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Kansas Collection

The Kansas Collection is the regional history division of the University of Kansas Libraries.The Collection provides researchers with primary source materials that document the history of Kansas, the region, and the people who have lived here. In order to support teaching and research at the University, and elsewhere, staff of the Collection acquire, preserve, and make available such resources as manuscripts, historical photographs, maps, architectural drawings and blueprints, books, newspapers and other serial publications (e.g., periodicals), film and videotapes that document the "Kansas Experience." The Kansas Collection is also a depository for publications of the state of Kansas and for Douglas County records.

Kansas became a territory in 1854, and a state in 1861. The bulk of the Collection's holdings cover the period from statehood to the present. Materials beyond Kansas include documentation from the contiguous states and the Great Plains generally. Regional representation of agricultural, political and social movements, economic development, and overland trail migration expand both the time frame and types of materials available.

Map of Kansas and Nebraska

 

Sumner High School class of 1921
African American Experience

The legacy of early African American settlers is reflected through images, documents, correspondance and records from the following:
  • schools
  • businesses
  • churches and clubs
  • papers of families and individuals.

Douglas County Records

The Kansas Collection is the depository for records of Douglas County, Kansas, though some of the older records of Douglas County are also held by the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, the Lawrence, Kansas Public Library and the Watkins Museum in Lawrence.

  • Douglas County District Court Records
  • Douglas County Probate Records
  • Douglas County Civil and Criminal Court Records
  • Douglas County Marriage Records
  • Douglas County Appraiser's Office Records
  • Douglas County Census Records
Douglas County Map

19th c Kansans

Photographs, Papers and Records of Life in Kansas and the Great Plains

  • Images of town life and farming at the turn of the century
  • Collections of small town commercial photographers.
  • Architectural history
  • Experiences of women
  • Overland trail accounts
  • Environmental issues
  • Territorial Kansas
  • Lawrence history
  • Economic development

Wilcox Collection
One of the largest assemblages of US left and right wing political literature in this country.The bulk of the collection covers 1960 to the present.

  • 10,000 books
  • pamphlets and periodicals
  • 800 audio tapes
  • 73 linear feet of manuscript materials
  • more than 100,000 pieces of ephemera including flyers, brochures, mailings, clippings and bumper stickers

Curator - Sheryl K. Williams, swilliam@ku.edu, 785/864-4334
Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, 1450 Poplar Lane,
The University of Kansas KS 66045-7616, Phone: 785/864-4334 Fax: 785/864-5803