Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Entrance gate at the Israelite House of David headquarters, undated.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

The Israelite House of David is a religious society with headquarters in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Founded by Benjamin and Mary Purnell in 1903, the society is still in operation today. Throughout its existence it has not only been a religious order, but has also undertaken numerous business ventures, such as an amusement park, dairy, amphitheater, zoo and aviary, bowling alley, restaurant, hotel, logging operation, and bottled water plant.

Perhaps the society’s most successful business enterprise was owning and managing its own baseball teams, known simply as the “House of David.” The teams existed in varying forms from 1913 through the 1940s. As with all of their businesses, the teams were a way to both provide income for the society and to evangelize.

Israelite House of David ballpark, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

A House of David baseball team, undated. Call Number: RH PH P1637.
Click image to enlarge.

The teams were originally comprised entirely of House of David members, but by the 1920s they began to hire professional athletes in order to remain competitive and provide better entertainment. Two of the most famous professional athletes to play for House of David teams were future Hall of Famers Grover Cleveland Alexander and Satchel Paige. The society hired women players, too. For example, Babe Didrikson Zaharias – a successful female athlete in golf, basketball, and track and field – and Jackie Mitchell, a professional female baseball pitcher in the minor leagues, were signed to play. Growing long hair and beards were part of the society’s religious beliefs, and, although it was not required, some of the hired players grew out their hair and beards as a way of showing respect for the society.

Grover Cleveland Alexander, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Babe Didrickson, undated. T. Y. Baird Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

House of David baseball player George Anderson, undated.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Because the House of David operated outside of the framework of major league baseball, the teams barnstormed to find other teams to play. Barnstorming involved independent teams traveling to various towns around the country to play in exhibition games against hometown teams. The House of David also played teams from the Negro Leagues, which also barnstormed during and after their regular season.

Thomas Younger (T. Y.) Baird owned the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League baseball team, from 1947 to 1956. For a brief period during that time he was also the booking agent for the House of David teams. The photographs in this post are from the papers and photographs of T. Y. Baird held in the Kansas Collection at Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

T. Y. Baird, in the back row wearing a suit and tie, with a House of David team, undated.
Also shown are the the Kansas City Monarchs light boys, who set up stadium lights for night games.
T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS-P 414. Click image to enlarge.

Advertisement, House of David vs. Kansas City Monarchs Travelers,
May 28, 1950. T. Y. Baird Papers. Call Number: RH MS Q209.
Click image to enlarge.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services

Among the many treasures in the Kansas Collection are the Fowler-Rose-Thompson Collection ribbons. These beautiful silk ribbons depict Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and commemorate the Almena, Kansas Congregational Church’s “Old Folks Day.” The over 100-year-old ribbons arrived in the conservation lab stored vertically in an archival folder. Due to their age and fragility, the ribbons were torn, fraying, and wrinkled. After the ribbons were flattened and mended by Whitney Baker, Conservator for KU Libraries, their storage situation needed to be addressed.

Three ribbons from the Fowler-Rose-Thompson Collection, call number RH MS 88. Click image to enlarge.

To better preserve these delicate ribbons, an entirely new housing arrangement was in order. The priorities for the new housing were to 1) ensure that the ribbons were stored horizontally to prevent any sagging or further wrinkling of the fragile silk and 2) to minimize the need for direct handling of the ribbons. A hinged, floating mount achieves both requisites.

The floating mount arrangement that Whitney advised allows for the attachment of the ribbons to a piece of mat board without the use of damaging adhesives. Instead, strips of polyethylene tape run through slits on either side of the ribbons. The polyethylene tape acts like a seat-belt, holding the ribbons in place without obstructing the view of the ribbons.

Detail of polyethylene strapping over bottom of ribbon. Click image to enlarge.

Hinged to this first piece of mat board with gummed tape is a mat board frame. The frame allows the entirety of the ribbons to remain visible, which reduces the need for handling, while acting as a buffer for the floating mount’s cover. The cover, a third piece of mat board, is also hinged with gummed tape to the first piece of mat board to further protect the ribbons.

Left: Attaching mat frame to back board with gummed tape. Right: The final three-part mat. Click images to enlarge.

This book-like housing arrangement was then placed into a plastazote-lined archival box for added protection and to ensure that the ribbons remain horizontal.

Brecken Liebl
Conservation Intern
KU Museum Studies Graduate Student

Friday marks the 118th birthday of the famous aviatrix and Kansas native, so this week we’re highlighting a letter in the Kansas Collection that Earhart (1897-1937) wrote to a young girl, encouraging her to pursue her interest in flying.

The recipient of the letter was sixteen-year-old Helen Edna Mason of Greenfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts. Helen was the oldest sister of Alexandra (Sandy) Mason, a longtime and distinguished librarian at Spencer Research Library. Preliminary research indicates that Helen (1911-2000) was a lifelong resident of Franklin County, located in the northwest part of the state. She married Lawrence H. Wheeler in the late 1930s and had at least three children. It’s unknown whether she studied aviation, worked in the industry, or became a pilot.

