Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.
I started working on this exhibit as part of an effort to tie Spencer materials in with this year’s KU Reads Common Book, John Green’s Anthropocene Reviewed. When I first started thinking about this exhibit, my idea was to collect things I thought people might be interested in reviewing themselves. I looked at the library’s first-edition copy of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (Call Number: ASF B643). I looked at a gorgeous bound volume from Special Collections with binding I’d never seen before (Call Number: B10546). I even pulled and contemplated items from the Kansas State Seals collection (Call Number: RH MS Q428), wondering if there was a way I could somehow work a seal into the display.
The process of creating a display is by necessity dialectical. You might pull items with a particular theme in mind, only to discover that another theme might be more appropriate. In some ways, having the exterior guide of Green’s essays helped to eliminate some of that back and forth.
I thought that I knew what I would end up writing about with each of the items by the time I finalized my selection. With the KU Monopoly game, I thought I would write about my childhood experiences (or lack thereof) playing Monopoly. But as I was looking through the box, trying to decide how I would want to have it set up in the display, I discovered a little sticky note describing the item as a gift to the archive.
The inside lid of KU Monopoly with an attached sticky note that reads “Christmas gift from Sandy Mason to the Archives Dec 20, 2004.” Alexandra “Sandy” Mason was Spencer’s first librarian; she worked at KU from 1957 until she retired in 1999. Call Number: RG 0/Artifacts. Click image to enlarge.
“Wild Geese Flying” (Call Number: MS P650) was sent as a Christmas card by poet Barbara Howes, and I initially thought that I would write primarily about the idea of sending a poem as a card. As I sat with the item, however, I became captivated by the poem itself. It’s more about the idea of geese than about an encounter with an individual member of goose-dom. It’s about the transience of migratory birds. It made me think about how so much of what we strive for here is permanence, or something like it, and how almost everything we keep here is vulnerable to time.
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“Wild Geese Flying,” a poem that Barbara Howes sent as a Christmas card in 1966. Correspondence, Poems, and Reviews By and About Barbara Howes. Call Number: MS P650. Click image to enlarge.
Green says in The Anthropocene Reviewed that “there are no disinterested observers, only participants” (p. 5). I initially read this as a commentary on how the act of observing something – what we choose to give our attention to – is inherently an expression of our agency. But I think that it also speaks to the fact that it’s hard to be really, truly disinterested if you pay enough attention. Nothing is ever quite as straightforward as it seems, as this display has so aptly shown me.
The Uncommon Books exhibit will be open in Spencer’s North Gallery through December 1. The display is accompanied by a page on the Lawrence Reviews website. Feel free to stop by and write your own review!
This week week, October 5-11, is Banned Books Week, an advocacy initiative started by the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee in 1982 at the suggestion of the Association of American Publishers, who were facing many censorship efforts by the religious right at the time. Libraries across the country celebrate this week with banned book displays and events that bring attention to the fact that our freedom to read is still under attack. KU’s Watson Library currently has a display of banned books, and KU students can check the Libby app for a list of e-books and audiobooks that are commonly challenged.
The Wilcox collection was started by Laird Wilcox, a student at KU in the 1960s who was interested in politics and concerned about free speech. He started collecting flyers, newsletters, and books from organizations on the political margins, including communist groups and right-wing leaders. As the chair of KU’s Student Union Activities Minority Opinions Forum, he brought several controversial speakers to campus, including neo-Nazi activist George Lincoln Rockwell. The 1964 event caused heated debate among students and faculty about free speech and what was appropriate on college campuses. (The Wilcox Collection includes photographs and cassette tapes from this event and Wilcox’s interview with Rockwell.) Wilcox’s experiences at KU as a student activist led him to collecting political material he feared would be banned or otherwise unavailable. He continued collecting until his death in 2023.
