Kenneth Spencer Research Library

The International Transgender Day of Visibility was started in 2009 by transgender activist Rachel Crandall Crocker. When she came out as trans in 1997, she was fired. Over ten years later, she realized that the transgender community needed a day of advocacy and celebration beyond Transgender Day of Remembrance that would be “a day to focus on the living.” Every year, it is celebrated on March 31st with events and social media campaigns to highlight the courage of transgender people and provide support for the community. 

Spencer Research Library has acquired a diverse array of material that documents the lives of transgender people – especially in Kansas and the Midwest – and their creative works. For example, Bruce McKinney was an LGBTQ activist in Wichita, and his large collection of personal papers (Call Number: RH MS 1164) in the Kansas Collection documents many organizations, including the Wichita Transgender Alliance. Other collections that include material on local organizations include Les-Bi-Gay-Trans collected material (Call Number: RH MS 900), the papers of Kristi Parker (Call Number: RH MS 1348), and the papers of Arla Jones and Kimberly Kreicker (Call Number: RH MS 1452). 

In the Wilcox Collection, zines from the Solidarity Revolutionary Center and Radical Library make up the majority of material by and about the transgender community. The following sample is illustrative of the art and writing produced by transgender zine-makers, many of them from the Midwest. 

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If you’d like to explore more unique collections and items by and about transgender people – or if you have suggestions for acquisitions or items to donate – get in touch with the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, Kate Stewart, at kate.stewart@ku.edu. 

Kate Stewart
Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Movements

Zines are self-published writing and art, often made by collage with illustration, photos, and clippings from other publications, and printed like a pamphlet or small book. Zine production began the 1930s with sci-fi fanzines, but in the 1980s and ‘90s, the widespread availability of the copy machine and Kinko’s 24-hour stores spurred many disaffected young people to express their personal and political opinions, often anonymously, in zines that were distributed locally and nationally via word of mouth and the postal service. Although the internet later replaced much of the ways young people previously communicated with each other, zine production has continued and has been made easier with new digital tools and home printers.

In 2016, Kenneth Spencer Research Library received a large donation of about a thousand left-wing, radical zines from the Lawrence-based Solidarity Revolutionary Center Library. The books remaining in the library are now housed at the Ecumenical Campus Ministries building near campus. Before they were donated to Spencer, many of these zines were scanned and made available on the Internet Archive.

Since adding the Solidarity Library zines to the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements in 2016, interest in the collection has grown among KU students, KU faculty, and community members. Several classes come to Spencer each semester to learn about the collection, view a selection of zines, and complete a primary source analysis activity with one zine. These class visits help prepare students to tackle a creative, unique assignment to make their own zines. Students also tour the Makerspace at Anschutz Library, where they can utilize the tools and materials needed to write, illustrate, assemble, and print copies of their zines for classes and/or for fun. Additionally, Spencer also hosted attendees of Lawrence’s annual Paper Plains Zine Festival last September for a tour of the library and to view some of our zines up close. Library staff were thrilled to see this group of zine creators and collectors show so much excitement and joy for our zine collection.

Due to the popularity of the zine collection, it seemed like a good idea to acquire more recently published zines that address current topics students might be interested in. Last fall, we purchased about a hundred new zines (many of them created in 2025 and purchased on Etsy). While some of the zines are reprints of older publications, the more recent ones address topics such as political attacks on transgender people, resistance to fascism and state violence, the labor movement, the war in Gaza, the American tech oligarchy, artificial intelligence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and mutual aid. The zines are in the process of being cataloged; when that work is completed, information about them will be available via the KU Libraries online catalog, and the zines themselves will be available for classes and for research in our Reading Room.

Throughout this post is a sample of ten covers from our most recent purchase of zines. If you have suggestions for further purchases or donations of zines for the Wilcox Collection or if you would like to view these in our reading room, get in touch with Spencer staff!

Kate Stewart
Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements

Maureen Tuohey and Theo McKay
Public Services Student Assistants

This week week, October 5-11, is Banned Books Week, an advocacy initiative started by the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee in 1982 at the suggestion of the Association of American Publishers, who were facing many censorship efforts by the religious right at the time. Libraries across the country celebrate this week with banned book displays and events that bring attention to the fact that our freedom to read is still under attack. KU’s Watson Library currently has a display of banned books, and KU students can check the Libby app for a list of e-books and audiobooks that are commonly challenged.

Spencer Research Library holds many classic books that are often challenged or banned in schools, including first and special editions of Fahrenheit 451, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Naked Lunch. Beyond novels, Spencer also collects material for the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Movements that would otherwise be banned in many contexts or far outside a typical public or school library’s collecting policies.

The Wilcox collection was started by Laird Wilcox, a student at KU in the 1960s who was interested in politics and concerned about free speech. He started collecting flyers, newsletters, and books from organizations on the political margins, including communist groups and right-wing leaders. As the chair of KU’s Student Union Activities Minority Opinions Forum, he brought several controversial speakers to campus, including neo-Nazi activist George Lincoln Rockwell. The 1964 event caused heated debate among students and faculty about free speech and what was appropriate on college campuses. (The Wilcox Collection includes photographs and cassette tapes from this event and Wilcox’s interview with Rockwell.) Wilcox’s experiences at KU as a student activist led him to collecting political material he feared would be banned or otherwise unavailable. He continued collecting until his death in 2023.

