the resources of the Kansas Collection

Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

The Kansas Collection traces its beginnings to 1891 when Carrie Watson, the first University Librarian, purchased a collection of 100 volumes about Kansas from the Reverend J.W.D. Anderson of Baldwin, Kansas. Through the dedicated efforts of Watson, and later Mary Maud Smelser and Laura Neiswanger, the Collection continued to grow, with the addition of significant books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and photographs. An effort was made to acquire everything written about Kansas, in Kansas, and by Kansans—one important part of the work was the collection and preservation of all official Kansas state documents. While some of the materials acquired were purchased, much was obtained through the generosity of donors interested in state and local history. This remains true of the Collection's development today.

By 1950 the Kansas Collection had grown to include 15,000 bound volumes, a large number of manuscripts and maps, and a significant collection of photographic images from Junction City, Kansas (the Joseph J.Pennell Collection, consisting of approximately 30,000 glass negatives and 4,200 prints). A new library wing in Watson Library provided space for a Kansas reading room, and a closed stack area for Kansas Collection materials. In the same year Mary Maud Smelser, the Library's Accessions Librarian, was appointed as the first Curator.

Since 1950, the Kansas Collection has continued to grow, with increased emphasis on the acquisition of manuscript and photographic materials. The collecting focus has been broadened to cover the immediate region, but without losing the original emphasis on Kansas history. Staffing has expanded to include seven full-time positions, including specialized support to collect and make available African American resources and the photographic collections.

Chief among Kansas Collection functions is the preservation of materials needed for research. Kansas Collection staff are actively involved in seeking out such materials, searching for items that might lie tucked away and sometimes forgotten in attics, basements, or closets of individual homes, offices, and businesses. Once acquired, the materials are processed and cataloged, with special attention given to their physical needs, to insure their availability for the future.

Historical materials face many enemies that threaten to destroy them. People are often the biggest offenders, and much damage can be caused to materials through well-intentioned but uninformed handling and storage. Folding up letters and documents, using paper clips to keep materials together, using tape or glue to affix materials to scrapbooks, are just some of the things that have been done to documents of our past and that have seriously compromised their continued existence.

The quality of the paper used in documents and publications often poses a serious preservation problem. In the mid-nineteenth century increased demand for paper necessitated finding a more readily available source of raw material for its production, and manufacturers switched from rag fiber to woodpulp. Unfortunately the methods generally used to break down the woodpulp did not eliminate lignin, a natural constituent which causes paper to become yellow and brittle. Libraries throughout the country are faced with the challenge of preserving hundreds of thousands of volumes that are turning to dust. In Kansas this problem is especially alarming because the history of our state (established in 1861) is largely documented in publications and documents that were produced after the switch to woodpulp was made.

Historical materials deteriorate because of both inherent characteristics and external factors. External factors that threaten the materials include inappropriate levels of temperature and relative humidity, sunlight, fluorescent lighting, air pollutants, including mold spores, vermin, and natural disasters. While there is little that archivists or librarians can do to alter the inherent characteristics of historical materials, much can be done to control their environment, and thus slow down their deterioration. The Kenneth Spencer Research Library was designed with this purpose in mind. Throughout the Library constant and appropriate levels of temperature and relative humidity are maintained to help insure the future availability of the resources housed here.

Lighting levels are also controlled in the building. Windows, always a problem because of the damaging effects of sunlight, are kept to a minimum. Fluorescent lighting is filtered in storage and exhibit areas and reading rooms to screen harmful ultraviolet rays.

Preservation activities within the Kansas Collection also focus on providing a safe environment for materials. Processing and cataloging routines, storage of materials, procedures for retrieval of items for patrons, and use policies all reflect concern for the careful handling and use of potentially fragile materials.

The Kansas Collection supports teaching and research at the University. Without an active, organized collecting program, much that is important to the study of our past would disappear through the ravages of time and nature. Many an important collection in private hands has gone into a trash can simply because the historical value of the material and the need to place it in a specialized library was not recognized. Kansas Collection staff actively work to identify potential resources important to the history of Kansas and the region,and to acquire those materials for researchers to use. This entails visiting with many potential donors across the state and region, climbing into attics, sorting through storage areas, packing and transferring papers and other materials from a variety of settings to the Spencer Research Library.

The collecting program of the Kansas Collection is broadly defined to include acquiring materials that reflect the economic, social, cultural and political history of the state and the Great Plains. For many years the papers of well-known Kansans have been sought, and the Collection includes represenation of many Kansans who have made names for themselves in the arts, politics, communication, the sciences, and business. While the papers of the famous continue to be important to acquire and make available, collecting efforts have focused in more recent years on acquiring materials needed for the study of social history: materials that reflect the interests, activities, and thoughts of everyday people leading everyday lives. It is just this type of material that can easily be overlooked and discarded. Emphasis has been placed on acquiring personal papers, collections of family correspondence, the records of voluntary organizations, churches, and schools, all of which can contribute to the documentation of society.

Also important to our collecting program is the need to include all segments of society. The experiences of minorities, women, and children are often inadequately reflected in historical repositories, and special efforts are made to insure that we collect materials that reflect their activities and concerns.

Recognizing that the experiences of African Americans within the state and region were not well represented in area repositories, the Kansas Collection joined with the University's Department of African and African American Studies in 1985 to develop a more formal collecting program in this area. A three-year federal grant provided funds for staff to travel throughout the state to identify and collect the papers of individuals, and the records of African American churches, businesses, and other organized groups. Many papers and photographs were acquired for the Collection, and in recognition of the continuing need for this collecting activity, the University provided a full-time field archivist position in the Kansas Collection.

The Kansas Collection has been active in collecting materials that document the experiences of women in the state and region. In addition to individual collections of women's letters, diaries, and personal accounts, the Collection contains the records of many organizations, such as the Whittier Club of Leavenworth, and the Ladies Literary League of Lawrence (both of which have been in existence for over one hundred years). Other organizational records document women's activities in public and private life, such as those of the League of Women Voters of Kansas. A segment of the photographic collections portrays women at home and in the workplace.

While many of the resources of the Kansas Collection date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Kansas Collection also collects contemporary materials. What happened yesterday is potentially of as much interest to a researcher as the events of one hundred years ago. It is imperative that we be as diligent in our collecting of materials that reflect the present as we have been with those of the past. In documenting contemporary life we have a special challenge. Rapidly changing technology is dramatically affecting the nature of records that are created in the course of business and daily life. While we have not yet become a paperless society, record keeping and even basic day to day communication is often electronically transmitted and stored. Archivists in many repositories are currently meeting with the challenges involved in appraising electronic records, and providing for their long term preservation.

