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Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog

Books on a shelf

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.

Throwback Thursday: Snyder Book Collecting Contest Edition, Part II

January 31st, 2019

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 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Book lovers, it’s that magical time of year! The competition for the 63rd Annual Snyder Book Collecting Contest is officially open. KU students should enter their collections by February 24, 2019 to win cash prizes as well as a gift card from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink (more on the prizes below…).

Not only will the winners earn prizes, bragging rights, and a place in KU history, but they might even set themselves off on a future career. The picture below from the 1960 competition holds a special place in our hearts here at KU Libraries. The first place winner in that year’s contest was Ann Hyde (d. 2014), who would eventually go on to become Spencer Research Library’s longtime manuscripts librarian.

Ann Hyde (1960 Emily Taylor Book Collecting Contest winner), with second place winner E. Bruce Holmes (left), and KU libraries Assistant Director, Robert L. Quinsey (center)

Ann Hyde (right), 1960 winner of what was then called the Taylor Book Collection Contest,
with second place winner E. Bruce Holmes (left) and KU libraries Assistant Director
Robert L. Quinsey (center). University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/40 1960:
University of Kansas Libraries: Book Contests (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

In recent years, Snyder Book Collecting Contest winners have achieved national recognition for their bibliophilia. First place winners in KU’s undergraduate and graduate divisions are eligible to enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. Since 2014, KU students have won prizes at the national level three (!) times, including last year’s graduate student winner Paul T. Schwennesen, who placed second in the 2018 national competition, with his collection “Borderlands — A Manifesto on Overlap.”

Picture of 2018 Graduate Student Category winner, Paul T. Schwennesen, with his collection titled "Borderlands — A Manifesto of Overlap."

Throwback to the recent past! Graduate student Paul T. Schwennesen
(Department of History) with his collection at the 2018 Snyder Book Collecting Contest.
Schwennesen placed first in the graduate student category and then took second place
at the national contest in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of KU Libraries. Click image to enlarge.

Want to join in the fun? Start reviewing your bookshelves and enter this year’s competition! Winners of the 2019 (63rd Annual) Snyder Book Collecting Contest will be selected in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions, with the following awards:

First Prize: $500
Second Prize: $350
Honorable Mention: $100

Each winner will also receive a gift card in the following amounts from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink, a division of the KU Bookstore:

First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
Honorable Mention: $25

As noted above, the first place winners in each division may enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, which awards a top prize of $2,500.

To learn more about the Snyder Book Collecting Contest and how to enter, please visit the contest page on the KU Libraries website. There you will find the contest rules, a handy FAQ, as well as selected essays, bibliographies, and a sample collection to help you on your way.

Whether the subject of your collecting passion is Writings from the Black Revolution, Science Fiction as a Space for Feminist Discourse, Contemporary Theatre of the Southern Cone, or Vintage Textbooks of the Natural and Physical Sciences, start thinking (and writing!) about your collection. Contest entries are due by 11:59pm on Sunday, February 24, 2019.

Elspeth Healey
Special Collections Librarian

Throwback Thursday: Snowy Campus Edition, Part II

January 24th, 2019

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 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Photograph of a streetcar on the KU campus, 1925

A KU streetcar behind Dyche Hall, 1925. Note the buildings in the background,
where the Union stands now. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Streetcars 1925 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

World War I Letters of Milo H. Main: January 21-27, 1919

January 21st, 2019

In honor of the centennial of World War I, this is the second series in which we follow the experiences of one American soldier: twenty-five year old Milo H. Main, whose letters are held in Spencer’s Kansas Collection. On Mondays we’ll post a new entry featuring selected letters from Milo to his family from that following week, one hundred years after he wrote them.

Milo Hugh Main was born in or near Pittsfield, Illinois, on November 21, 1892 to William and Rose Ella Henry Main. The family moved to Argonia, Sumner County, Kansas, in 1901. After his mother died in 1906, Milo remained in Argonia with his father and his two sisters Gladys (b. 1890) and June (b. 1899). His youngest sister Fern (b. 1905) was sent to live with relatives in Illinois.

