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 this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing a few items from the Katie Armitage papers. Per the finding aid, “Katie Hart Armitage is a Lawrence, Kansas-based independent historian. [She] has worked both in a voluntary and in an official capacity at the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence and the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, as a researcher, consultant, educator, and tour guide.” The collection, which consists of eight boxes and three oversize folders, “has been arranged into three series: Programs and special projects, Correspondence and Lawrence community materials, and Research materials.”
The items shared today are recipes from the Great Depression era, plus a later article from the Lawrence Journal-World titled “Depression Memories.” In the United States, the Great Depression was a severe economic downturn that spanned the 1930s. The stock market crash of 1929 marked the beginning of a decade of poverty, deflation, and lost opportunities. As noted in the Journal-World article, families had little money to get by. They could only afford the essentials, which meant they had to get creative with their recipes.
I found these documents interesting because it can be surreal to think about living through an event such as the Great Depression. We often don’t think about how those times affected people and the memories they left behind. As you look at the recipes, think about whether you would want to try them. Being a picky eater, they don’t sound too appetizing to me. But, I am sure that I would do whatever was needed to get by.
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Recipes for Depression cake and wheat nut homemade cereal, plus a 1998 Lawrence Journal-World article of local residents’ recollections of the Great Depression, with accompanying recipes. Katie Armitage Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1479. Click images to enlarge.
Last week was the 161st anniversary of the 1863 raid of Lawrence, Kansas, home to many free-state and abolitionist leaders. In the early hours of Friday, August 21, 1863, Confederate guerilla chief William Clarke Quantrill and 400 of his men rode into town, taking it by surprise. They ransacked homes, looted stores, set fire to homes and businesses, and killed close to 190 men and boys. The focus of this post is just one of the many personal stories from that awful day.
Frederick and Amelia Read were living and working in Lawrence at the time of the Raid. Frederick (1831-1901) immigrated to Lawrence from New York in 1857. It’s possible that he came as a member of one of the last parties of settlers sponsored by the New England Emigrant Aid Society, whose mission was to ensure that Kansas entered the Union as a free state (i.e. one that did not allow slavery). Frederick Read owned and operated a dry goods business for several years. After the Civil War, his wife Amelia (1834-1892) was an agent for the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine company, working out of the family’s store.
An advertisement for Frederick Read’s store in The Lawrence Tribune, June 18, 1863. Courtesy of Newspapers.com. Click image to enlarge.
An article about the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine company in The Daily Kansas Tribune, January 13, 1867. Courtesy of Newspapers.com. Click image to enlarge.
At the time of the Raid, Frederick and Amelia were very likely grieving the deaths of their two young daughters. In researching this post, I found the following article in the Lawrence Republican on May 3, 1860: “In this city, on Monday morning, April 30th, ADDIE L., only child of F.W. & Amelia A. Read, aged one year, eleven months and twenty-two days.” I also found, in the Complete Tombstone Census of Douglas County, Kansas, this record of the couple’s second loss: “Died at the residence of Levi Gates in West Lawrence, August 30, 1862, Freddy Rockwell Read, only child of F.W. and Amelia A. Read, aged eleven months.” Both Freddy and Addie were buried in Pioneer Cemetery, now located on the University of Kansas campus. The location of their graves is unknown.
Only the Reads’ youngest child – their son Lathrop – survived to adulthood.
Almost exactly one year after Freddy’s death, the Reads experienced significant losses during Quantrill’s Raid. Frederick escaped physical harm, but raiders looted and burned his store. Amelia was somehow able to save the family’s house from being set on fire, but she couldn’t stop the raiders from robbing the home.
There are multiple published descriptions of the Reads’ home during the Raid. One can be found in The Lawrence Massacre by a Band of Missouri Ruffians Under Quantrell [sic], published in 1865 by J. S. Boughton. Spencer Research Library has a copy of the volume; it’s also available online. Note that this account mentions daughter Addie by name, but it was her sister Freddy who had “died a few months before.”