In preserving the documentation of Kansas' past the Kansas Collection provides access to materials in a variety of formats, each of which has its own requirements for preservation and use. A visitor to the Kansas Collection can, for example, make use of books analyzing some aspect of the history of the state or region; first-hand accounts, such as diaries or letters, of life in Kansas; photographs taken a hundred years ago; maps that show the geographic boundaries of states and counties, and the location of cities; or architectural records that provide detailed information about our built environment. This exhibition offers examples of some of the different types of material available to both the serious researcher and the casual reader interested in the history of this state and region.

The manuscript holdings of the Kansas Collection total approximately 10,000 linear feet of material. Manuscripts provide researchers with first hand information, the raw data on which research can be conducted. They include the personal papers of individuals and families, as well as the records of businesses, local government, schools, churches, and other organizations. A collection may consist of a few items or several thousand, and contain a wide variety of material, such as correspondence, diaries, speeches, class notes, ledgers, account books, scrapbooks, certificates, and legal documents.

Personal papers document the activities of individuals, both the famous and the less well-known. By using these papers researchers can trace the experiences of such nineteenth-century Kansans as James Denver, who was territorial governor and Commissioner of Indian Affairs, or Hugh Skinner, who made an overland trip from Minnesota to California in 1849. More contemporary collections of personal papers shed light on the lives of such people as Kansas businessmen Kenneth Spencer (memorialized by this Library) and Henry Bubb, politicians U.S. Senator James Pearson, U.S. Congressman Larry Winn, Jr., and former Kansas Governors Robert Docking and Robert Bennett, journalists Ben Hibbs and Peggy Hull Deuell, Kansas City, Kansas community leader and lawyer Elmer Jackson, and the distinguished writer Langston Hughes, who lived in Lawrence as a child.

Family papers reflect the detail of day-to-day life, familial relationships, and societal attitudes. Collections often include correspondence, scrapbooks, diaries, household records, and genealogical data. The Kansas Collection includes many such collections, including several whose materials span an entire century, like that of the Hansen and Bales families of Logan, Kansas.

The Kansas Collection serves as a repository for the archival records of Douglas County, Kansas. Information on the transfer of land, the history of property, and the settlement of disputes tried in district court can be gleaned from such county records as tax rolls, court journals and dockets, deed and mortgage records.

The records of churches, and clubs, societies, and other voluntary organizations provide much information about the history of those organizations, about the interests and concerns of the people who join them, and the role of those organizations in the community and in society. Minute books, accounts, membership lists, scrapbooks, yearbooks, programs, by-laws and constitutions, and correspondence, all contribute to the wealth of research materials.

Business records in the Kansas Collection document the economic and social history of the people of the region. Banking and finance, lumber, milling, retail trade, and the mortuary profession are represented by business records held by the Kansas Collection. The largest single collection of manuscripts in the Kansas Collection is that of J.B. Watkins, a nineteenth century Lawrence banker and investor, who established the J.B. Watkins Land Mortgage Company. This collection contains Mr. Watkins' personal correspondence as well as that of his offices in Lawrence, Dallas, London, and New York, extensive ledgers that trace the loan and mortgage aspects of his business, and the records of numerous other businesses in which he was involved, including canning and sugar companies, a railroad, a bank, and a promotional newspaper.

Manuscripts come into the Kansas Collection in various states, some dog-eared from use, others faded, torn, folded, or tightly rolled. While staff cannot enhance faded handwriting, strengthen weakened paper,or reverse the deterioration caused by acidic paper, we can and do insure that they are handled, stored, and used in the safest manner possible. Folded manuscripts are opened up and stored flat. Particularly fragile items are encapsulated between two pieces of chemically inert clear polyester, so that the items can be handled without causing further damage. Paper clips and staples (which rust and damage paper) are routinely removed from correspondence and other documents.

Some materials that are particularly fragile have been photocopied or microfilmed. Library patrons use the copies rather than the originals. Preservation microfilming is an expensive activity and one that requires careful attention to the arrangement and description of the materials to be filmed. Occasionally the library has sought outside support for this work. For example, a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission provided money to microfilm fading letterpress volumes of correspondence from the J. B. Watkins Papers.

The sample of manuscripts shown in the exhibition represents the rich diversity of materials that are preserved in the Kansas Collection and available for use.

1a. Diary of Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius, Survey of the Sources of the Red River, April 25—June 30, 1876.

Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius came to the United States from Germany in 1861. After serving in the Civil War with the 1st New York Volunteer Infantry, he served as a civil engineer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Missouri, working out of Fort Leavenworth. His duties included surveying and map-making, and he traveled through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Indian Territory, and northern Texas. He took part in two expeditions which surveyed the Red River and its sources in Indian Territory and northern Texas.

This diary is from the second expedition in which Hunnius participated. It contains observations on the flora, fauna, terrain, weather conditions, and the progress of work. Hunnius also includes a number of pencil sketches, drawn along the way. Pictured here is "Camp on Fourth Commission Creek, Indian Territory, May 4 and 5th, 1876."

1b. Tintype of Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius.

2. Auctioneer's report to the Jackson County (Missouri) Court, Aug. 9, 1853.

This document provides an accounting of the sale of slaves owned by John Bartleson, Jackson County, Missouri, listing the total and individual prices realized for each slave by name, and the auctioneer's charge for providing the service to the Court. The slaves were sold as part of the settlement of the Bartleson estate.

3. Eudora, Kansas, City Council minutes, February 26, 1859—May 7, 1860.

The "Neuer Ansiedlungs Verein," an association of German immigrants, was organized in Chicago with the goal of settling somewhere in the west. In March, 1857, a committee was formed to look for a suitable site in the west for establishing a town. The committee searched for locations in Missouri and Kansas, and selected the present site of Eudora, securing a tract of 800 acres from the Shawnee Indian Tribe through Chief Pascel Fish. The townsite, named Eudora in honor of the Chief's daughter, was incorporated as a city under territorial laws in February, 1859.

These City Council minutes, written in German, are part of a larger collection of Eudora city records in the Kansas Collection. Included are ordinances, additional minutes, municipal court proceedings, tax rolls, treasurers reports, and cemetery records, covering the period from 1854 to 1924.

4. Simmons and Leadbeater steamboat bill of lading, St. Louis, Missouri, Aug. 29, 1857.

A bill of lading, showing the amount and weight of goods transported aboard the steamboat Meteor from St. Louis to Quindaro, August 29, 1857. These goods were possibly intended for either the Great Nemaha Indian Agency which governed the activities of the Chickasaw, Iowa, Sac and Fox, and Kickapoo Tribes, or for the Highland Mission, which served the Iowa, and Sac and Fox Tribes.