Winners of the KU Libraries’ Taylor (now Snyder) Book Collecting Contest, 1964. Laird Wilcox is on the far left, next to Elizabeth M. Taylor (the sponsor of the contest). Laird’s winning collection later became part of Spencer’s Wilcox Collection. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/40 photographs. Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
To find these kind of publications, Wilcox used directories like the Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications, which was issued by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities (known as HUAC) and revised several times throughout the 1950s and early ‘60s. This directory included summaries of organizations with citations to HUAC’s own committee reports and records. Although this directory and others like were often used by librarians to censor their own collections, Wilcox used it essentially as a catalog. He also purchased books published by right-wing organizations and individuals on their beliefs that schools, government bodies, or other organizations were brainwashing Americans, especially children, with left-wing propaganda like Communist-Socialist Propaganda in American Schools by Verne P. Kaub. These were also useful for tracking down material, as they often included lists of titles and directions on how to (ironically) acquire them to review for censorship efforts in local communities. Wilcox also collected books, periodicals, and ephemera by organizations devoted to free speech that tracked censorship like Censorship News to help make collecting decisions and acquire material that is now available at Spencer.
The front cover of the Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (and Appendixes), 1961. Call Number: RH WL C601. Click image to enlarge.
The front cover of Communist-Socialist Propaganda in American Schools, 1967. Call Number: RH WL B3573. Click image to enlarge.
By corresponding and meeting with booksellers and people who belonged to these groups, Wilcox expanded his circle of contacts to acquire more “subversive” books and material. He was able to facilitate acquisitions of unpublished manuscript materials from key figures in both left-wing and right-wing movements like Willis Carto (founder of the Liberty Lobby) and other collectors such as Albert and Angela Feldstein (who specialized in left-wing buttons, stickers, and posters). The Wilcox Collection now includes many formats beyond books such as photographs, audiovisual material, and more.
In his later life, after developing a reputation as an expert on propaganda and free speech, Wilcox wrote his own books on political extremism and compiled bibliographies of propaganda and books of quotations on censorship, propaganda, and freedom of speech. These publications are also available at Spencer in the Wilcox Collection.
The former Curator of the Wilcox Collection, Becky Schulte, wrote about Laird Wilcox, the history of the collection, and her efforts to expand it in a presentation to the Society of American Archivists in 2016, titled “Curating the Controversial: The Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, University of Kansas.” She details the acquisition of the collection of James Mason, a key figure in white supremacist movements, and both the difficulties and professional satisfaction involved in curating such a collection.
The librarian Mary Jo Godwin said that “a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone,” a quote that is now widely circulated on social media during Banned Books Week and in other discussions of censorship. Due to the decades of tireless effort by both Laird Wilcox and Becky Schulte, we can say that the Spencer Research Library is among the best of truly great libraries.
Kate Stewart Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements
This is the latest installment in a recurring series of posts introducing readers to the staff of Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Today’s profile features Kate Stewart, who joined Spencer Research Library in August 2025 as the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements.
Kate Stewart, Curator the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements. Click image to enlarge.
Where are you from?
I was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and when I was five, we moved to Merriam, Kansas, where I spent the rest of my childhood. Since I left at 18 for Vassar College, I have moved around a lot all over the country. Most recently, I was living in Tucson and before that, Washington, D.C. It is really great to be back in the area that I think of as home! My older brother and a lot of my high school friends went to KU, so I have many fond memories of hanging out in Lawrence in the ‘90s. Fun fact: I went to Day on the Hill for the first time in 1993 when I was in 8th grade! Unfortunately, that was the year after the infamous Pearl Jam show, but I did get to see MU330 and many other bands in Lawrence.
How did you come to work at Spencer Research Library?
I have been working in archives for almost twenty years, mostly in temporary positions that focused on political and oral history collections. When I saw this job posting, I knew it was my dream job. Not only is it exactly the kind of work I want to do, but I also have been wanting to move back to the area for the past few years. I feel incredibly lucky to be here every day.
What does your job at Spencer entail?
I’m the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, which has a large number of books, ephemera, and manuscript collections related to left- and right-wing movements in the United States. In particular, it is the premier archive for researchers studying right-wing extremism and one of the only ones in the U.S. that collects that kind of material. My primary job duty is to acquire new items and collections in this area, which means I get to shop online for rare books and ephemera and work with people interested in donating their personal and organizational collections to the Spencer Library. I will also be teaching instruction sessions related to the Wilcox collection for KU classes and researching stories about how politics and libraries are interconnected.
How did you come to work in libraries/archives/special collections?
My mom, aunt, and grandfather were all librarians, so I grew up hanging out in libraries quite a bit, especially when I was in college. After getting a master’s in history at the University of Iowa, I decided to get my master’s degree in library and information science there too and join the family business. As a student, I got to work at the Iowa Women’s Archives, which was a terrific first job for me in this field. From there, I have had many different jobs (including five temporary ones) in archives or libraries, including the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the U.S. Senate, and the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona. I have also worked as a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and editor for many years as well, which has been a great joy.