The residence of F. W. Read was probably visited by more squads than any other place, as it is situated in the heart of the city. Seven different bands called there that morning…The next squad were for stealing, after demanding as they all did fire arms at first, they wanted money next and then helped themselves to whatever they could find. They found in the back side of a bureau drawer a little box containing a pair of gold and coral armlets [elsewhere described as bracelets] used to loop up the dress at the shoulder of their little girl Addie who had died a few months before. Mrs. Read begged very hard that he would please not take them as they had been her little dead child’s and she wanted them to remember her by, the brute replied with an oath “Damn your dead baby, she’ll never need them again.”
The heartbreaking story of the bracelets and the ambrotype below were the inspiration for this post. The ambrotype is part of Spencer’s Leonard Hollmann Photograph Collection. It’s identified as a post-mortem image of Freddy Rockwell Read, likely because it’s accompanied by a copy of the child’s obituary (quoted above). However, given the information I found while researching this post, I now believe that is incorrect.
The deceased girl in this ambrotype has been identified as Freddy Rockwell Read, who died at eleven months old in 1862. Leonard Hollmann Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 536, Box 64, Folder 1. Click image to enlarge.
The child in the ambrotype looks to be about two years old, the age Addie was when she died. Thus, I believe the child in the ambrotype has been previously misidentified and is the Reads’ oldest child Addie. It’s still unclear who the bracelets belonged to.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing another item from the Herd Family Papers. I have shared items from the collection many times and likely will continue to do so due to its wide variety of offerings. Spanning the time period of 1817-2013 with over 37 boxes and 47 volumes, this one collection alone has something that may interest just about anyone.
The item shared today is a sheet of paper titled “How to Protect Yourself Against War Gases.” The document was distributed by the Air Raid Wardens Service in 1942 during World War II. According to the World War II American Experience museum, Air Raid Wardens were men and women “tasked with protecting the lives of their fellow neighbors. By day, the Air Raid Warden visits his neighbors and educates them about blackouts and what to do if an air raid were to occur… By night, these same wardens will don their helmet, flashlight, gas mask, medical kit, air raid siren, gas alarm, whistle and maybe a stirrup pump fire extinguisher and patrol their neighborhoods enforcing blackout and air raid drills.”
Thankfully the war never made landfall in the contiguous United States, but many precautions were taken in anticipation of potential attacks. For example, the paper shown today states that the ultimate defense toward the enemy is to remain calm. The paper also shares rules and steps of what to do in case of an air raid.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing an item from our Kansas Collection. While I frequently share books, photos, and diaries from the collection, it houses so much more. The collection also contains historic documents such as Douglas County records, architectural drawings and blueprints, and other planning documents. Today I share A City Plan for Lawrence, Kansas, from 1930. The document is a 92-page typescript report that includes recommendations regarding streets and transportation, public properties, schools, and zoning. The report was prepared by Hare & Hare, a Kansas City, Missouri, landscape architecture and planning firm that was founded by a father-and-son team in 1910. The firm’s projects ranged from cemeteries and parks to larger scale planning projects. One of the firm’s most notable projects was the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. After a couple of mergers over the years, today the firm is known as Ochsner Hare & Hare, a Design Studio of Olsson Associates.
As seen by the table of contents shown below, the plan covers a wide range of topics including transit, zoning, growth and distribution of population, and private property. The plan opens with some general historical background of the city to help readers situate themselves. Of the pages shared, the “Cultural Opportunities” section seems to be hopeful that the city will have a lasting impact on students at the University of Kansas and Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) who come from out of town. The “Parks and Recreation Areas” section seems to urge the city to take pride in its leisurely spaces and to preserve those areas for use. It can be interesting to look back in time and see what the priorities were for those running the town then compared to those who are in charge now. Similar to looking back at pictures, you can “see” how things have shifted throughout time.
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Selected pages from A City Plan for Lawrence, Kansas, 1930. Call Number: RH MS P695. Click images to enlarge.
Having taken over the Ringle Conservation Internship from my predecessor and colleague Brendan Williams-Childs for the processing of the Hannah Scott photography collection, I have continued the necessary tasks and procedures to appropriately rehouse, organize, clean, and inventory thousands of glass plate negatives (3,821 to be exact) that comprise a mere fraction of the entire collection. These inventorying and rehousing procedures are much the same as other archival projects completed by interns and professionals in the field. Maintaining careful records and attention to detail are of paramount importance. The basic steps involve removing the old housing (acidic envelopes), notating the identifying information of each individual plate in a spreadsheet and on the new acid-free, four-flap enclosures, removing dust with a soft brush, and finally placing the completed rehoused plate into a new box. Such processes have been discussed, in detail, in many archival projects across repository institutions.