The voucher documents payments made, both individually and in total, to members of the Sac and Fox Tribe of Missouri for the sale of land. The payments were made by Daniel Vanderslice, who was the General Agent for the Great Nemaha Indian Agency from 1853 to 1861.

In a letter to her future husband, E.C. Searcy, written in September, 1892, Kate described the process of running for public office:

Certificate presented to Kate Warthen stating her to be the winner of the election for County Superintendent.

7. Charles Scott, a prominent attorney in Topeka, Kansas, was born in 1921. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and later graduated from Washburn Law School. He joined the law firm established by his father, Elisha Scott, Sr., a well-known trial lawyer in the region. During his early years in practice Charles Scott and his father were successful in securing racial integration of elementary schools in South Park, Johnson County, Kansas. With his brother John H. Scott, he represented plaintiffs in several cases that sought to establish the right of access to swimming pools, theaters, and restaurants in Topeka for African Americans.

In 1954 Charles Scott was one of several attorneys who filed and presented the initial case for the plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court case "Oliver Brown versus the Topeka Board of Education." He also appeared as counselor for the plaintiffs before the United States Supreme Court, whose ruling ended segregation in public schools.

The Scott Collection includes personal and professional papers that reflect Mr. Scott's lifelong pursuit of civil rights issues.

This letter written by Charles' father mentions home town and family news, and expresses his fervent hope for peace and the concern that so many families felt about loved ones overseas: "I haven't heard from you for some time but you know what my prayer is, that you are alright . . ."

Typed on poor quality paper typically used for carbon copies at the time, the letter is now quite fragile. In order to make it possible to handle without causing damage, Kansas Collection staff have encapsulated it in two layers of inert polyester.

This letter is an example of "v-mail", a format used by men and women in the services overseas during World War II. The letters were microfilmed for transmission, to cut down on valuable air transport space, then printed out at about 30% of the size of the original letter form for delivery in this country.

In this letter Charles is reassuring his father that he is all right, although he is not allowed to reveal his location overseas. Interestingly he notes "I can say one thing [—] the Negro soldier is highly respected. There is very little prejudice & discrimination over here."

7c. Telegram to Charles Scott, from Thurgood Marshall, April 6, 1955.

Thurgood Marshall, then serving as Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, contacted Scott to receive confirmation of a timetable for desegregation of Topeka schools, following the Supreme Court decision.

8b. Snapshot of Wint Smith on ship crossing the Atlantic, 1917.

Wint Smith Collection RH MS-P 201:2.2

Wint Smith was born in 1892 in Mankato, Kansas. In 1917 he interrupted his studies at the University of Kansas to accompany U.S. forces under the command of General Pershing on an expedition into Mexico against Pancho Villa. He kept this diary while a young officer with the American Expeditionary Forces in England and France during World War I. The diary begins with Smith's departure from New York City aboard the troop ship Mongolia. The diary is quite detailed and anecdotal, and ends with Smith convalescing from a knee operation. While recuperating he mentions an unexpected meeting with a wounded pilot, who turns out to be an acquaintance from his KU days.

His entry for Sunday, Sept. 30, 1917, documents the mood and feelings of these young men as they traversed the Atlantic not knowing where they were going or when, if ever, they would return.

Wint Smith did indeed return from service in World War I. He became an attorney and practiced law in Salina and Kansas City. He served in the Armed Forces during World War II, and in 1946 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, a position he held until retirement in 1961. His collection of papers documents primarily his activities while a member of the U.S. Congress.

9. Lucy Isabel Jones was born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, attended the University of Kansas, and after graduation left Lawrence in 1909 to teach high school German and English in Columbus, Kansas. There she met Wayne Townley, a local druggist whom she married in 1914. Their daughter was born in 1915. Lucy died in 1917 at the age of 32, from complications related to pregnancy.

Her collection (RH MS 491) consists of letters written to a fellow teacher and dear friend, Ethel Lowry, during her student days and early married life, a diary kept by Lucy during a trip to Europe, an unpublished biographical account written by her daughter, and family photographs. The letters and other writings provide insight into Lucy's career as a teacher, her day-to-day activities, her friendship with Ethel, her role as a mother, and her hopes and expectations for the future.

9a. Portrait of Lucy Jones as a young woman, undated.

9c. Letter to Ethel Lowry from Lucy Jones Townley, Sunday p.m., 2:15, ca. 1916.

In this letter Lucy jubilantly proclaims that her baby has taken her first steps.

The Mrs. J. W. Jones Memorial Chapel, Inc. is one of the oldest continuously owned and operated African American funeral homes in Kansas, founded in Kansas City, Kansas in 1900 by John W. Jones, and his wife Mary. Mr. Jones came to Kansas from Kentucky and operated a grocery store, which he later sold in order to establish the Kansas City Embalming and Casket Company. He also operated a livery stable next door to the funeral home, and rented horses for heavy hauling, house moving, and funeral services. On Mr. Jones' death in 1917 Mrs. Jones took over operation of the business. Funeral records are of value not only for the information they provide on individuals, but for the data they provide for social history.

The Whittier Club was formed in 1887 by twenty four Leavenworth women as a literary study club. Named after the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, the original purpose of the organization was to provide educational opportunities for the benefit of women who had completed high school. The first club members selected topics in U.S. history and American literature as the focus for their programs. Evelyn Dudley served as the first president of the organization.

This minute book (like others in the collection) describes the meetings conducted, highlights the programs held, and identifies officers and program presenters. Miss Ada Bond, Secretary, noted in her minutes for the meeting of March 20, 1889, that "the principle subjects of discussion were the state and the U.S. courts, and the judges thereof . . ."

John G. Whittier wrote the Whittier Club in 1887, after Evelyn Dudley had written, informing him of the club's organization under his name. He extended to the club his good wishes, and expressed gratitude for the use of his name. In his letter, which he signed as "thy friend," he also expressed his happiness that Kansas had suceeded in its "brave and successful struggle to keep its territory free from the curse of slavery."

The Kansas Collection contains over a million photographic images. These visual resources provide researchers with a unique opportunity to study the life and character of Kansas and the region. While a single photograph may provide a great deal of information about its individual subject, collectively photographs can provide a whole gamut of information on the social history of the time and place.

The photographs in the Kansas Collection cover a great number of subjects relevant to the history of our state and region, and to life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Subject strengths include small town and farming life, architecture, Native Americans, railroading, the African American experience, and women at home and at work.

