Kenneth Spencer Research Library

The letters of Guy Hatfield are a collection of 50 letters written by a traveling salesman to his wife, Nell, living in Kansas City, Missouri. He made his living traveling throughout the Midwestern United States. His letters document his travels between Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma Territory, Colorado, Missouri, and Illinois, all in the hopes of making a quick buck. Though little is known about Guy Hatfield’s life outside of the collection of letters here at Spencer Library, he is associated as a contemporary of the better-known George B. McClellan, a traveling medicine man and Wild West showman. [i]

Guy’s letters to his wife, Nell, give a window into his business life as a traveling salesman. Rarely was business good. Inclement weather would keep the townspeople in their homes and slow business. Sometimes “biz” (as Guy called it) in company towns was centered around payday; setting up shop at the right time was key. Risk of illness and outbreak of the “grip” (also written as grippe, an old-fashioned term for the flu) could also be a detriment to business.

The letters give a wealth of information beyond Guy’s correspondence to his wife. His travels, most often by train, show the rail network in the Midwest and Great Plains around 1890. The stationery and envelopes, bearing the names and proprietors of the hotels Guy stayed at, give us a list of the hotels and innkeepers that served travelers as they crisscrossed the country.

So what exactly did Guy Hatfield sell? His letters mention glasses and figurines (mislaid and broken by the railroad company), wigs, a mummy, a gorilla, a skeleton (in one letter, a gorilla skeleton), and medicine (though he does not say if it is for resale or personal use). In one of his letters, he mentions his attempts to sell his whole museum to one or more interested parties in Wichita, but bad luck seemed to prevent the sale from going through. He blames an associate named Converse, who he calls a “dead rank Jonah.”

Whatever it was Hatfield was trying to sell, few were interested in buying. With a few exceptions, the common thread through the letters are complaints of low revenue, high expenses, and excuses for why he cannot yet come home. The letters begin in October 1889 in Sioux City, Iowa, where Guy complains about losing lots of money. In the last letter, dated February 25, 1892, he is staying in Pittsburg, Kansas, a couple days longer with hopes of making a few dollars. As to his association with the famous George McClellan, a letter from January 22, 1891, suggests the nature of their friendship: “George has not answered any of my letters at all nor sent me a cent[.]”

Beyond these three years of flourishing (if we can call it that), little is known about Guy Hatfield or his wife Nell. The Kansas City addresses on the envelopes no longer exist. A search of digitized newspapers reveals two stories of a Guy Hatfield, who may or may not be the same as our ambitious and unlucky letter-writer. A newspaper report in the Kansas City Journal from January 1898 tells the story of a salesman of the same name attempting suicide in a saloon; a report from the Topeka State Journal from July of the same year reports on the impending execution of a soldier bearing the same name, who, “in a drunken row soon after pay day,” stabbed another soldier to death.

When we think of archival collections, we often give too much credit to the movers and shakers of history. It makes sense that the Kansas Collection at KU’s Spencer Library would hold the personal and professional papers of governors, senators, and other pillars of the civic community. But there is much to learn about the world of the past in collections like the letters of Guy Hatfield. He lived during an era we like to call the Gilded Age. But through his own words, we are reminded that to many, it may not have been so gilded.

Phil Cunningham
Kansas Collection Curator

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[i] Finch, L. Boyd. “Doctor Diamond Dick: Leavenworth’s Flamboyant Medicine Man.” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 26 (Spring 2003): 2-13. Available online at https://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/2003spring_finch.pdf.

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

For the entire month of October on That’s Distinctive! I am going to switch things up a little bit. For those of you who don’t know me, my favorite holiday of all-time is Halloween. Things like apple cider, falling leaves, the chill in the air, and the pumpkin patch bring me so much excitement. So, for this whole month (with the exception of next week) and the first post in November, I will be featuring items from our collections that remind me of spooky season.

This week we are going to ease into it with some Halloween party invitations from the Alvin Terry Papers. The invitations, which appear to be handmade, are stored in the collection with their original mailing envelopes. The party Mr. Terry was invited to seemed to have happened annually. One invitation is undated, with the other being from 1967.