What part of your job do you like best?
Walking through the building, especially the stacks, when I’m alone and it’s dark. I always feel like I’m in the suspenseful part of a horror movie, and it’s quite an adrenaline rush. But when it comes to my actual job duties, I really love working with students. It’s so much fun to blow their minds about what we have at the library and that it’s all here for them.
What do you have on your desk?
I have some duplicate zines from the collection Spencer acquired from the Solidarity Library, including one titled Winning Office Politics Quickly that has been making me laugh. I have a lot of books from Watson Library about the FBI for an article I’m working on about the scandalous publication of Max Lowenthal’s book on the FBI in 1950, which I have been wanting to write for many years. I have also started bringing in ephemera from my own past to decorate my office, and I am glad to get some of it out of my moving boxes and into a good home.
What is one of the most interesting items you’ve come across in Spencer’s collections?
While looking at zines for classes that are coming in this semester, I came across a famous one called Sniffin’ Glue. It was created in 1977 in London by Mark Perry, a punk fan and musician. It has some really great illustrations and photos from that time of bands like the Ramones and the Clash.
The front cover of Sniffin’ Glue, July 1977. Call Number: RH WL D9321. Click image to enlarge.
What are some of your favorite pastimes outside of work?
A lot of my life outside of work is consumed by reading about politics and participating in political organizations, although I don’t know if I should call that a pastime since it isn’t exactly enjoyable a lot of the time, especially these days. When I really want to relax, I take a long hike or go to a baseball game (I am a Royals and Nationals fan). I am also an obsessive music fan (and musician) and love to play card games.
Kate Stewart Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements
This is the first in a short series of posts highlighting students’ projects from Laura Mielke’s Spring 2025 class, “Archives in Scholarship” (ENGL 776). This week’s post was written by Joohye Oh, who graduated from KU in 2025 with a B.A. in English and Spanish. Her research interests include foodways and literacy.
Cookbooks – especially historic ones – are fascinating texts. Unlike 21st-century cookbooks that feature pictures of recipes, touching or interesting narrative asides, and use of less commonly found ingredients, older American cookbooks prioritize presenting readers and users with a no-frills approach to cooking. These cookbooks tend to be text-heavy and use ingredients more likely found in a pantry than a gourmet grocer. A wonderful example of an intriguing historical cookbook is the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, published in 1894, which showcases a slice of late 19th-century American foodways and the culinary literacy of the organized and ambitious women of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Parsons, Kansas. (“Fin de siècle” is a French term meaning “end of century.”)
Left: The protective red board cover for the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, which is a library-created pamphlet binding. Right: The cookbook’s original cover, slightly deteriorating, with the full title. Call Number: RH B2788. Click images to enlarge.
The Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book consists of two sections. First, there are 58 printed pages that include tipped-in clippings from magazines. Second, in the back, there are 11 pages of faintly lined paper that Whitney Baker, Head of Conservation Services at KU Libraries, believes were bound with the original publication and printed section. Someone, presumably a woman, filled with the blank lined pages with handwritten recipes that she selected and compiled. Instead of being completely different from the printed section, I see the handwritten section as extending the themes of women’s authorship and community while offering contemporary researchers a closer look at earlier American foodways in relation to the genre of the cookbook and literacy practices.
A tipped-in clipping of a cranberry pie recipe in the printed part of the cookbook. Call Number: RH B2788. Click image to enlarge.
Women’s authorship is especially central to this object. Writing this cookbook arguably opened up new avenues for authorship and empowerment for the Parsons women, like the way literary clubs did for middle-class Black women in the 1890s, as African American literature and literary studies scholar Elizabeth McHenry shows (120). Additionally, the place of authorship for both groups reflects the importance of a shared community space: a church for the Parsons women and a literary club member’s home for the Black women. One can imagine how these women – positioned as authors – selected, arranged, edited, and published these recipes (texts). This model of authorship furthers the legacy of women as authors in the cookbook genre. In fact, several of the earliest known American cookbooks – like The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph (1824), a text that showcases the elaborate culinary repertoire of the Southern elite (Fisher 19) – are powerful texts by knowledgeable women, two characteristics also found in the handwritten portion of the Fin-de-Siècle cookbook.