The Collection includes both the work of professional photographers and the casual snapshots taken by amateur enthusiasts who recorded family activities, trips, and special events for the family album. The Collection is also a source for the study of many different types of photographs, reflecting the development of photography from daguerreotypes and ambrotypes to modern day negatives and prints.

Photographs are delicate objects which require special care and handling. Especially sensitive to sunlight and fluorescent lighting, they need to be stored in the dark in a cool, dry environment. The emulsion layer (the side that contains the image) must be protected from rough handling. Even fingerprints can be damaging to photographs since oils from the skin can attack the emulsion, and accordingly staff and library patrons alike handle all photographs with white cotton gloves.

Most photographs are supported by some form of wood, paper, cardboard, or other material, each of them subject to chemical breakdown, causing degradation or destruction of the image. Negatives pose a range of preservation problems depending on the materials of which they are composed. Glass negatives are subject to breakage, especially if stored without due attention to their weight and fragility. Diacetate film is unstable because the backing shrinks, causing the emulsion to buckle and separate. Nitrate-based film self-destructs due to inherent chemical instability.

The photographs included in this section of the exhibit have been chosen to illustrate some of the different subjects and physical forms available for use in the Kansas Collection.

When the collection was acquired, an early review of its contents indicated that approximately 1,500 nitrate negatives urgently needed preservation attention. With the generous support of the donor, The Kansas City Terminal Railway Company, the Kansas Collection was able to have all the nitrate negatives copied onto a more stable modern negative base, thus avoiding serious deterioration problems in the future.

The particular image on display exhibits much wear along the edges. When not on display it, like all the other images in the Collection, is stored vertically in a pH neutral folder.

Rock salt was first discovered in Reno County, Kansas, in 1887, and within a year ten salt plants were in operation around Hutchinson. The Hutchinson-Kansas Salt Company was formed by the consolidation of two earlier companies in 1899. This photographic print is in good condition, but the mount, typical of its time, is highly acidic.

Chief Red Cloud was a member of the Snake family, born in 1822 at the forks of the Platte River, Nebraska, and rose to power through his own ability. He was prominently involved in plains warfare and was one of the chiefs who signed a peace treaty with the U.S. government in 1868.

Stereographic views were produced from the early 1850s to the late 1930s by commercial and amateur photographers. Each card was made up of two almost identical images placed side by side. When viewed through a stereoscope the image appeared to be three-dimensional. This form of entertainment became extremely popular and stereoscopes, both hand-held and cabinet styles, were to be found in many homes and libraries.

The subjects of stereographic views were often tourist attractions or exotic, faraway places. In 1867 Alexander Gardner followed the westward progress of railway construction by photographing along the Union Pacific route, and marketing the views as part of the "Across the Continent on the Union Pacific Railway" series.

This view of an Osage camp is a part of a small collection of photographs collected by Daniel B. Dyer, an Indian Agent at the Quapaw Indian Agency from 1881 to 1884, and later at the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency in Darlington, Oklahoma.

The Kansas City Monarchs were a prominent African American baseball team: many Monarchs, including such greats as Satchel Paige and Ernie Banks, went on to play in the major leagues. This photograph is from the papers of Thomas Y. Baird, owner of the team for many years. The collection is made up of photographs, scouting reports, player sales information, travel records, and correspondence, mainly from 1948 to 1956.

In 1950 the Libraries acquired a major collection of 30,000 glass negatives that represented the life work of a professional photographer from Junction City, Kansas, Joseph J. Pennell. The images in the collection provide an excellent view of what life was like in a Midwestern town at the turn of the century, and documents its transition from the "horse and buggy days" to a more modern period. They show Junction City businesses, street scenes, events, agriculture, leisure activities such as picnics and parties, formal portraits of individuals, all manner of images of people at work and at home, and military life at nearby Fort Riley.

Glass was widely used for photographic negatives from the 1850s until well into the 20th century, for both studio and outdoor photography. Until a dry plate process was developed in 1879 photographers wishing to make photographs outside their studios had to travel with chemicals, glass plates, and a darkroom tent, in order to coat, sensitize, expose, and develop the image while the plate was wet.

Photographs 18a,18b and 18c were printed from glass negatives in the collection. 18d has lost a corner, with the effect seen in the corresponding contact print. Fortunately this break did not seriously affect the image. Broken plates can frequently be carefully fitted back together and sandwiched between two other sheets of glass to preserve the image.

In 1983 the Kansas Collection received funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities to preserve and provide increased access to the Pennell Collection. While previous efforts had been made to print and catalog the more significant images, far more needed to be done. With the support of the grant the entire collection was surveyed and described. Surface dust was removed, and all the plates were placed in acid-free envelopes and filed vertically in boxes that give both support and separation. A further selection of images was printed, and all the cataloged copy prints were microfilmed. The microfilm allows researchers either at the University or elsewhere to gain an overview of the contents of the Pennell Collection without unnecessary wear and tear on the prints.

The first fully successful photographic process was the daguerreotype, introduced in 1839. It involved producing a laterally reversed positive image on a copper plate with a mirror-like surface of highly polished silver. The ambrotype developed slightly later as an application of the wet collodion process introduced by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. It employed a less expensive method than the daguerreotype, and was produced by underexposing a glass plate coated with collodion emulsion in the camera, resulting in a fainter than usual negative image. Backing the glass with black paper, cloth, or metal gave a positive-appearing image. Ambrotypes were frequently hand-colored, and, like both daguerreotypes and tintypes, were customarily put into decorative hinged cases, made of wood covered in leather or embossed paper. Ambrotypes were most popular in the mid 1850s although they continued to be produced until the early 1880s.

The ambrotype shown is of Sara Tappan Doolittle Robinson, wife of the first Governor of the state of Kansas. Born in Massachusetts in 1827, Sara married Charles Robinson in 1851. The Robinsons became involved in the Free-State effort to settle the new territory of Kansas, and moved to the site of Lawrence in September of 1854. In 1856 she published a book, Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life, about the struggle for freedom in Kansas.

The tintype was even cheaper to produce than the ambrotype and was used from just before the Civil War until the early years of the 20th century. It was a direct positive image produced by the wet collodion process, on a base of thin sheet iron ("tin" The tintype was even cheaper to produce than the ambrotype and was used from just before the Civil War until the early years of the 20th century. It was a direct positive image produced by the wet collodion process, on a base of thin sheet iron ("tin"). Tintypes were sometimes put up in cases like those used for daguerreotypes and ambrotypes but, needing little protection, were also distributed in paper mounts and albums, or even left loose, making them convenient to mail to family and friends.