From movies, to schools, to universities, and more, Halloween parties have been a staple across the United States for decades. I would have to say my personal favorite fictional Halloween party is from the 1993 film Hocus Pocus. A clip of the famed Sanderson Sisters crashing the town’s party can be found on YouTube. Even if you don’t have a party invite this year, go out and celebrate the return of spooky season and the fresh fall breeze!

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week on That’s Distinctive! we are sharing some items from our Kansas Sheet Music Collection. The collection houses a “wide variety of sheet music relating to Kansas, written by Kansans, or otherwise of significance to the state of Kansas and themes of possible interest to Kansans.” The collection consists of eight boxes with the contents organized in alphabetical order.

The pieces shown today are “The Jayhawk Song” by Arch P. Naramore (1947); “KU Forever, ‘Varsity Song” published by Frank W. Ryan (1912); and “I am Going Back to Kansas: ‘Mid the Green Fields of Alfalfa Far Away” by Jesse J. Hamilton (1908).

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

As summer begins to fade into the sunset and fall quickly approaches, harvest time will soon be in full swing. Agricultural practices were developed about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of crops and animals as humans shifted away from hunting and gathering practices to sedentary lifestyles. Agriculture in Kansas predates the state’s inception. Today, family-owned farms are the backbone of Kansas agriculture, making up about 64% of total farms. Kansas is a leading state in wheat, grain sorghum, and beef production. In addition to those crops, corn and soybeans are some of the most abundant crops grown in the state. Douglas County alone holds over 230,000 acres of farmland. Need more information on Kansas agriculture? The Kansas Department of Agriculture provides many statistics on the state’s involvement. There is even an interactive map to learn about each county’s agricultural contribution to the economy. Not quite sure what harvest time entails? The Iowa Farm Bureau offers great information on the great lengths farmers go to in order to ensure their crops are well cared for.

In honor of harvest time and our hard-working farmers, this week I am sharing a Kansas farmer’s diary. The 160-page diary tracks the anonymous farmer’s daily activities around their property in Winfield, Kansas, and offers insight into the complex processes of owning a farmstead between 1884 and 1899. A transcription of the pages shown here is provided below the photos. The numbers at the beginning of each line are dates; the quotation marks stand for “ditto,” or a repeat of the line above.

The library houses many personal libraries from everyday individuals in all stages of life. Items like this are irreplaceable and offer just a peak into what life was like in the past. You can find a previous That’s Distinctive! post covering the diary of Maude Egbert.

Sept 1896

5. Bred Blood red Heifer
6. Alen Williams came
7. “ “ went home
7. Homer [Started] to school
7. Began cutting clover

12. Sowed Rye for chicks
14. School began John started
15. Steven A. Douglas [son of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas] Spoke in Olatha (1)

22. Making clover Hay
23. Bred Pale Red Heifer
23. Thrashed 350 Bush Oats
24. Making Hay

28. Uncle [Jonts] & Jim Bain hear
30. Finished making C: Hay
30. Anna [Conn] marriade

Oct 1896

5. Picked Aples
6. Rachel John & I went to Priest Pal
ace parade in K.C.

9. finished Picking Aples. 85. B.

15. Went to K.C. got 60 Barls
23. cts. 6 for Hauling (29.)
15 R.R. 3 cars & Engine Recked
16. Johns 15th Birthday
“ working at reck
17. “ “ “
18. “ “ “
19. “ “ “
20. “ “ “

23. Barled 24 Barls of Aples

30. Dehorned 3. red Heifers
30. White Sow crop in Ear Bred
31. Bred white Sow
31. Hauled 72. B. Coal

(1) The September 17, 1896, issue of the Olathe News reported extensively on this event under the headline “A Rousing Rip-Roaring Republican Rally! All of Johnson County Out on Parade Arrayed in the Royal Color of the Sunflower and the Goldenrod!”

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Using a finding aid might not always be the most intuitive process. I know when I started working at Spencer, the finding aids were quite confusing to navigate. Even today, I am still learning new ways to utilize them in my research. Preliminarily, I would just say to dive right in. Things are not always going to make the most sense, but you won’t learn unless you try!