Glass plate negative on a light table for examination.
Rather than repeat the processing steps discussed by my predecessors, I examine the potential research opportunities and significance this collection embodies. Not only is this collection invaluable for genealogical research (Hannah’s meticulous record keeping make this collection a researchers dream) but also for women and gender studies. The uniqueness and increasing fascination I have discovered in this collection and internship lies with the photographic abilities and entrepreneurial spunk displayed by Hannah Scott as an independent businesswoman in the early 20th century. Her distinct ability to photographically capture lively images of young children combined with her apparent business acumen make her a noteworthy example of Kansan and female ingenuity.
Child of Grey Sawyer. Plate 38237. Hannah Scott Collection. Glass plate negative, inverted positive image.
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Child of Charles Seacat, with kitten. Plate 1505. Hannah Scott Collection. Glass plate negative, inverted positive image.
It seems that Hannah’s work process encouraged taking multiple photos with different backgrounds, props, and poses. In several of the plates, elements of the studio were inadvertently captured including figures not part of the carefully crafted tableaux. Particularly with the young children, there seems to be a degree of collaboration with the mothers who attempt to gain the child’s attention and happy expression. Hannah seems to have encouraged these interactions to achieve the desired image results. Hannah’s skill with timing and attention to detail while coordinating with the parent was one of her greatest strengths as an artist-businesswoman, achieving crystal-clear, natural images. Many of her other images are conventionally posed and formatted to express family relations and pristine pseudo-intellectualism (many older children and adults stiffly hold/read books, magazines, and diplomas). Like today, these artistic choices responded to the desires of the clients and the photographic conventions witnessed in the popular media.
William Bryant and wife. Plate 1472. Hannah Scott Collection. Glass plate negative, inverted positive image.
Helen Young. Plate 1534. Hannah Scott Collection. Glass plate negative, inverted positive image.
Later images start to appear more relaxed and natural overall. Perhaps this indicates a shift in how people understood photography not as just a formal once or twice in a lifetime event but a more commonplace fun activity in which they felt freer to express their personality with a technology they had become familiar with as children. It should also be noted that there are significantly more women who are commissioning portraits than men. Images of children make up most of the portrait subject matter but the plates and register books indicate a “Mrs.” John Smith, more often than the given name of the child or male name. The sheer number of plates and named clients attests to Hannah’s popularity as a portrait photographer.
Hannah Scott was born in Canada in 1872 to Scottish immigrants who later settled in Kansas. She was the fifth of seven children and the only girl. Hannah chose her career path through the inspiration of an article in the Ladies Home Journal by Edward Bok. This article advised that ladies with an artistic inclination were well suited for studio photography as this was deemed suitable work for women at the time. With the approval and support of her family, Hannah pursued a photographic career. With unflagging initiative and energy Hannah apprenticed and advertised with the local photo studio, the Stone Front Studio, owned and operated by Allen Brown. Eventually Hannah bought out Allen Brown to open her own studio, “The Hannah Scott Studio,” later “Scott Photography Studio.” Starting out on her own in 1898, she rented studio space on the second floor of a local commercial building in downtown Independence KS. In 1916 she purchased a lot at 111 South 8th street in Independence and commissioned a new studio building. The titles for this property were in Hannah’s name and over the years three mortgages were taken out and quickly paid off indicating Hannah’s autonomy and success as a businesswoman. Later she hired her younger brother Hugh to work in the development process and as a junior partner, but Hannah maintained primary control of the business until her death.
More research is needed to fully examine Hannah Scott’s life and work. As an important example of women in business and industry, Scott’s life can expand current perceptions of women’s work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Previous scholars have mentioned the Independence Historical Society might have more information about Hannah and her family in the local archives. Once fully indexed with a published online finding aid, this collection will prove invaluable for genealogical research for southeastern Kansas.
Hannah Johnson Ringle Conservation Intern, 2023-2024