While tintypes were more durable than ambrotypes, many that have survived carry scratches, rust stains, and dents. Most were studio portraits; the tintype shown here is unusual in showing an exterior scene. It is a mirror image like the daguerreotype and the ambrotype (although an ambrotype image could be corrected by reversing the glass in its mount): note the reverse lettering over the door of the building: A.S. Howard 1882.

View of a sod church

The three items above are included to illustrate the extensive use made of photographic postcards during the early part of the twentieth century. Gradually, as advances in photography were made, picture taking became simpler and more feasible for the average person to pursue. In 1902 the Eastman Kodak Company produced postcard-size photographic paper on which images could be printed directly from negatives, and competing companies soon developed as the paper stock became popular. This led to an enormous proliferation of photographic postcards, made up of studio portraits made by professional photographers and pictures by amateur photographers (both intended for personal use), and postcards published commercially.

All manner of subjects were featured.. Views of towns, new buildings, disasters such as floods, fires, and tornadoes, and events such as the circus coming to town or 4th of July parades were all popular subjects. They are important today for the visual information they provide about the past.

The exaggeration or tall-tale postcard, depicting larger-than-life crops, animals, insects, etc., became a popular fashion in postcards in the early twentieth century. W.H. "Dad" Martin was an outstanding exponent of the genre. He moved to Ottawa, Kansas, from Maple City at the age of twenty-one, and bought a photographic studio from E.H. Corwin in 1894. By 1908 he was producing postcards depicting exaggerated views, and was so successful that he sold the studio in 1909 to devote his full attention to publishing them from his Martin Post Card Company.

Frank Morrow lived in Leavenworth, Kansas from 1885 until his death in 1936. Although not employed as a professional photographer, he spent much time photographing the Leavenworth community.

This print is made from a glass plate negative, and is from a large collection of negatives donated to the Kansas Collection by the Leavenworth Public Library.

Published sources, including books, serials, pamphlets, and printed ephemera also comprise an important part of the Kansas Collections' holdings, and range from some of the earliest books printed in Kansas to contemporary scholarly treatments of the state and region. Periodicals include both scholarly journals and the magazines, reports, and newsletters produced by organizations and businesses in the state and region. Among the ephemeral materials (items printed or published for a specific event or purpose, and not intended for long-term use) are advertising leaflets, trade cards, handbills, posters, and commemorative items.

The Kansas Collection is a depository for the official publications of the state. Its collection of Kansas documents is extensive and includes a full set of Session Laws from the founding of the state in 1861, Kansas House and Senate Journals, and Kansas Statutes Annotated, as well as annual and biennial reports of many agencies, statistical compilations, special reports, and state budget information.

Very many of the publications in the Kansas Collection are printed on highly acidic, poor quality paper. Care must be taken in handling these items to insure that the information they contain will be available for future researchers. For instance, since the process of photocopying can be damaging, requests to copy fragile materials cannot always be filled. A microfilm copy, when available, is issued to the library patron if the original is too fragile for use.

Newsprint is a particularly poor quality material, designed for a very short period of use, and poses a number of problems. A series of newspaper scrapbooks was compiled by library staff over a period of years: they include clippings from local newspapers on a variety of topics covering Lawrence and Kansas history from the 1870s through the 1960s. Since there were no indexes published to these newspapers the scrapbooks provide an important access point to the information they contain. Time and heavy use has reduced the scrapbooks to poor condition and they are now being microfilmed, using funds from the KU Friends of the Library, so that this important indexing resource can continue to be used without further damage to the scrapbooks.

This volume is one of the earliest books printed in what was to become Kansas. Jotham Meeker was both a printer and a missionary. He was born in Ohio, and received his training as a printer in Cincinnati. After serving as a missionary to the Potawatomie Indians in present day Michigan, Meeker spent much time learning the Potawatomie and Ottawa languages. After several assignments in different locations he received orders from the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions to relocate to Indian Territory. He did so in 1833, taking with him a printing press, which he established at the Shawnee Baptist Indian Mission.

This copy was acquired by the Libraries in honor of the centennial of the Kansas Territory in 1954.

The author journeyed with her husband and family from New York to Kansas Territory in 1856, and joined a vegetarian colony near present-day Chanute, Kansas. The book provides excerpts from the journal she kept along the way and during her stay in Kansas. Upon arriving in Kansas City she records the following:

RH C906

The Kansas Collection includes many publications that deal with the period in the state's history known as "Bleeding Kansas," when both free state and pro slavery forces struggled to determine the future of Kansas. This inflammatory publication, critical of President Franklin Pierce, includes personal narratives of a number of individuals representing the free state view.

Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902. He spent his early childhood (1903 to 1915) in Lawrence, Kansas, where he was raised largely by his grandmother, Mary Langston. In a talk given at the University of Kansas in 1965 he recalled his Lawrence days: "The first place I remember is Lawrence, right here. And the specific street is Alabama Street. And then we moved north, we moved to New York Street shortly thereafter. The first church I remember is the A.M.E. Church on the corner of Ninth, I guess it is, and New York. That is where I went to Sunday School, where I almost became converted, which I tell about in The Big Sea, my autobiography, my first autobiography."

In the Kansas Collection researchers can find a copy of The Big Sea and much more of Langston Hughes' work, including poetry, a novel, short stories, music and drama. Also included are various works translated into Hindi, Japanese, Swedish, and other languages. Many of the works were given to the Collection by Hughes, inscribed by him to the University of Kansas.

From 1919 to 1951 the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company, Girard, Kansas, published some 500 million copies of Little Blue Books, representing over six thousand different titles. Emanuel Haldeman-Julius became known to some of his contemporaries as the "Henry Ford of publishing."

A socialist in his youth, Emanuel Julius came to Kansas in 1913 to join the editorial staff of the Appeal to Reason, one of the largest circulating socialist newspapers in the U.S. In 1916 he married Anna Marcet Haldeman. Interestingly they chose to hyphenate their two last names, a common practice today, but decidedly not so then. In 1919 Haldeman-Julius bought out the Appeal to Reason and continued with various publications of his own. He believed that good literature should be available to everyone, rich or poor, and that by publishing in mass quantities he could produce books of interest to many at a low price. His Little Blue Book series, which appeared under that name in 1924, offered small format books (3 1/2 x 5 inches) with about 64 pages per book, selling for as little as 10 cents apiece.

The books proved to be immensely popular. The series covered a very broad range of subjects including self improvement, philosophy, religion, politics, humor, biography, music, literature, science and sex education. Haldeman-Julius described the success of his series in the introduction to his How to become a writer of Little Blue Books: "The future of the Little Blue Book series is assured. Nothing can stop the progress of these little messengers of culture and mass education and entertainment."