While this post isn’t meant to be a be-all, tell-all to using Spencer’s finding aids, I hope it can help provide some insights to make things easier. We want our collections to be easily and readily available to all our patrons.

So, first, you might ask: What is a finding aid? Well, it’s a document created by archivists that consolidates information about and describes the contents and context of an archival collection. Some information in a finding aid can also be found in the catalog record for an archival collection. A finding aid is typically longer than a catalog record because it includes additional information about a collection.

You might also be wondering: What materials are described in – and can be found by searching – Spencer’s finding aids? It tends to be things like manuscripts, scrapbooks, diaries, etc. Mostly, it is the things we house that are not printed books. However, just as some books are not cataloged, not all materials have a finding aid. Additionally, things can get tricky because no two finding aids are the same. Some collections are processed in greater detail than others, which can make searches easier yet also more complicated.

For the purpose of this blog post I am using the Diaries of Anna Johnson (Call Number: RH MS 1421) as my example collection. The collection is a standard, processed small collection. And, as I said, processing happens on many levels, and collections come in all sizes. This post is a small example of how to navigate the finding aids. So, let’s dive in!

Searches

To begin your search, you need to identify some search terms. You can start out as vague or specific as you like, depending on your topic. For some collections, you might have to get a little creative. To find my example collection I typed “diaries” into the search bar. As you can see in the screenshot below, that search returned 1024 results, and my collection is not one of the top few choices. A short scroll later and the Diaries of Anna Johnson are listed.

Example aside, looking at the search screen, you can see that in the top right, you can sort the search results by title and year if desired. You can also filter results by an assortment of criteria to the right. Additionally, you can do a further search by using more search terms (and sometimes a year) in the box to the right. This is kind of like a search within a search. You can see in the following screenshot that I searched “Anna” within my original search for “diaries.”

Collection Pages

Now looking at the main or home page for a collection’s finding aid (see below), there is a lot of information given. The most notable information is the collection’s title, call number, and container inventories. How in-depth the collection has been processed determines the amount of other information provided. Some examples of information given on the collection’s main screen include an overview of the collection – a brief description of what the collection contains – as well the date range of the collection, information about the collection’s creator (including a biography, if available), and conditions governing access and use of the collection, which will note any restrictions. Keep in mind, this is not a complete list of all the information that may be provided on a collection page.

If you look to the right on the collection’s main page, you will once again see that you can search within the collection by search term or year. You will also see the collection organization sidebar, which gives general information on what materials are in the collection. Items of interest can be clicked on and will link you to that item’s page. Depending on the level of processing, there will be different information available. For my example, I clicked “1922-1923,” which took me to that diary’s own page. This is where researchers can find what box within the collection the item is housed, as well as which folder within the box. You can see that the diary from 1922-1923 is housed in Box 1, Folder 3. This information is crucial when researchers are creating Aeon requests for specific materials.

It is worth noting that – while it can be important for researchers to know what folder number they are looking for – when items are pulled from the stacks, they are pulled at the box level. This means that the researcher will receive the entire box when visiting the Reading Room, even if they just want to view one folder within that box.

Container Inventories

If we go back to the collections main page, there is a tab at the top titled “Container Inventory.” This is another way to see what is within each box in the collection. If a collection has multiple call numbers, this page is also useful in determining which box and call number a researcher truly wants. For this example, I selected Box 3. At the top of the screen in the second image below, you will see the call number and box number. Then below, you will see what materials are included in that box and what folders they are in.  I find this screen especially helpful with the more complex collections that house many different types of materials.

As I said previously, these tips and tricks are not an in-depth look on how to use Spencer’s finding aids; they are simply to help you get started. Using finding aids for the first time can be a bit overwhelming, but the more you interact with them, the more neat features you will find. If you have any questions on navigating the finding aids, you are welcome to visit us in person or reach out to us at ksrlref@ku.edu. You can also check out our 2014 blog post “Finding Aids 101,” although it shows Spencer’s previous finding aid interface. Happy researching!

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services