Community as an essential part of learning to read and write can also be inferred from the processes related to producing this text; in other words, these “[community] cookbooks function as literate practices of a community, sponsored by the community members who were themselves cooks, contributors, readers, organizers and editors” (Mastrangelo 73). Indeed, physical traces of this can be seen via each recipe’s attribution to a specific woman as well as the broader fact that the women in Parsons were using their social and technical skills to engage in readerly and writerly practices tied to their growing culinary literacy. To write a cohesive cookbook, they would have had to learn the characteristics of the cookbook genre as well as its subgenres like recipes and instructions. The clear grasp of these characteristics and deft culinary knowledge is present in the neat organization of the cookbook and mirrored in the handwritten recipes which give specific unit measurements for ingredients and reflect a strong awareness of effective kitchen habits. The writer of the handwritten portion continues the practice of attributing specific recipes to specific women: for example, the “Tomatoes Pickles” recipe is attributed to Mrs. Dean while the “Coffee Cake” recipe, found a few pages later, is attributed to “Annie.”
The first recipe on this page is a handwritten recipe for coffee cake attributed to Annie, 1902. Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, 1894. Call Number: RH B2788. Click image to enlarge.
The diversity of recipes in the second (handwritten) section hints at the importance of homemade food in the 19th century. Specifically, as someone whose culinary practices are greatly influenced by 21st-century food systems (easy availability of ingredients, prepared foods, and new food media) it is a little surprising at times to see recipes like “Good Tomato Catsup” and the instructions for mayonnaise/aioli in a “Salad” because these are two products I associate more closely with Heinz and Hellman’s. The appearance of these two condiments seems to reflect the different food practices for a woman and her household in Parsons before the advent of supermarkets and easy availability of industrial food items.
Together, the first and second parts of the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book offer a small glimpse into the complex and vibrant American foodways of the late 19th century and their broader historical and cultural contexts. The handwritten recipes carefully capture the specialized knowledge, skills, and dedication that the woman compiler most likely possessed while also reinforcing the idea that community and gendered authorship exist in a text often overlooked as simply being a collection of memories or a collection of delightful eating. Cookbooks and recipes, just like the small handwritten portion at the back of the Fin-de-Siècle Cook Book, are masterful representations of how literacy exists in the spaces and places sometimes overlooked because of who we consider to be authors and what we consider to be literature – even if that literature is mostly pickled green tomatoes recipes.
Joohye Oh ENGL 776 student, Spring 2025
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Elspeth Healey, Phil Cunningham, Caitlin Klepper, Whitney Baker, and Shelby Schellenger at Spencer Research Library; English 776 peers; Professor Laura Mielke; and the ladies of Parsons who compiled this cookbook.
Works Cited
Baker, Whitney. “Re: Parsons cookbook.” Email received by Joohye Oh and Caitlin Klepper, 24 April 2025.
Fisher, Carol. The American Cookbook: A History. McFarland, 2006 (Call Number: X715 .F534 2006).
Mastrangelo, Lisa. “Community Cookbooks: Sponsors of Literacy and Community Identity.” Community Literacy Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 2015, pp. 73–86.
McHenry, Elizabeth. Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African American Literary Societies. Duke University Press, 2002 (Call Number: PS153.N5 M36 2002).
How was knowledge, ranging from the scientific, pious, entrepreneurial, and artistic, to the preposterous, transmitted through the historic movement of print and manuscript material in and around Japan?
Nihon koezu 日本古絵図 (Manuscript map of Japan). Japan, ca. 1800. Call Number: MS R5:3. Click image to enlarge
Setting out to tackle this question in Spring 2025, students in the University of Kansas History of Art Department Japanese art history seminar “Manuscripts, Maps, and Illustrated Books” had the opportunity to curate this exhibition, working with materials from The Kenneth Spencer Research Library collection. Selected works range from 1646 to 1936, including detailed cartography, woodblock-printed imagery, and religious paraphernalia. Journeying from Japan to the West and back again, this exhibition spans three centuries and five intersecting themes.
Opened on July 31, 2025, the exhibition’s five cases follow the themes given below. In addition, a special event in the gallery on Wednesday, September 3, 2025 (3:30-4:45) will feature mini presentations on selected works by each seminar student. The exhibit will remain open through January 9, 2026.
