, stayed on at Boise State as donor relations and scholarship coordinator for the Boise State University Foundation. Howk, who grew up in Amarillo, Texas, worked with Hervochon as exhibits intern for Special Collections and Archives during the summer and fall of 2024.

"Shipman's story matters because it reflects how women were once central to the early film industry-as creators, producers, and decision-makers," Howk said. "The Hollywood studio system took over and erased that independence. Shipman was determined to do the impossible-build and run her studio, in the Idaho wilderness, no less. She made movies where women could identify with the hero, not the damsel in distress. She advocated for the protection of wild lands and wild animals, something that many Idahoans still care about."

Hervochon said she was "beyond impressed" with Howk's commitment to the project. "We were able to work together in a fully collaborative partnership, and she truly helped make the exhibition into something more intellectually complex, while keeping it more broadly engaging than it would have been without her." Hervochon hopes to involve students in similar ways in future exhibitions and research.

Strong community ties

At Boise State as a graduate student trained to become a public historian, Howk said she always tries to make history relevant and useful in the public sphere. "The best way to learn how to be a public historian is to go out into the world and do it, which is what Bob Reinhardt and the other professors in the history department always encouraged us to do," Howk said. She has taken that advice to heart.

In addition to Albertsons Library, she interned for the Dry Creek Historical Society in Hidden Springs, the planned community near Boise, to help preserve an 1860s-era barn and convert it into an accessible museum. She also worked with the community of Bovill, Idaho, in the state's panhandle, which is rehabilitating its 1910s opera house.

Her work in Bovill became the foundation for her master's project. Even with her degree in hand, Howk has maintained her connection to the community. "I go up every summer to give tours of the theater and drum up more support for the opera house," she said.

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