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.
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.
Coming up next week is Independence Day (July 4th). Many Fourth of July celebrations involve family get-togethers for quality time, food, and fireworks. In honor of this family time, we are sharing a cookbook out of our collections: 100 Years (1861-1961): Kansas Official Centennial Cook Book, to be exact. The book, published by the American Association of University Women in Manhattan, Kansas, shares favorite recipes of families throughout Kansas in commemoration of the state’s 100th anniversary. While we are just sharing a small portion of the recipes in the book, there are many more in its 101 pages. No matter how you celebrate the upcoming holiday, we hope it involves some good food and quality time.
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The cover of, and selected pages from, 100 years (1861-1961): Kansas Official Centennial Cook Book, 1961. Call Number: RH AK63. Click image to enlarge.
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 in honor of Pride Month we share the Pride Guide from the 1990 Kansas Pride celebrations in Wichita. The guide is a part of the Bruce McKinney papers here at the library. Bruce McKinney began his journey as an LGBT activist during the 1960s. The collection reflects his involvement in the community as an activist and an archivist. He began collecting items related to the LGBT community in his youth and continued through the 1980s. Donated in 2008, the collection holds 142 boxes, 147 oversize boxes, 21 card files, and 13 oversize folders. For those who have never been to the library, that is a massive collection!
Selected pages from the 1990 Wichita, Kansas, Pride Guide: the cover, an event schedule, and a parade map. Papers of Bruce McKinney. Call Number: RH MS 1164, Box 28, Folder 41. Click images to enlarge.
Inspired by the American Library Association’s “Libraries and Sustainability Virtual Book Club,” hosted during the Fall of 2022, the idea for an exhibit focused on environmental activism was born. We wanted to investigate which local conservation organizations’ materials are held at Spencer Research Library. We combed through boxes of materials from national conservation groups, Kansas chapters, and KU student chapters. Documents from organizations including the Jayhawk and Burroughs Audubon Societies, the Sierra Club of Kansas, and the Kansas Wildlife Federation showcase long-standing conservation efforts in the Lawrence, Kansas, area through task forces related to riparian conservation, water reclamation, the Clean Air Act, bird and buttery fly counts, and more. We also discovered that, within the central theme of local activism, calling community members to action on behalf of local and regional environmental concerns is woven throughout every aspect of the work that these organizations do. From bumper stickers to congressional papers, newsletters to posted fliers, the urgency of action is evident through the various channels of communication these organizations utilize. Not only do these materials document a network of local community efforts, but they also make for a visually appealing display of these important efforts.
Consulting and organizing collection materials for the exhibit. Click image to enlarge.
Exhibit curator Gwen Geiger Wolfe taking notes about materials. Click image to enlarge.
Challenges faced during the development of the exhibit were numerous and varied. For example, KU collections reflect that conservation engagement was heightened during the 1970s to the 1990s. This might be an accurate depiction of the context of the environmental movement, or it might reflect the need for further collection development in this area. Other examples were more logistic in nature and required flexibility to pivot around timelines, research processes, and themes of inquiry. The original theme focused specifically on Kansas Audubon Societies, of which there are several, but concerns regarding Audubon himself encouraged us to shift to the broader context of conservation, with the desire to highlight the important work accomplished through environmentally focused organizations and their members. Taken together, the resulting outcomes of facing these challenges have extended the timeline of the exhibition and motivated our desire to showcase the vital work of local environmentalists in Kansas.
Selecting specific materials for inclusion in the exhibition. Click image to enlarge.
The exhibition opened in June and will be on display in Spencer’s North Gallery through July 2023. The selected materials are meant to inspire action and visitors can leave with a postcard they can send to friends and family to urge their participation in local environmental activism by joining a conservation group. Kansas-based organizations featured in the exhibit are invited to attend and share this experience with their members.
Installing the exhibit. Click image to enlarge.
We would like to especially thank Pam Chaffee for allowing us to reproduce her photograph “Monarch Tagging with the Jayhawk Audubon Society” (Call Number: RH MS 691, Box 2, Folder 28), which adorns the postcard take-away for the exhibit. We also extend our thanks to Spencer and KU Libraries colleagues who were instrumental in supporting this exhibition: Angela Andres, Phil Cunningham, Molly Herring, Caitlin Klepper, Melissa Mayhew, Meredith Phares, and Nikki Pirch.
Jaime Groetsema Saifi Special Collections Cataloging Coordinator, Spencer Research Library
Gwen Geiger Wolfe Science and Engineering Librarian, KU Libraries
Becoming the Ringle Conservation Intern has been an incredible learning experience both on its own and as an expansion of the work I have been fortunate enough to do during my two years as a student employee at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library Conservation Lab. Since September of 2022, I have assessed, lightly cleaned, and re-housed over 900 individual glass plate negatives, and at least 100 flexible negatives, taken by the George Cornish Studio (based in Arkansas City, Kansas) between 1890 and 1945. With the guidance of Marcella Huggard, Charissa Pincock, Whitney Baker, and Roberta Woodrick, I have contributed 833 entries to the ongoing finding aid that include the subject of the photo (if identifiable) and the condition of each plate. My hope is that, when the collection is complete with its partner collection (the Hannah Scott Collection), history and photo enthusiasts will be able to enjoy the wide range of portraiture, landscape, and urban life photography contained within the collection.
Creating a spreadsheet with information about the negatives in the Cornish Studio collection.
The Ringle project began with a massive shifting project. Roberta Woodrick, Grace Awbrey, Hannah Johnson, Rory Sweedler, Sarah Jane Dahms, and I moved the Cornish, Scott, and several other glass plate negative collections in advance of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) updates in the stacks. During this shifting, we saw how both age and the heat from the old furnace, located under the floor where the glass plates had been held, had affected the collections. There were clear indicators that re-housing these collections was necessary. On some glass plates there was flaking emulsion and discoloration, and some flexible negatives were experiencing “vinegar syndrome” (the strong smell of deteriorating acetate film) and leaving liquid residue on the shelves (from the chemical separation of the emulsion on the plastic).
Glass plate negatives from the Cornish Studio collection housed in boxes in the stacks.
Flaking emulsion on one glass plate negative in the Cornish Studio Collection.
The Cornish Studio was located in Arkansas City, Kansas, 8 miles north of Chilocco, Oklahoma, where the Chilocco Indian School operated, and about 200 miles southwest of Lawrence. The studio was opened by George Cornish in 1905 and was run jointly from 1912 onward by Cornish and his assistant Edith Berrouth (to whom he would leave the practice in 1946 after his death.) In 1993, attorney Otis Morrow, whose practice was in the building that had once been Cornish’s studio, donated the 8 boxes of glass plates, photo registrars, and even George Cornish’s autobiography of running the studio (called “My Life on Fifth Avenue”) to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. (More about the history of the collection can be found at the Collections Overview.)
Many of the glass plates in the Cornish collection have some degree of damage – they’ve existed through a wide range of temperature and humidity fluctuations – but at over 100 years old for many of them, they generally look remarkably good. The subjects in the photos are almost all visible, and the excitement on their faces in these century old photographs endures. It’s clear that the people who went to the Cornish Studio for their portraits, or for the portraits of their young children (babies make up a significant portion of the plates from the 1910s-20s), were happy to have the opportunity to have their photos taken. They couldn’t have known that their likeness would be preserved for longer than them, but I like to think it would make them happy to know their investment in a photograph might provide returns to scholars today.
Negative and reversed positive image of Letha Thomas and baby, circa 1919, Cornish Studio Collection.
Before me, several Ringle interns worked on an impressive collection of projects over timespans of six weeks to three months. So far, I have been working with the Cornish Collection for nine months and will continue to do so for another two. Having almost a full year has been immensely valuable – each plate must be placed individually into a four-fold wrapper before being re-housed in boxes, and many plates between 1917 and 1930 have subjects that could be researched (which I did, especially when there might be the opportunity to identify the women in couples’ portraits who were usually identified as Mrs. (Man’s Name.)). Having now completed the 5 x 7 plates, I continue to work on the 8 x 10 plates which represent a shift from traditional studio portraiture and into street scenes in Ark City and the surrounding area. These images, and this collection, offer a valuable slice-of-life view of Southwest Kansas across a period of American history with rapid changes.
Cornish Studio ledgers that record information about some of the subjects featured on the negatives in the collection.
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.
There will be no That’s Distinctive! post next Friday, May 19. Posts will resume on May 26.
This week on That’s Distinctive! we offer a glimpse into a day in the life of Maude Egbert (1878-1955). The library houses a diary of hers that documents an entry a day for five years. This five-year diary kept by Maude Egbert of Clyde, Cloud County, Kansas, provides a regular accounting of her life as a farm wife during World War II. Activities or events she noted include sewing, entertaining and visiting friends and family, cooking, house cleaning, canning, personal health, farm activities like threshing, acquiring a swarm of bees, creek and river flooding, and the weather. Throughout the diary she calls her husband “Dad.”
The diary Maude used is called Five-Year Horoscope Diary: Your Destiny Day by Day. It was written by Samuel Nisenson and published in 1936 by World Syndicate Publishing. Maude used her diary from 1943 to 1948, although there are some large gaps where she did not fill it out. There are also some pages where the years are written out of order.
The front cover of Maude Egbert’s diary, Five-Year Horoscope Diary: Your Destiny Day by Day, 1943-1948. Call Number: RH MS B77. Click image to enlarge.
The introduction of Maude Egbert’s diary, 1943-1948. Call Number: RH MS B77. Click image to enlarge.
The pages for April 7th and 8th in Maude Egbert’s diary, 1943-1948. Call Number: RH MS B77. Click image to enlarge.
April 7, 1943 got my chickens Thrashed the alfalfa & [kaiffer?]
19[44] Ruth Martha & Teddy [Maude’s daughter and granddaughters] came for Easter vacation
1948 Esther & Emma [Mayson?] Went to Mile Society I visited Mrs Crouse Orville [Maude’s son] made garden to day
19[47] Doris [Maude’s granddaughter] took my washing to do Dad was sick yesterday & to day Roy ate dinner with us
April 8, 1943 Mary [Maude’s granddaughter] & I went fishing cought a nice mess. Dad went to [illegible]. bought a disk had a light [rain?] the first since [illegible] second
19[44] Ruth Esther & Doris [Maude’s daughter, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter] went to Concordia the little girls stayed with me Orville finished planting the oats Dad and Cliff fixed the wind mill. Planted some potatoes
19[45] Dad and I spent the day with Roy and Jessie Billy has the Penmonia [pneumonia] but is better Spent the evening with [illegible]
1948 Orville & Esther made garden & we went to spent the day croceting [crocheting]
1947 Cleaned the brooder house & Dad cleaned the big Chicken house
The pages for May 27th and 28th in Maude Egbert’s diary, 1943-1948. Call Number: RH MS B77. Click image to enlarge.
May 27, 1943 Washed to day. Dad planted corn. Marys [Maude’s granddaughter] birthday to day.
1944 Marys [Maude’s granddaughter] birthday to day rained all day Dad was sick all day
19[45] We all went to church. ate dinner with Mary [Maude’s granddaughter] as it is her. birthday Teddy [Maude’s granddaughter] stayed with Betty Lou at A [Hats]. for a few days
1946 Ruth Ted & Martha [Maude’s daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter] came for a few days
19[47] Dear Diary I am still sick
May 28, 19[43] Martha [Maude’s granddaughter] spent the day at Orvilles [Maude’s son]. Sewed on my dress Dad finished planting corn on. this place
19[44] Cleaned the brooder house & put in roost. Had our. first fried chicken. Roy Jessie and Billy Bob spent the afternoon with us.
19[45] Did general house work & put up my clean curtains
1946. Gene and Elizabeth came. Ruth Ted [Maude’s daughter and son-in-law] Doris [Maudes’ granddaughter] Cliff & I all went fishing. Esther and Genes came in the afternoon. Gene and Elizabeth stayed all [illegible] at [illegible]