As Milo reported to the Kansas State Historical Society in 1919, after graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk. He resigned in July 1917 and took a position at Standard Oil Company, possibly co-managing a gas station in Argonia.

Milo entered into military service on September 21, 1917. He served as a wagoner – a person who drives a wagon or transports goods by wagon – in Battery F, 130th Field Artillery. He was stationed at Camp Funston (September-October 1917) and Camp Doniphan (October 1917-May 1918). On May 19, 1918, he boarded the ship Ceramic in New York City and departed for Europe.

In this week’s letter, Milo writes that he is “feeling fine to-nite for I took my Saturday plunge this afternoon. Slept until 11:30 this morning, in fact I do about every other morning. Am fat and lazy. I want to reduce to about 140 when I get back in “Civy” [civilian, non-military] clothes.”

Image of Milo H. Main's letter to his family, January 25, 1919 Image of Milo H. Main's letter to his family, January 25, 1919

Image of Milo H. Main's letter to his family, January 25, 1919 Image of Milo H. Main's letter to his family, January 25, 1919

Image of Milo H. Main's letter to his family, January 25, 1919

M. H. Main
Bat. F. 130 F.A.
A.E.F.

Jan. 25th 1919

Dear Father and Sisters:-

It affords me great pleasure to write you of the fact of attending a Masonic Club meeting in the historic and battle torn city of Verdun. Am enclosing a program of the occasion and will proudly state that I am a member of this A.E.F. Masonic Club now. They were about 300 Masons there, most of them R.R. men from Chicago. Will send program under seperate cover as it is to big to enclose.

Wild rumors out that we are starting home in the next 60 days. Nothing official yet.

Am still here in Chateau de Verdun in little city of Sommedeiue about 7 kilometers from where I was stationed on 11/11.

Am feeling fine to-nite for I took my Saturday plunge this afternoon. Slept until 11:30 this morning, in fact I do about every other morning. Am fat and lazy. I want to reduce to about 140 when I get back in “Civy” [civilian, non-military] clothes.

Weather has been clear and cooler for past 10 days. Sure great to be without the rain. Ground has been frozen for 4 days now, but no wind like Kans.

Have not had any mail for about 7 days now, time for a bunch to come in.

Will close for to-nite.

Trusting all are well at home, I remain

Your son & brother,
Milo H. Main

Bat. F. 130 F.A.
A.E.F.
c/o Officers Mess
Regt. Hq.

P.S. Must write Fern [Milo’s sister in Illinois] to morrow (1/26) I owe her two letters

Meredith Huff
Public Services

Emma Piazza
Public Services Student Assistant

Throwback Thursday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Edition, Part II

January 17th, 2019

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 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Photograph of a Martin Luther King, Jr. march at KU, 1982

Martin Luther King, Jr. march at KU, January 11, 1982. The banner reads
“March for Martin (Martin Luther King, Jr.) Declare Jan. 15th a Nat’l. Holiday.”
Lawrence Journal-World Photo Collection, University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG LJW 71/18 1982 Prints: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

This photo was taken four years before the first nationally-observed holiday commemorating Dr. King’s birthday. For more information about the history of the holiday’s creation, see Don Wolfensberger’s essay “The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday: The Long Struggle in Congress,” presented for a 2008 seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

New Finding Aids, July-December 2018

January 15th, 2019

If you have conducted research at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library in the past, then perhaps you already know about some of the collections listed here as having “new” finding aids. The library has been in physical existence for 50 years, and KU Libraries started collecting archival and manuscript materials long before there was a separate building to house them. However, KSRL has only been producing online finding aids for 20 years. This means that over those same 20 years, manuscripts processing staff have added information about legacy collections online as time and resources permit.

We added several legacy collection finding aids in the last six months of 2018 that you will see on this list, but we also worked on new collections!  Whether you want to know more about how basketball came to China, the Lawrence, Kansas literary scene, or prominent African American families of Kansas, we have something for everyone at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

Photograph of the 1928 Tientsin Civilian Basketball Team, from the volume Tientsin Civilian Basketball Team Season 1927-28 Records 1926-28 in the personal papers of Charles A. Siler

Photograph of the 1928 Tientsin Civilian Basketball Team,
from the volume Tientsin Civilian Basketball Team
Season 1927-28 Records 1926-28 in the personal papers
of Charles A. Siler. Call #: PP 595, Box 1, Folder 30.
Click image to enlarge.

Image of a concrete poem that begins "Progress / Today Yesterday [...]" in the collection of John Fowler

Concrete poem by John Fowler, from his collection.
Call #: MS 344, Box 1, Folder 11.
Click image to enlarge.


Image of a page from the passport of Annabelle Sawyer, revealng stamps from France and the Consulate of Lebanon in New York.

A page from Annabelle Sawyer’s passport;
she served as a missionary in Sierra Leone as well as
traveled for pleasure. Nathaniel Sawyer family papers.
Call #: RH MS 1460, Box 1, Folder 47. Click image to enlarge.  


Finding aids newly published online in July-December 2018:

“Frozen in Time” J. J. Pennell exhibit photos, 1896-1922 (RH PH 48)

Photographs of Oklahoma scenes, approximately 1901-1903 (RH PH 150)

Josea M. Tyler collection, 1972-2014 (RH MS 1456, RH MS Q442)

Reese-Hanlon family photographs, approximately 1890-1967 (bulk 1890s-1940s), RH PH 181

Personal papers of James E. Dykes, 1960-1966 (PP 598)

Personal papers of F. Allan Hanson, 1961-1963 (PP 597)

Personal papers of Charles A. Siler, 1890-1982 (PP 595)

Glen Kappelman World War II photographs collection, 1944-1945, 1999, 2000 (bulk 1944-1945) (RH PH 533, RH PH 533(f))

Douglas County Genealogical Society records, 1975-2002 (RH MS 1450)

Edward Everett Hale letter, May 14, 1854 (RH MS P960)

Lawrence Memorial Hospital architectural records, 1933-1996 (RH AD 12, RH MS 1451)

Typescript of Destiny’s Road by Larry Niven, September 1996 (MS 343)

Personal papers of John B. Bremner, 1930-1986 (PP 600)

“Visualizing Muscles” scrapbook, 1995 (PP 599)

Papers of Arla Jones & Kimberly Kreicker, 1980s-2009 (RH MS 1452, RH MS S57)

President Obama’s Kansas Heritage oral history project, 2009-2017 (RH MS 1462, KC AV 55)

C.Y. Thomas collection, 1887-1981 (bulk 1940s-1970s) (RH MS 539, RH MS Q437, RH MF 192)

Nathaniel Sawyer family papers, circa 1880-2012 (bulk 1950s-1990s) (RH MS 1460, RH MS-P 1460, RH MS R437)

John Fowler collection, 1965-2015 (MS 344, MS Q76)

Personal papers of David Guth, 2013-2015 (PP 603, UA AV 5)

Personal papers of Margaret L. Anderson, 1963-1972 (PP 602)

Personal papers of Richard Dyer MacCann, May 1999 (PP 601)

Harold Covington collection, 1980-2011 (RH WL MS 52)

Funeral service programs from the Topeka, Kansas-based African American community, 1956, 1962, 1964 (RH MS P961)

Hutchinson, KS NAACP collection, 1982-2017 (RH MS 1457, RH MS-P 1457(ff))

Rhoda Louise Meredith’s “Book of Stunts and Frolics,” circa 1929-1937, 1977 (RH MS BK8)

“Shawnee Indian History, 1688-1832” manuscript, undated [not before 1832] (RH MS P385)

Richard B. Sheridan papers, 1906-2005 (RH MS 1468, RH MS-P 1468, RH MS-P 1468(f), RH MS R439)

Voth, Unruh, & Banman families collection, 1865-2009 (RH MS 1455, RH MS-P 1455, RH MS-P 1455(f), RH MS Q441, RH MS R434, RH MS R435)

North family papers, approximately 1250-1856 (bulk 1500-1797) (MS 240A, MS D128, MS Q5, MS Q17, MS Q75, MS Qa1:5-6, MS Qa14)

Personal papers of Arthur Binion Amerson, Jr., 1961-1962 (PP 605)

Personal papers of Kristine McCusker, 1990s (PP 604)

Post by
Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator