Manuscripts
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.
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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."
1a. Diary of Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius, Survey of the Sources of the Red River, April 25—June 30, 1876.
1b. Tintype of Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius.
Carl Julius Adolph Hunnius Collection, RH MS VLT C49 and RH MS-P VLT 153.2
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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.
Bartleson Estate Collection, RH MS 867
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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.
Eudora, Kansas, Records, RH MS G40
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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.
5. Payroll voucher, Sac and Fox of Missouri, April 3, 1861. 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.
Daniel Vanderslice Collection, RH MS 136:3 and .4
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Sarah Catharine (Kate) Warthen was born in Indiana and moved with her family to Cherokee County, Kansas, in 1883. In 1885 three of her brothers homesteaded in Hamilton County, and she followed their example, filing a claim in 1887. Kate, a teacher and writer, was elected County Superintendent for Hamilton County in 1890, and continued in that position until she married in 1894.
In a letter to her future husband, E.C. Searcy, written in September, 1892, Kate described the process of running for public office:
"I know that in Tennessee the County Superintendent is appointed by the County Court. In Kansas the people elect, as other offices are elected. The Republicans of this county have adopted what is called the Crawford system of primary elections to take the place of nominating conventions. It is this nominating election which has just been held. For Superintendent 207 votes were cast, of which my competitor received 62. All my friends said it was unnecessary for me to make a canvass as I was certain of nomination, but I chose to do so to make myself more certain . . . I do not like real electioneering, but I do like riding over the county and meeting my friends. Everywhere I was welcomed as a guest would be and not as an objectionable politician."
6a. Hamilton County, Kansas, certificate, Nov. 7, 1890.
6b. Photograph of Kate Warthen as a young woman.
6c. Teacher's contract for Kate Warthen, School District 49, Hamilton County, Kansas, March 2, 1889.
Kate Warthen Searcy Collection, RH MS 34:2.1 and .7, and RH MS-P 34.3
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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.
7a. Letter to Cpl. Charles Scott, from Elisha Scott, Feb. 1, 1945 (carbon copy). 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.
7b. Letter to Elisha Scott, from Charles Scott, March 16, 1944. This letter, with its envelope, 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.
Charles Scott Collection, RH MS 1145
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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.
8 a. and b. Smith's diary 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. A snapshot of Wint Smith on ship crossing the Atlantic, 1917.
Right in the midst of the "sub" zone we are now in our greatest danger and will be until sometime tomorrow morning about 10 oclock. It has been a study to watch the attitudeof the men on board. Most of them might just as well have been in New York for all the concern they showed; others were nervous and restless, while a few walked the decks impatiently with life preservers on and over coats over them. A few didn't eat any dinner or supper because they were dubious about going into the dining room because they said it was right over the engine room. Well, in my way of thinking this afternoon will be like apleasure jaunt compared to what we will have to go thru with before we are back safely in good old U.S.A.
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.
Wint Smith Collection, RH MS C55 and RH MS-P 201:2.2
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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, Isabel, was born in 1915. Lucy died in 1917 at the age of 32, from complications related to pregnancy.
Her collection 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.
9b. Letter to Ethel Lowry from Lucy Jones Townley, June 12, 1916. In this letter Lucy reports on the progress of her daughter, mentions family activities, and outlines her work routine. “I've been some working lady this morning. Got up at 5:30—the washing—scrubbed all the porches—breakfast—cleaned up the house—made two cakes—I got dinner and dishes over.”
9c and d. 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, and she included a photograph of Isabel, her daughter.
Lucy Isabel Jones Townley Collection, RH MS 1270
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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.
10a. Mrs. J. W. Jones Memorial Chapel, Inc., Kansas City, Kansas, Funeral Record Book, Aug. 6, 1901 - Oct. 15, 1903.
10b. Mr. J. W. Jones in front of his funeral home, 440 State Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas, ca. 1901.
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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."