Amelia Earhart’s letter to Helen Mason, September 12, 1927.
Earhart flew on the first official flight out of Dennison Airport
nine days earlier; she had also helped finance its construction.
Charles Lindbergh had completed his solo nonstop flight
across the Atlantic earlier that year, May 20–21, 1927.
Helen E. Mason Correspondence and Memorabilia.
Call Number: RH MS P23. Click on images to enlarge.

September 12, 1927.

My dear Miss Mason,

Your letter contained so little about yourself that I do not feel I can advise you adequately about aviation possibilities. I do not know whether you must earn your own living or just wish to. Nor do I know whether you are willing to leave your family.

Presuming that you are “foot-loose” I should think application at one of the large airplane factories would be the best move. Ofcourse you could not get the “job” you wish, but even if you entered as a stenographer or a factory worker, you would be on the staff and could use the knowledge gained in one department to help you in another.

Frankly, I fell into aeronautics. I took my first “job” to pay for flying instruction. I am not in on much of an earning basis yet, as I have divided my time between social work, teaching and various other occupations.

I have given your name, and the substance of your letter, to Mr. Kurt, the general manager of the Dennison Company. There are several women students and I asked him to tell you of them and give you any advice he could.

I quite agree with you that everyone should as far as possible do what he or she really wishes. If an inclination is very strong, not conforming to it means unhappiness.

I wish you luck in your inclination.

Very truly yours,
Amelia M Earhart

Interested in learning more about Amelia Earhart? Collections of her papers can be found at Purdue University and the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Radcliffe College, Harvard University. See also the Wikipedia article about Earhart, which provides links to various other paper and online primary and secondary sources.

Spencer Research Library also houses materials about other female pilots. See, for example, the records of the Northeast Kansas Chapter of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots that elected Amelia Earhart its first president in 1931, and the reminiscences of member Dorothy Maloney.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

One of my favorite group of objects that has come to Conservation Services for housing is the Zodiac Club peanut doll collection, housed in the Kansas Collection. As the name implies, it is a series of dolls made from shelled peanuts for heads, with wire bodies and intricate, period-appropriate dress.

The Zodiac Club was founded as women’s studying group, organized on February 5, 1878, by nine women from the Lawrence, KS area. Over the years the club met in members’ homes every Tuesday to read and discuss items relating to “cultural improvement.”

In 1943, when the Zodiac Club celebrated its 65th anniversary, twelve dolls were made to represent the original members of the Zodiac Club. The dolls are made of a frame of covered wire with peanuts for faces and dressed in costumes from the 1870s. Besides the dolls, the collection includes miniature period furniture, as well as leather-bound books, a tea service, spinning wheel, tintype photographs, needlepoint, and braid rug.

Left: Zodiac Club doll collection before housing. Right: Examples of the other items housed with the dolls.
Kansas Collection, call number RH MS Q61.

All the dolls, furniture, and other items were wrapped in paper towels and placed together in a box, making it difficult to tell what was in the box and to access particular items. A museum studies student intern was assigned to rehouse the collection into a more usable form.

Peanut-headed doll wrapped in paper towel. Note the fine detail in the costume.
Kansas Collection, call number RH MS Q61.

I asked her to create a housing that would keep the dolls and the other items in one box. She devised an ingenious two-tray system: the furniture and other items that are less frequently accessed are on the bottom layer, and the dolls are in a removable tray on top. Featured on the outside and inside of the box is a diagram that indicates how everything fits in the housing. Now the peanut ladies will be better protected and more easily displayed for many years to come.

Left: Top tray with dolls and housing guide. Right: Bottom tray with furniture and other items.
Kansas Collection, call number RH MS Q61.

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

To celebrate the Fourth of July, here are a selection of festive photographs from the Kansas Collection at Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

John S. Salmon (1867-1927), owner of Salmon Brothers Photography Studio, took these photographs of the 1898 Fourth of July Parade in Mount Hope, Kansas, located in the south-central part of the state between Wichita and Hutchinson. Operating his studio at the turn of the century, Salmon captured the town just as it was making the shift from horse transportation to the automobile.

Buggies decorated for the Fourth of July, Mount Hope, Kansas, 1898.
Salmon Brothers, Mt. Hope Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 131.
Click images to enlarge.

Georgetown Band playing on the Fourth of July, Mount Hope, Kansas, 1898.
Salmon Brothers, Mt. Hope Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 131.
Click image to enlarge.

Fourth of July parade, Mount Hope, Kansas, 1898.
Salmon Brothers, Mt. Hope Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 131.
Click images to enlarge.

Additional records documenting the activities of the Salmon Brothers Photography Studio can be found at Wichita State University’s Special Collections and University Archives, which has made an inventory of the collection available online.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services