Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of our friends, supporters, researchers, and visitors! Please remember that Spencer Research Library will be closed through Sunday, January 4, 2015. We have more exciting resources to share in the new year, and we look forward to discussing them with you!

 Christmas tree in Strong Hall, 1980. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Christmas 1980 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Enjoy a breathtaking image from the Vosper Hours (MS Pryce C1) during this week of Christmas. This highly decorated manuscript was created in 15th-century France as a book of hours, or Christian devotional book.

Vosper Hours. Nativity Scene. MS Pryce C1. Click image to enlarge.

For more information on this beautiful book, see Sharon L. Foster’s 1965 master’s thesis, “The Kansas University Hours of the Virgin”.

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

For a snowy day on Mount Oread, here’s an 1896 view of KU’s campus similarly covered by a light snowfall.

Looking south, a view (from left to right) of Spooner, old Blake, old Fraser, and
old Snow Halls, 1896. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 0/24/P 1896 Prints:
Campus Panoramas (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Several archival collections in our Kansas Collection contain images showing Christmas scenes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We’ve selected a few to show here; we hope they help get you in the holiday spirit!

Room interior with Christmas tree and presents, 1896.
Leavenworth Public Library Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 72. Click image to enlarge.

Louise and Margaret Walbridge sitting under the Christmas tree
with their toys, Profile Ranch, Russell County, Kansas, circa 1897.
Louis Chester Walbridge Collection. Call Number: RH PH 21. Click image to enlarge.

7th Battery dining hall set for Christmas dinner, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1906.
Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Douglass Grade School, Manhattan, Kansas, Christmas 1945.
James E. Butler Collection. Call Number: RH MS-P 507. Click image to enlarge.

John A. Hodge with his grandson, ten-year-old Johnnie L. Hodge, Christmas 1949.
The pair are examining Owen Wilson’s new “knockdown” electric train cars.
Photograph by Dowdal H. Davis, son-in-law. Dorothy Hodge Johnson Collection.
Call Number: RH MS-P 549. Click image to enlarge.

Winner of Christmas decoration contest, Topeka, Kansas, circa 1950s. Photograph by Joe Douglas.
Joe Douglas Collection. Call Number: RH PH 90. Click image to enlarge.

Christmas decorations on Massachusetts Street at 7th, Lawrence, Kansas, undated.
Lawrence Photo Collection. Call Number: RH PH 18H.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Good luck to KU students as they wrap up the Fall 2014 semester today and take final exams next week!

Christmas decorations brighten this study session, 1950s. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/0 1950s Prints: Student Activities (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

For additional pictures of KU students poring over their work, see also our blog entry from earlier this year, “KU Students Studying Hard, 1950-1985.”

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant