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.
This blog may contain archived web content. This blog may link to catalog records which no longer exist as of a software change in 2026.
If you’re a fan of soccer in general or Team Algeria in particular, be sure to stop by Spencer Research Library this summer and check out our small exhibit in honor of this year’s FIFA World Cup.
A photograph of the Baker University soccer team in Baldwin City, Kansas, 1911. Leonard Hollmann Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 536. Click image to enlarge.
One case features materials documenting the history of soccer locally and internationally. For example, Matthew Concanen’s 1721 work A Match at Foot-Ball; Or the Irish Champions: A Mock-Heroick Poem, in Three Canto’s (Call Number: B519) is a very early account of “foot-ball,” a precursor to modern Association Football (soccer), Rugby, and Gaelic Football, which were not codified separately until the mid-1800s.
The other case in this display highlights items about the history of Algeria, whose national soccer team is based in Lawrence during the tournament. The exhibited items span more than four centuries and reveal both European and Algerian perspectives toward the North African country.
An illustration of the Algerian capital Algiers in Description de l’Afrique [Description of Africa] by Olfert Dapper, 1686. Heavily defended under Ottoman rule during the 1500s and 1600s, Algiers was protected by the series of fortifications, walls, and gates seen in this image. Call Number: Summerfield E1118. Click image to enlarge.
As an elder millennial who loved history as a child and grew up with American Girl, I’ve been excited about the company’s 40th anniversary this year. As a result, I will be sharing a series of posts highlighting Spencer collection materials that connect to AG’s six original historical characters, in chronological order of when they “lived”: Felicity Merriman, Josefina Montoya, Kirsten Larson, Addy Walker, Samantha Parkington, and Molly McIntyre. Each post will focus on a different character and explore a selection of items that relate to the time and place in which she “lived” and topics or themes explored in her stories.
The front cover of the first book in Felicity’s series, first published in 1991.
When readers meet Felicity Merriman, she is a “spunky, sprightly” nine-year-old girl living in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1774. Her stories are set against the backdrop of rising tensions between Patriots and Loyalists just before the American Revolution, and the theme of independence runs throughout them. Felicity herself balks at learning expected housewifery skills, and she attempts to free a beloved horse named Penny from an abusive owner. The questions of freedom, liberty, and equality asked in the stories are not extended to the enslaved characters (and one free person of color) who are mentioned or implied. Other topics in Felicity’s books include education for girls, illnesses and injuries, British taxation especially on tea, her father’s store, and maintaining friendships in the face of disagreements.
Selected pages in The Ladies’ Diary, or, Woman’s Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1774. Published in London between 1704 and 1841, The Ladies’ Diary, or, Woman’s Almanack famously featured puzzles and mathematical questions in addition to calendars and important dates. Spencer’s 1774 copy appears to feature a red two-pence duty tax stamp. It is also bound with nine other popular Company of Stationers almanacs from the same year; similar volumes from several years between 1744 and 1826 can also be found at Spencer under the call number “Bond B17.” Call Number: Bond B17 1774. Click images to enlarge.
A folded map of North America in The North-American and the West-Indian Gazetter, London: 1778. The table in the lower right includes distances between Williamsburg and other other places. Note the inclusion of the “Kanses” indigenous tribe on the far left side of the map. The Gazetter was an encyclopedic guide to the “cities, towns, harbours, ports, bays, rivers, lakes, mountains, number of inhabitants &c.” of the continent. The 1778 edition can be read online through the Internet Archive. Call Number: B14256. Click image to enlarge.
The box lid for Dolls with Williamsburg Colonial Dress, 1940. “Let’s pretend,” declares the accompanying booklet in this set of paper dolls, “that this is a family that lived in Williamsburg in Virginia about the year 1760…There are Father and Mother. They have two children. Their little girl is called Belinda. She is twelve years old. Their little boy is Phillip. He is ten years old. Sukey is the [presumably enslaved] cook. Moses is the [presumably enslaved] colored man. Sukey and Moses do much of the work in the house.” Call Number: H180. Click image to enlarge.
The title page and publication note of An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774: At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; To Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770 by John Hancock, Boston: 1774. “Some boast of being friends to government,” Hancock asserted in this speech. “I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.” This speech can be read online through the Massachusetts Historical Society; a transcription is available through the UMKC School of Law “Famous Trials” website. Call Number: D845. Click images to enlarge.
A bill of sale for “a Negro Boy Named Poppy Nine years old” in Boston, November 15, 1784. This boy was the same age as Felicity when readers first meet her in 1774. Call Number: MS B26. Click image to enlarge.
The frontispiece (left) and title page (middle) of The Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, &c. by Elizabeth Raffald, London: 1778. On the right is a fold-out copper plate diagram of a first-course dinner arrangement consisting of 25 dishes, part of what Raffald calls a “grand table”: “January being a month when entertainments are most used, and most wanted, from that motive I have drawn my dinner at that season of the year.” A second copper plate diagramshows another 25 dishes, and Raffald asserts that the third (dessert) course “must” therefore “be of the same number.” Call Number: C3670. Click images to enlarge.
The title page and a selection of treatments in Every Man His Own Physician by John Theobald, London: 1766 (a “new edition, improved). Historically known as chlorosis, “green sickness” was primarily diagnosed in young, unmarried teenage girls. “Gripes” is an older term for influenza. Note that the cure for headaches includes “leeches behind the ears.” Call Number: B9522. Click images to enlarge.
The “first anatomical table of the muscles, fascias, ligaments, nerves, arteries, veins, glands, and cartilages” in The Anatomy of the Horse by George Stubbs, London: 1766. This volume includes “eighteen tables [illustrations], all done from nature,” each accompanied by explanatory text. Call Number: Ellis Omnia H16. Click image to enlarge.
Selected Additional Collection Items
Colonial British America, Virginia, and Williamsburg
Map, North America, as Divided Amongst the European Powers, London: 1774. Call Number: Orbis Maps 1:85.
The Office and Authority of a Justice of Peace Explained and Digested, Under Proper Titles by Richard Starke, Williamsburg: 1774. Includes a section on penalties for (ahem, Felicity) stealing horses. George Washington had a copy of this work in his library. Call Number: C14997.
Map, A New and Correct Map of North America, With the West India Islands; Divided According to the Last Treaty of Peace, Concluded at Paris. 10th. Feby. 1763, London: 1777. Call Number: N6 Orbis 1:81.
Map, Bowles’s New Map of North America and the West Indies, London: 1781. Call Number: N7 Orbis 1:82.
Colonial Williamsburg, the First Twenty-Five Years; A Report, 1952. Call Number: RH D1411.
Rising Tensions Before the American Revolution
First [-Fifth] Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire [sic] into the Nature, State, and Condition, of the East India Company, and of the British Affairs in the East Indies, London: 1773? These reports document the UK Parliament’s investigation into the East India Company in 1772 and 1773. One result of this inquiry was the Tea Act of 1773, which features prominently in Felicity’s stories. Call Number: G374 v.3 items 6-10.
A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions by Anthony Benezet, London: 1767. Call Number: C3749.
Fragment of an Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes; Written in the Year 1776 by Thomas Day, London: 1784. Call Number: Howey C3950 item 2.
Household Matters and Girls’ Education
The Ready Calculator: or, Trader’s Certain Guide, in Computing the Price, or Amount of Any Quantity of Goods and Merchandizes by Thomas Slack, London: 1771. Call Number: Howey B856.
An Essay Upon Nursing and the Management of Children, From Their Birth to Three Years of Age by William Cadogan, Boston: 1772. Call Number: C1801.
Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Young Lady. In Two Volumes by Mrs. (Hester) Chapone, London: 1773. Call Number: B3783.
An Essay on the Learning, Genius, and Abilities of the Fair-Sex: Proving Them Not Inferior to Man, From a Variety of Examples, Extracted From Ancient and Modern History, an English translation of Defensa de las mujer by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro, London: 1774. Call Number: B7649.
The Toilet of Flora, an English translation (with alterations) of La toilette de flore by Pierre-Joseph Buc’hoz, London: 1775. Contains “a collection of the most simple and approved methods of preparing baths, essences, pomatums, powders, perfumes, sweet-scented waters, and opiates for preserving and whitening the teeth” with “receipts [recipes] for cosmetics of every kind, that can smooth and brighten the skin, give force to beauty, and take off the appearance of old age and decay.” Call Number: B8738.
The Complete Vermin-Killer: A Valuable and Useful Companion for Families, in Town and Country, London: 1777. Includes “safe and quick methods of destroying bugs, lice, fleas, rats, mice, moles, weazels [sic], caterpillars, frogs, pismires, snails, frogs, moths, earwigs, wasps, pole-cats, badgers, foxes, otters, and fish and birds of all kinds.” Also includes “useful family receipts, for the preparation of medicines” and “directions for the purchase, management and cure of horses.” Call Number: Ellis Omnia C437.
Horses
Observations Upon the Shoeing of Horses: With an Anatomical Description of the Bones in the Foot of a Horse by James Clark, Edinburgh: 1770. Call Number: 18th century Prose 1841.
A Treatise on Cattle: Shewing the Most Approved Methods of Breeding, Rearing, and Fitting for Use, Horses, Asses, Mules, Horned Cattle, Sheep, Goats, and Swine by John Mills, Dublin: 1776. Call Number: C4072.
As I work to develop the Spencer’s new Latina/o Collections*, I wanted to take a moment and look back at the interesting materials that are already sitting within our library stacks and viewable in our Reading Room today! All the materials presented allow us to briefly see how Latina/os have gathered and built community within different places across Kansas.
Take a look at some of those materials below.
Aztlán de Leavenworth, volume 1
First published May 5, 1970, Aztlán de Leavenworth was a bilingual Chicano prisoner newspaper edited and published at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. It features poet and activist raúlrsalinas’ famous poem “A Trip Through the Mind Jail.” Other members of the publication team included Albert Mares, Ruben Estrella, Alfredo Arellanes, Ricardo Mena, and Beto Palomino. Inspired by Aztec history and iconography, the newspaper is named after Aztlán, the ancestral home of the Aztecs, and features images of Tizoc and designs inspired by Aztec art.
Left: The front cover of Aztlán de Leavenworth, 1970. Right: The page of Aztlán de Leavenworth featuring “A Trip Through the Mind Jail,” 1970. Call Number: RH H79, volume 1. Click images to enlarge.
KACMAA Special Report, 1981
This 1981 special report was created by Kansas’ Advisory Committee in Mexican American Affairs (KACMAA). As explained in the report’s introduction, it “optimistically highlights important accomplishments and measurable in Hispanic’s social, economic, and political life” but also “clarifies the work that remains to be done.” While the KACMAA originally concentrated on projects to promote people of Mexican heritage, the organization evolved to include all Hispanics and Latinos across the state and is now known as the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission.
The front cover of the KCMAA’s 1981 Special Report. Call Number: RH D6100. Click image to enlarge.
Music groups in Emporia
Taken some time in 1932, these photographic prints from the Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas (Call Number: RH PH 182) allow us to see some of Emporia’s early musical groups. The first photo shows members of the Mexican band Orquesta de Leora posing with their instruments, while the second features the women who made up the Coro de Santa Catalina, or St. Catherine’s Choir. St. Catherine’s Catholic Church still exists to this day and continues to offer Catholic services to Spanish speakers in Emporia.
Left: Photograph of Orquesta de Leora, 1932. Right: Photograph of St. Catherine’s Choir, 1932. Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas. Call Number: RH PH 182, Box 1, Folders 11 and 19. Click images to enlarge.
MEChA & HALO Pamphlets
Records of a Latina/o focused group at the University of Kansas have existed since the 1970s. However, before it was LASU (Latin American Student Union), KU’s Latino student group went by many names. It first went by the name AMAS (Association of Mexican American Students), and then it was MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán). The group took the name HALO (Hispanic American Leadership Organization) when it was re-established in the 1980s, and it finally became LASU to further expand its inclusion of all students of Latin American heritage or background.
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Top: MEChA pamphlet, circa 1970. Bottom: HALO pamphlet, circa 1997. KU Student Organization Records: Hispanic American Leadership Organization. Call Number: RG 67/593, Box 1, Folders 1970s and 1997. Click images to enlarge.
Rebekah Ramos Curator of Latina/o Collections
Sources
“A Trip Through the Mind Jail: A Textual History of raúlrsalinas’ Magnum Opus” by Santiago Vidales Martínez in Textual Cultures 14.1 (2021): 208–229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14434/tc.v14i1.32858
KU Latin American Student Union website, “LASU History.”
*While many terms exist to identify people in the United States of Latin American origin and/or ancestry (i.e. Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Latina/o, Latinx, Latine) at Spencer Research Library we chose to use “Latina/o” for the collection’s title. As the collection grows and evolves, the term used might change.
In 1984, the Union Pacific Railroad (UPR) made the decision to abandon its Union Pacific Depot in Lawrence and announced that they would demolish the building due to potential liabilities. The Depot had once been a shining gateway to Lawrence, with a tall steeple and busy railway line, but in the years prior, the passenger service had been discontinued, and the Depot building itself had fallen into disrepair.
Cyanotype photo of the Union Pacific Depot, undated [circa 1889-1930]. Lawrence, Kansas Photographs Collection. Call Number: RH PH 18, Box 1, Folder A6. Click image to enlarge.
Lawrence residents swiftly jumped into action to campaign for the preservation of the building. Citizens from the recently formed Lawrence Preservation Alliance, fresh of the success of their first project to save a historic home at 947 Louisiana St, jumped into action to preserve this Lawrence landmark. Members from the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, University of Kansas Rowing Club, and other concerned citizens banded together to form the “Save the Depot Task Force.” With the original plan to use the Depot as a headquarters for the rowing team, they were able to negotiate with the UPR to stall the demolition and began coordinating and raising funds for potential restoration.
There was one sticking point: the UPR was unwilling to permit the Depot to stay in its current location due to the building’s proximity to the railway line. With no other options, the Save the Depot Task Force began its “Move It or Lose It” campaign. The group hired a contractor to conduct a study to see if it would be possible to move the entire building in either one or two pieces on a hydraulic lift to a nearby lot.
Save the Depot brochure, “Move It or Lose It,” undated [circa 1987]. Call Number: RH P1482. Click image to enlarge.
After years of negotiation and much back and forth, in 1990 the UPR agreed to let the Depot stay where it was, with the provision that the City of Lawrence would provide a protective iron fence protecting the building from the railway tracks. In the end, the UPR sold the Depot to the city for $1.
Renovations began under architect John Lee officially in 1991, with construction happening in three phases & ongoing fundraising assistance from the “Save the Depot” task force. The Union Pacific Depot was officially rededicated as a community center in 1996.
Learn more about the restoration of Lawrence’s Union Pacific Depot at our short-term exhibit in Spencer’s North Gallery! The exhibit is free and open to the public in the North Gallery through March 31, 2026.
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 Rebekah Ramos, who joined Spencer Research Library in August 2025 as the Curator of Latina/o Collections.
Rebekah Ramos, Curator of Latina/o Collections. Click image to enlarge.
Where are you from?
I was born and raised in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico but I moved to Texas when I was sixteen. I jumped around the state quite a bit for school, living in cities like Frisco, Lubbock, Sherman, and most recently Austin.
What does your job at Spencer entail?
As curator of Latina/o Collections I’m in charge of collecting materials that document and preserve the history of Latina/o individuals, families, and organizations in Kansas. Latinos have been part of this state’s history for more than a hundred years, and I’m working to build a collection that reflects the many experiences and stories that exist within this community.
How did you come to work in libraries/archives/special collections?
During undergrad, in the midst of a new semester and trying to stay sane during Zoom classes, I applied for and was hired as a student assistant at the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive’s Oral History Project. During my time there, I reviewed and cleaned up transcriptions of oral history interviews that were conducted with Vietnam War veterans. Then, while I was completing my degree in Information Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, I worked as a graduate student technician at the LLILAS Benson’s Digital Scholarship Lab, where I had the opportunity to work with Latin American and U.S. Latina/o archival materials.
What part of your job do you like best?
I love getting to meet new people! As someone who is not originally from here, it’s been interesting getting to learn about the variety of nationalities, backgrounds, and stories that make up the Latino community in Kansas.
What do you have on your desk?
I have a bunch of sticky notes with reminders of things I need to look up or do, and a huge pile of books I’m trying to read, like What Kansas Means to Me, Who Owns Native Culture?, and Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History. There are also a couple of trinkets to remind me of home, like a Mexican rag doll I keep under my monitor.
What is one of the most interesting items you’ve come across in Spencer’s collections?
Some of the most interesting items I’ve come across were two photographs I found in the Bourquin Family Collection. Photographs in this collection were taken by a Swiss family that moved to Horton, Kansas, in the late 1800s. The collection’s finding aid showed that there are a couple of photographs that include the name “Little Mexico” in their title.
I was really surprised to find these photographs, since I hadn’t seen any record or evidence of Mexican immigrants in Horton in any of our other collections or online sources. Digitized newspaper clippings confirmed that during the 1920s there was an area of the town that housed many of the Mexican immigrants that had come to work at the local railroad center.
“High water at railroad dam and Little Mexico, May 8, 1921.” Bourquin Family Collection. Call Number: RH PH 30, Box 14, Folder 623. Click images to enlarge.
What are some of your favorite pastimes outside of work?
I am an avid reader and proud bookworm! But I also love going to the movie theater, getting food or coffee with friends, baking, and watching TV.
