[4][5] NAWPA began in 1996 with Dr. William Wortman, humanities librarian, and John Allen Johnson, a Cherokee and African American graduate student researching Native American women playwrights at Miami University.
[6][7] Johnson had difficulty finding material to research, so the two built the archive by approaching writers and performers to add to the collection.
[5] The Native American Women Playwrights Archive in the King Library's Walter Havighurst Special Collections of Miami University contains play manuscripts and other materials including audio and video recordings of performances (VHS tapes, audio cassettes, CDs, and DVDs), photographs, newspaper articles, reviews, flyers, and posters.
In 2008, University of Michigan Press published Footpaths and Bridges: Voices from the Native American Women Playwrights Archive, edited by Shirley A. Huston-Findley and Rebecca Howard.
The anthology includes a number of scripts from NAWPA and critical commentary on the recurring themes in the plays.