1. Mapping and Conceptions of Space demonstrates that as Japan moved toward the 19th century, its awareness of the world beyond its islands gradually increased. Interactions with foreign visitors fostered an exchange of culture and knowledge that diffused into every area of society, including Japanese cartographic practices.
Nagasaki chizu 長崎地図 (Map of Nagasaki). Nagasaki: Bunkindō, 1860. Call Number: Orbis maps 2:75. Click image to enlarge.
Representations of space in both image and text indicate the geographical information deemed most important. From spiritual landmarks and cosmological beliefs to political boundaries and travel logistics, these historical maps and guides reveal how users’ conceptions of East Asia were shaped at the time.
Manpō eitai shin zassho Nihonzu iri 萬寳永代新雜書日本圖入 (New Miscellany of Countless Eternal Treasures, with a Map of Japan). Edo (Tokyo): Ensendō Tsubameya Yashichi, ca. 1758–1760. Call Number: Q151. Click image to enlarge.
While overseas travel remained restricted throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, these materials demonstrate an expanding awareness of domestic and global geographies, depicted using both traditional Japanese mapmaking and novel observations from Western travelers.
2. Tourism and Movement of People explores how travel shaped the visual culture and national identity of Japan from the seventeenth century through the turn of the 20th century. The depictions of elaborate 17th-to 19th-century processions of feudal lords evoke an earlier era of ceremonial travel and spectacle, emphasizing traditional routes and social hierarchies.
Hiroshige Toyokuni meiga hyakushu daimyō dōchū 広重豊国名画百種大名道中 (One Hundred Famous Views of a Daimyo’s Journey by Hiroshige and Toyokuni). Tokyo: Tōkōen, 1918. Call Number: E3579. Click image to enlarge.
By the early 20th century, Japan’s interest in travel shifted toward promoting tourism as a tool for modernization and imperial expansion into regions such as Manchuria (Northeast China), Hokkaido and Korea. Postcards, travel guidebooks, and government-issued pamphlets offered carefully curated images and structured itineraries for both foreign and domestic travelers.
Chōsen no fujin seikatsu no pēji 朝鮮の婦人生活のページ (Pages of Korean Women’s Lives). Wakayama, Japan: Taishō Shashin Kōgeisho, 1925–1936. Personal Papers of Kate Hansen, PP 19, Box 14, postcard. Click image to enlarge.
Together, these materials illustrate changing conceptions of travel, from symbolic displays of authority to strategic assertions of national identity.
3.Pilgrimage and Movement of Religions reflects upon the spread of foreign faiths to Japan, as well as the pivotal role of bodily and spiritual journeys within religious beliefs and practices. Originating in India, Buddhism spread to Japan in the sixth century and since developed into a major religion with a profound influence on daily life. Buddhist practitioners frequently visit temples and undertake pilgrimages along designated routes, seeking face-to-face encounters with deities through their icons.
Attributed to Suiindō Takonoya 水引堂蛸室, a.k.a. Mizuhikidō Shōshitsu Sanjūsansho Kannon narabini Yanagidani Nigatsudō Asakusa 三十三所観音 并二 柳谷二月堂浅草 (Thirty-three Kannon Pilgrimage Sites with Yanagidani, Nigatsudō, and Asakusa). Japan, ca. 1860–1868. Call Number: P363. Click image to enlarge.
In many legends, sacred Buddhist icons demonstrate miraculous power and compassion by journeying across land and sea. Movement occurs not only across geographical spaces, but also between the earthly realm and Buddhist paradises.
“The White Path between Two Rivers,” in Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shū 選択本願念仏集 (Passages on the Nenbutsu Selected in the Original Vow), Vol. 2, Kyoto: Akai Chōbei, late 18th–early 19th century, based on the 1744 edition. Personal Papers of Kate Hansen, PP 19, Box 11, Folder 13. Click image to enlarge.
However, not all foreign religions were warmly received in Japan. A few decades after its introduction by Jesuit missionaries, Christianity faced severe persecutions in the late 16th and 17th centuries, reflecting state and local resistance to beliefs imported from distant shores.
Antonio Francisco Cardim (1596–1659). Fasciculus e Iapponicis floribus suo adhuc madentibus sanguine (A Wreath of Japanese Flowers, Still Dripping in their Own Blood). Rome: Typis Heredum Corbelletti, 1646. Call Number: Summerfield C1234. Click image to enlarge.