29. Great Western Paint Catalog, Kansas City, Great Western Paint Manufacturing Co., 1929.

The main plant of the Great Western Paint Manufacturing Company was in Kansas City, with branch plants in Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, and Buffalo. Their catalog carries illustrations of paint, varnishes, and brushes together with product descriptions and cost, but it provides far more than just a guide to what was in use at the time. An article written by the president of the company, A.M. Hughes, outlines how he started the business, and mentions plans to open several more plants. Much information is provided about two ways of increasing the mutual profits of company and painter: the "Great Western Plan," under which the painters shared in the profits on paint sold to customers, and the "Kangaroo Club," which claimed a membership of 15,000 and offered various benefits based on the amount of paint sold by the individual member.

RH B1239

Each section of the book contains numbered lessons for the teacher's use. Wooster, a teacher herself, describes her objectives in the introduction: "The number and variety of exercises given are so numerous that they will save the teacher from writing out much drill work on the blackboard. Blackboard lessons are very objectionable, on account of the injury done to pupils' eyes. More books should be used in the lower grades, and less blackboard work, and then we would find a much less per cent of the children wearing glasses in the school-room."

31. Petroleum Reporter, July, 1936. San Antonio, Texas.

Kansas Governor Alfred M. Landon, shown on the cover of this periodical, was nominated by the Republicans to run for President of the United States in 1936 against Franklin Roosevelt. He campaigned on the theme of sound money, but lost to Roosevelt.

As the caption says, "Alfred M. Landon, after graduating from the University [of Kansas] spent three years in a bank, and then went into the oil business, and prospered. He went into it at the end where they wear boots, khaki trousers and leather jackets and built a business out of the earnings."

Landon, an early conservationist, an oil man who fought big oil companies, and an opponent of the Ku Klux Klan at the peak of its activities in the 1920s, won the election for governor of Kansas in 1932, and was reelected to a second term in 1934.

William Allen White was one of Kansas' best-known and respected journalists. He purchased the Emporia Gazette in 1895 at the age of twenty-seven. Describing his arrival in Emporia to take over the newspaper he wrote: "I never played poker but I did enjoy throwing dice with Fate that May evening as I rode regally through Emporia with the top of the hack down, a dollar in my pocket, and in my heart the sense that I had the world by the tail with a downward pull." White remained in Emporia for the rest of his life, but gained nation-wide fame as a writer, journalist, and social observer and commentator.

This yearbook is one of many in the Kansas Collection published by Haskell Indian Junior College (now Haskell Indian Nations University). Established by the federal government in 1884 as an industrial boarding school for Native American children, Haskell has evolved over the years to become one of only two federally run higher education facilities for Native Americans in the United States.

In 1972 Haskell was completing its second year as a Kansas accredited junior college, with a student population totaling approximately one thousand, representing some 60 tribes from all over the United States. The yearbook provides information on the students attending the school, the teachers who taught there, clubs and organizations, social activities, and sports events. School and university yearbooks can provide researchers with information on school curricula, organizations, and social life that is difficult to find elsewhere.

34. Seven Point AIDS/HIV Prevention and Intervention Plan, Topeka: Kansas Department of Health and Environment, 1990.

"This document outlines a strategic plan for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to further address the substantial needs created by the unique epidemic of AIDS/HIV disease." The Kansas Collection contains many state documents which reflect the state's response to issues confronting Kansans and society in general throughout the years.

The First Baptist Church was one of the earliest African American churches to be organized in Kansas, and exemplifies the origins of African American institutions in the state. Organized in 1864 in Wyandotte, Kansas, the congregation consisted originally of 20 members and held services in a store room for two years until a frame church was constructed on Nebraska Avenue. In 1879 the church relocated to Fifth and Nebraska Avenue; a brick building was erected which remains in use today.

A speech given on January 29, 1910, at the Kansas Day Dinner of the Chicago Kansas Day Club, by F.D. Coburn, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture and President of the State Temperance Union. He offers his views and the testimony of others on the benefits of prohibition, which Kansas voters had approved in 1880. He quotes the Reverend Charles M. Sheldon (Topeka author of the multi-million seller In His steps), "Constitutional prohibition has done more than any other one thing to make Kansas the garden spot, morally, of the universe. . . . Prohibition in Kansas is not a question mark, but a permanent fact. The saloon and all that goes with it in Kansas is deader than Pharaoh's army."

An advertisement for celluloid eyeglasses.

The manufacturer's claim that the corset cannot be broken. A reward of $10.00 is offered for every strip of coraline which breaks with four months' ordinary wear.

Trade cards of this general type were very popular from the 1860s up to World War I. They served as a small premium and were widely collected, very often for insertion in scrapbooks. Some were locally produced, but many more were offered by color printers for local imprinting. Today's baseball cards started out as a form of trade card, advertising a particular product.

The Kansas Collection includes numerous maps of Kansas and the Great Plains. Maps produced between 1854 and 1861 show the geographic boundaries of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories and the states that developed from them. Other maps depict the location of reservations given to Native Americans, the progress of the railroad through the region, and the development of counties, towns, roads and highways. A substantial collection of plat atlases provides the names of property owners in Kansas and Nebraska counties from the 1880s through the 1920s. Maps created by the Sanborn Company for insurance underwriters provide detailed information on the types of buildings constructed and business districts developed in Kansas.

Maps are stored flat in special steel drawer cases, and each individual map is placed in an archival quality map folder. Maps that are particularly fragile are encapsulated. Maps included in printed books present special problems for preservation. Any number of extremely important maps can be found tightly folded to fit the format of such things as nineteenth century travelers' handbooks. While no doubt handy for the traveler, this method of issue was very hard on the maps. Folding and unfolding leads to tearing along the fold lines. Maps that are issued in pockets inside books can be easily removed and stored flat separately from the book (taking particular care to note the relationship of the map to the publication), but there may be little that can be done to protect maps that were published sewn or glued into books.

The Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were formed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The subject of much political debate before its passage, the Act provided that each territory should determine for itself whether to enter the Union as a slave or free state.

This map, created by the New York based map company of J.H. Colton was produced to depict the new territories. The Nebraska Territory, as defined at that time extended to the Canadian border. The southern boundary of Kansas was set at the 37th parallel and the western boundaries of both territories extended to the Continental Divide. By the time Kansas attained statehood in 1861, the size of the state had been reduced from the 126,283 square miles shown in this map to the 81,318 square miles that constitute the state today.

The map shows the location of towns, rivers, Native American tribes, missions, and routes through the area, such as the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. Along the Oregon route the map notes that mileage is included at various points using Westport Landing in Missouri as the starting point. An inset at the bottom of the map shows the land acquired from Mexico as part of the Gadsden Purchase of 1854.

RH Map Sanborn

The Sanborn Map Company produced hundreds of thousands of maps for towns across the United States designed to provide fire insurance companies with the detailed information they needed in order to determine the amount of risk involved in underwriting a fire insurance policy for a particular structure. The several thousand examples in the Kansas Collection record the built environment of 243 Kansas towns from the 1880s to the early 1930s. They were acquired from the Library of Congress.

The maps were prepared by surveyors sent out to the individual towns by the Sanborn Map Company. Walter R. Ristow, in his introduction to the work Fire insurance maps in the Library of Congress, estimates that at the peak of production there were approximately three hundred surveyors working throughout the United States—anonymous mapmakers, unfortunately, since they did not sign their work. The maps were produced in the Company's New York plant, using a lithographic process, and each sheet was colored by hand, using wax paper stencils.

Each map shows the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories, the locations of windows and doors, fire walls, sprinkler systems, types of roofs, the names and widths of streets, property boundaries, building use, house and block numbers, the location of water mains, fire alarm boxes, and hydrants. A range of editions of a given map over a period of time provides a unique source of information on town growth and development.

The map exhibited is one of four sheets showing Newton, Kansas, in 1884. The upper left corner of the map provides an index of sorts, showing what portion of the town has been surveyed. In the upper right corner the map contains the signatures of insurance agents in Newton who attested to the map's accuracy and completeness. The rest of the map contains the actual survey for the section of the town that is designated as "1" in the upper left corner of the map. The key to the map is located in the right center and indicates, among other things, that red (which appears pink on the map) is used for brick construction, blue for stone, yellow for frame, and green for "specials."

40. "Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad," map showing land for sale along the route of the Railroad, in Kansas in 1875, strong and impartial testimony to the wonderful productiveness of the Cottonwood and Arkansas Valleys, Topeka, Kansas: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, 1875.

This publication is a promotional piece issued by the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. In 1875 a number of newspaper editors from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Ohio were invited to travel on the Railroad, at the Railroad's expense, from Atchison, Kansas, to Granada, Colorado. The purpose of the trip was to counter negative images of Kansas that had resulted from the devastation caused by grasshoppers the previous year. Included are numerous quotations from the many editors who took part in this excursion, with glowing accounts of Kansas' potential for bountiful crops and good soil. Of the Cottonwood Valley one excursionist wrote "This valley is the richest part of Kansas that we passed through, and cannot be surpassed in the world for the richness of soil and contour of surface; and the crop of wheat, already at that time nearly all harvested, would rival the best crops ever raised in the Genesee Valley, New York. It was better than gold to the view, and was a sure index of the capacity of the soil and climate to produce this staff of life."

This particular map was originally folded down to fit into the book and attached directly to its back cover. Since repeated folding and unfolding have seriously weakened the map, it has been removed, opened out, and encapsulated. Catalog records for the book and map ensure that the original form is explained.

Bird's eye views of towns—representations giving the impression of having been made from some imaginary viewpoint a few thousand feet up in the air--enjoyed a particular vogue during the 19th century and on into the 1920s. According to John Reps (Views and Viewmakers of Urban America), early bird's eye views were drawn by landscape artists, taking a high point of land as their viewpoint and drawing just what they could see.

Following the Civil War, as the country was opened up, artists began to travel the land looking for subscribers ready to pay for the production of views to advertise the development of a community and attract new residents and businesses. The artist would first spend time walking the streets of the town, sketching in detail the buildings, trees, topography, and the design of open spaces. Then, working from a town map, or from his own measurements, he constructed a grid showing the streets, and transferred to it his sketches of buildings and other information, using a perspective suggesting a viewpoint at an elevation of two to three thousand feet. A finished sketch was prepared for the agent to use in soliciting subscriptions; once the subscriptions were secured, a final drawing would be sent to a lithographer for printing.

The map shows a great deal of wear, with tears at the edges, a corner missing, and prominent stains along the left and top edges. It is fortunate that it has survived at all; in spite of its condition it retains great research potential.

This highway map is a part of a brochure advertising the Red Star Highway, from Fort Worth, Texas to Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri. According to the brochure the highway—"More hard surface road than any other route of equal length between the Mississippi River and the Pacific coast"—was financed by civic organizations and businesses in a number of towns in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The brochure was designed to be folded, as evidenced by the horizontal and vertical crease lines, where deterioration is apparent.. To give it adequate protection and support it has been encapsulated.

The map is interesting, both for the information it contains about the highway, and the efforts made to promote its use. It was clearly not produced with libraries in mind, but for the traveler, as the brochure says: "TOURISTS—After you have left the Red Star Route, if you have no further use for this map, please hand it to some traveler coming our way."

43. Map of Waterville, Marshall County, Kansas, Union Pacific Rail Road Company, Central Branch, 1871.

This attractively produced map shows the plat for the town of Waterville, which is intersected by the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The townsite of Waterville was surveyed in 1868, and the town incorporated in 1870. Prior to the survey the land was conveyed to the Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad by its owner. The town grew quickly, and by 1871 included a city elevator, school, newspaper, hotel, several churches, and the railroad depot.

The Kansas Collection's architectural records holdings include building specifications, business records, and numerous types of drawings—plans, elevations, perspectives, presentations, renderings. The size of an individual collection may range from several drawings of a single building to hundreds of drawings representing the career of an individual or firm. In addition to work produced by architects and architectural firms, there are also drawings and reports by students of architecture and individuals involved in historic preservation. Records range from the early 1860s to the present day and cover everything from private homes to business and institutional buildings and from small rural structures to large urban complexes.

Although some types of architectural records, such as specifications, are subject to the same sort of preservation problems associated with other forms of manuscripts and printed materials, architectural drawings pose additional challenges. Original drawings must be stored separately from printed forms because of the deleterious chemicals used in the reproduction of drawings. Drafting ink and pencil, the two most common architectural rendering media, are susceptible to smearing and fading. Whenever possible, drawings are stored flat in metal cases. Oversized drawings are loosely rolled with an interleaving of acid-free stock protecting each roll.

This is a presentation drawing, used to show the client how the finished building will look and function. The Marshall Collection also includes working drawings, tracings, renderings, prints, specifications, business and personal papers, sketch books, and paintings by Mr. Marshall.