4.Trade and Movement of Goods offers a window into the commercial world of Japan and the global trade networks that developed from the movement of goods. Print culture in Japan served not only to document commodities but also to shape how goods were seen, valued, and consumed. From tea catalogs to textile pattern books and beer advertisements, the objects in this case reveal how trade goods were embedded in shifting notions of taste, identity, and national power.
Kogetsu 湖月 (active 19th century). “Foreign Wares,” in Chake suikozatsu 茶家醉古襍 (Repertory of Tea Masters’ Intoxication with Antiques), Vol. 3. Kyoto: Ōmiya Satarō, 1843. Call Number: tK53. Click image to enlarge.
“Advertisement for Sapporo Beer,” in Nipponchi 日ポンチ (The Land of Japan), Vol. 14. Tokyo: Tōyōdō, 1905. Call Number: C22350. Click image to enlarge.
Although trade across East Asia dates back millennia, commercial exchange between Japan and the West began to grow from the 17th century and intensified at the turn of the 20th century. With objects and knowledge flowing between Japan, broader Asia, and the West, print media itself became a commodity, as demand for Japanese goods expanded. These publications offer a window into the commercial world of Japan, its transnational material culture, and the global trade networks that developed from the movement of goods.
5. Virtual Travel and Fantasies of Asia examines printed materials from the 17th to the 20th century that depicted Japan’s culture and shaped Western fantasies of Asia, constructing descriptions that blurred fact and fiction.
Arnoldus Montanus (ca. 1625–1683). “Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara (J. Kannon),” in Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen der Oost-Indische maatschappy in’t Vereenigde Nederland, aan de kaisaren van Japan (Atlas Japannensis [Japanese Atlas]). Amsterdam, Netherlands: J. Meurs, 1669. Call Number: Summerfield E238. Click image to enlarge.
Through these objects, virtual travel, the concept of journeying to another place through imagination, was made possible for Europeans and Americans alike.
Hasegawa Takejirō (1835–1915); Sensai Eitaku (1843–1890). Urashima, The Fisher-Boy; Tokyo: Hasegawa Takejirō, 1886. Call Number: B17050. Click image to enlarge.
Japan also capitalized on print media, seeking to reconstruct its self-image as modern and legitimize its global relevance in the 20th century. These books, fashion plates, and inventive illustrations reveal the breadth of cultural dialogue between East and West, offering visions of Japan in which curiosity, exoticization, and national identity came together.
These treasures that traveled out of The Kenneth Spencer Research Library stacks into this exhibition represent but a fraction of the library’s holdings of Asian material, which are all available upon patron request. Notably, several of the items included were collected by Kate Hansen (1879–1968), a Kansan who lived in Japan as a missionary and music teacher during 1907–1941 and 1947–1951.
How to See Hokkaido. Tokyo: Japan Tourist Bureau, circa 1936. Tourist guide booklet owned by Kate Hansen and used by US Naval Intelligence during WWII. Personal Papers of Kate Hansen, PP 19, Box 5, Folder 10. Click image to enlarge.
After finalizing the exhibition details, a new acquisition was made to the library’s collection that fit the exhibition theme so well we decided to add it to a bonus case. Please come look for this wonderful mystery item. Hint: polar bears!
We hope that these displays will move viewers to appreciate how people of the past sought creative strategies that blended image with text to excite and inspire the transmission of knowledge in and around Japan.
Sherry Fowler (drawing from collaborative exhibition text) Professor of Japanese Art History, History of Art University of Kansas
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Faculty advisor: Sherry Fowler, Professor of Japanese Art History, History of Art, University of Kansas
Student curators: Yuan-Hsi Chao, Brady Cullen, Aria Diao, Shangyi Lyu, Olivia Song, Emma Smith, Rebekah Staton, Heeryun Suh, Eli Troen, and Morgan Williamson
Library advisor: Eve Wolynes, Special Collections Curator, University of Kansas Libraries
![Image of a plantlike figure representing the Buddhist deity Avalokiteshvara in Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen der Oost-Indische maatschappy in’t Vereenigde Nederland, aan de kaisaren van Japan (Atlas Japannensis [Japanese Atlas]).](https://blogs.lib.ku.edu/spencer/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Picture11.jpg)