Charles L. Marshall, A.I.A, received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Architecture and an Architect professional degree from Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. A licensed architect in both Kansas and Missouri, with a private practice in Topeka, Mr. Marshall also served as Assistant State Architect of Kansas, 1935-1945, and State Architect, 1945-1952. His designs span several decades and range in size from small private residences to major state office buildings. In addition to being a talented architect, Mr. Marshall was also an accomplished artist and illustrator.

Specifications are written instructions for the builder and include information on materials, dimensions, colors and finishes. It is probable that these plans were not drawn by an architect but were based on traditional designs for a one room school house.

The preservation of one of our most basic freedoms, freedom of speech, was a primary motivation in the formation of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements. The collection is nationally recognized for its documentation of the political thought and activity of the American Left and Right. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1960s to the present and is national in its coverage, representing 8,000 individuals and organizations. Included are more than 10,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals, 800 audio tapes, 73 linear feet of manuscript materials and nearly 85,000 pieces of ephemera, including flyers, brochures, and clippings.

The Wilcox Collection began during the turbulent 1960s. Political and social change was the order of the day and, providentially for researchers interested in the period, Laird Wilcox, a University of Kansas student and member of the Students for a Democratic Society, was collecting the printed record as the events were occurring. The collection (then four file drawers of material) was acquired from him by the Libraries in 1965 and he has continued as the major donor to the collection. In the 1960s Mr. Wilcox was himself active in civil rights movements and involved with local events as publisher of the Kansas Free Press, an independent progressive journal, and as chairman of the University of Kansas Student Union Activities Minority Opinions Forum. An avid believer in free speech, Mr. Wilcox is a long-time student of the psychology of political movements.

One of the largest collections of its type in the nation, the Wilcox Collection is noted for its broad coverage of both political extremes. The left wing is represented by such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, Women Strike for Peace and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s have been well documented through the acquisition of thousands of newspapers such as The Berkeley Barb, Albatross, and Kaleidoscope. The opinions voiced by members of the right wing are also represented by publications of the John Birch Society, the Christian Nationalist Crusade, Young Americans for Freedom, and the National States Rights Party. Notable individuals whose writings are included in the collection are Phyllis Schlafly, Father Coughlin, Phoebe Courtney, and Willis Carto.

In 1985 the Kansas Collection was awarded a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education to catalog the periodicals and ephemeral materials in the Collection. The cataloging records produced through the grant project are accessible in the University Libraries online catalog and on the OCLC Online Union Catalog.. Access to the books in the collection is through a separate card catalog.

In our efforts to preserve these materials and make them available, we face major challenges. Most of the items are printed on poor quality paper, particularly the newspapers and paperback books. The ephemera files, made up of items on equally poor paper, include posters and other oversized pieces which have been weakened or damaged by folding, faded mimeographed sheets, and highly acidic newspaper clippings. The oversized materials are stored flat in folders and map cases, other contents of files are placed in archival folders and boxes, and the newspaper clippings are photocopied on acid-free paper.

The items chosen for the exhibition can only suggest the range of diverse viewpoints and beliefs represented.

46. Students for a Democratic Society. Miscellaneous flyers from the 1960s.

The Students for a Democratic Society originated as a college division within the League for Industrial Democracy and split off from the parent body in 1958. This coalition of liberals and radicals became the most widespread and influential of student protest groups in the 1960s. The SDS became increasingly militant and splintered into three rival factions at the Chicago convention in 1969. Weatherman, later known as Weather Underground, continued its violent activities into the early 1970s.

47a. Free Angela and all political prisoners. Newsletter of the San Francisco Committee to Free Angela Davis and the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis, Aug. 1971.

One of the few women leaders in the Black Power movement, Angela Davis gained national attention when she was charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and murder. In 1972, she was acquitted of all charges and became active as a speaker and co-chair of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression. She also ran as the Communist Party USA's vice-presidential candidate in 1980 and 1984.

La Raza served as the voice of the La Raza Unida Party, formed in Texas in 1969. Their goals included national support and recognition as an independent political party and bringing education and unity to Chicanos.

Millard served as a member of the Secretariat of the Women's International Democratic Federation in the early 1950s. This federation of women's organizations fought "for the recognition of women's dignity, and to win, extend, put into practice and defend their fundamental rights." Besides this pamphlet, she also wrote Women Against Myth, published in 1948.

Organized in the Los Angeles area in the late 1950s, members of the National Committee to Abolish HUAC worked to combat the House Committee on Un-American Activities. After political pressure and the reorganization of the House of Representatives, the House committee ceased to exist in 1975.

This thoroughly documented and detailed tour of political extremism has recently won an award for the authors from the Gus Davis Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States. Mr. Wilcox publishes the annuals Guide to the American Right and the Guide to the American Left. The Kansas Library Association and Social Issues Resources Series, Inc. have chosen Mr. Wilcox as the 1994 recipient of their Freedom of Information Award.

52b. Fernando Penabaz, Crusading Preacher from the West, Tulsa, Okla.: Christian Crusade, 1965.

Billy James Hargis was a Christian fundamentalist preacher who waged a holy war against Communism and in 1947 founded the Christian Echoes National Ministry. Located in Oklahoma, his "Christian Crusade" served as a launching point for his radio and television programs, publications, speaking tours, and the American Christian College. A sex scandal forced Hargis to retreat from his Cathedral in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to a small log church in rural Missouri.

53a. Elizabeth Dilling, The Roosevelt Red Record and its Background, Kenilworth, Ill.: Elizabeth Dilling, 1936.

One of the most colorful of the early anti-Communists, Elizabeth Dilling became a strident voice in America during the 1930s. A pre-war isolationist, she wrote several books including The Roosevelt Red Record, in which she attacked Franklin Roosevelt as a Communist sympathizer. She was also director of the Patriotic Research Bureau through which she published the Dilling Bulletin from the 1940s until her death in 1966.

Phoebe Courtney was managing editor of the Independent American, a national conservative newspaper which was published from 1955 until it ceased in 1991. She is the author of many books and publishes a series of pamphlets called TAX FAX. Millions of the pamphlets have been distributed, covering such topics as sex education, illegal aliens, free trade, gays in the military, and fluoridation.

This novel of political intrigue was published in 1961 not long after the McCarthy anti-Communism hearings of the mid-1950s. The author specialized in the study of Communism and spent several months in the Soviet Union in 1959.

Probably the most successful far Right organization, the John Birch Society was established in 1958 by Robert H. W. Welch, Jr., reached its height in the mid-1960s, and has steadily declined in membership since. The John Birch Society was named for a young Baptist preacher who was killed by Chinese Communists soon after the end of World War II.