To find these kind of publications, Wilcox used directories like the Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications, which was issued by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities (known as HUAC) and revised several times throughout the 1950s and early ‘60s. This directory included summaries of organizations with citations to HUAC’s own committee reports and records. Although this directory and others like were often used by librarians to censor their own collections, Wilcox used it essentially as a catalog. He also purchased books published by right-wing organizations and individuals on their beliefs that schools, government bodies, or other organizations were brainwashing Americans, especially children, with left-wing propaganda like Communist-Socialist Propaganda in American Schools by Verne P. Kaub. These were also useful for tracking down material, as they often included lists of titles and directions on how to (ironically) acquire them to review for censorship efforts in local communities. Wilcox also collected books, periodicals, and ephemera by organizations devoted to free speech that tracked censorship like Censorship News to help make collecting decisions and acquire material that is now available at Spencer.

By corresponding and meeting with booksellers and people who belonged to these groups, Wilcox expanded his circle of contacts to acquire more “subversive” books and material. He was able to facilitate acquisitions of unpublished manuscript materials from key figures in both left-wing and right-wing movements like Willis Carto (founder of the Liberty Lobby) and other collectors such as Albert and Angela Feldstein (who specialized in left-wing buttons, stickers, and posters). The Wilcox Collection now includes many formats beyond books such as photographs, audiovisual material, and more.

In his later life, after developing a reputation as an expert on propaganda and free speech, Wilcox wrote his own books on political extremism and compiled bibliographies of propaganda and books of quotations on censorship, propaganda, and freedom of speech. These publications are also available at Spencer in the Wilcox Collection.

The former Curator of the Wilcox Collection, Becky Schulte, wrote about Laird Wilcox, the history of the collection, and her efforts to expand it in a presentation to the Society of American Archivists in 2016, titled “Curating the Controversial: The Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, University of Kansas.”  She details the acquisition of the collection of James Mason, a key figure in white supremacist movements, and both the difficulties and professional satisfaction involved in curating such a collection.

The librarian Mary Jo Godwin said that “a truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone,” a quote that is now widely circulated on social media during Banned Books Week and in other discussions of censorship. Due to the decades of tireless effort by both Laird Wilcox and Becky Schulte, we can say that the Spencer Research Library is among the best of truly great libraries.

Kate Stewart
Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements

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 Kate Stewart, who joined Spencer Research Library in August 2025 as the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements.

Where are you from?

I was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and when I was five, we moved to Merriam, Kansas, where I spent the rest of my childhood. Since I left at 18 for Vassar College, I have moved around a lot all over the country. Most recently, I was living in Tucson and before that, Washington, D.C. It is really great to be back in the area that I think of as home! My older brother and a lot of my high school friends went to KU, so I have many fond memories of hanging out in Lawrence in the ‘90s. Fun fact: I went to Day on the Hill for the first time in 1993 when I was in 8th grade! Unfortunately, that was the year after the infamous Pearl Jam show, but I did get to see MU330 and many other bands in Lawrence.

How did you come to work at Spencer Research Library?

I have been working in archives for almost twenty years, mostly in temporary positions that focused on political and oral history collections. When I saw this job posting, I knew it was my dream job. Not only is it exactly the kind of work I want to do, but I also have been wanting to move back to the area for the past few years. I feel incredibly lucky to be here every day.

What does your job at Spencer entail?

I’m the Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, which has a large number of books, ephemera, and manuscript collections related to left- and right-wing movements in the United States. In particular, it is the premier archive for researchers studying right-wing extremism and one of the only ones in the U.S. that collects that kind of material. My primary job duty is to acquire new items and collections in this area, which means I get to shop online for rare books and ephemera and work with people interested in donating their personal and organizational collections to the Spencer Library. I will also be teaching instruction sessions related to the Wilcox collection for KU classes and researching stories about how politics and libraries are interconnected.

How did you come to work in libraries/archives/special collections?

My mom, aunt, and grandfather were all librarians, so I grew up hanging out in libraries quite a bit, especially when I was in college. After getting a master’s in history at the University of Iowa, I decided to get my master’s degree in library and information science there too and join the family business. As a student, I got to work at the Iowa Women’s Archives, which was a terrific first job for me in this field. From there, I have had many different jobs (including five temporary ones) in archives or libraries, including the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the U.S. Senate, and the Arizona State Museum at the University of Arizona. I have also worked as a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and editor for many years as well, which has been a great joy.

What part of your job do you like best?

Walking through the building, especially the stacks, when I’m alone and it’s dark. I always feel like I’m in the suspenseful part of a horror movie, and it’s quite an adrenaline rush. But when it comes to my actual job duties, I really love working with students. It’s so much fun to blow their minds about what we have at the library and that it’s all here for them.

What do you have on your desk?

I have some duplicate zines from the collection Spencer acquired from the Solidarity Library, including one titled Winning Office Politics Quickly that has been making me laugh. I have a lot of books from Watson Library about the FBI for an article I’m working on about the scandalous publication of Max Lowenthal’s book on the FBI in 1950, which I have been wanting to write for many years. I have also started bringing in ephemera from my own past to decorate my office, and I am glad to get some of it out of my moving boxes and into a good home.

What is one of the most interesting items you’ve come across in Spencer’s collections?

While looking at zines for classes that are coming in this semester, I came across a famous one called Sniffin’ Glue. It was created in 1977 in London by Mark Perry, a punk fan and musician. It has some really great illustrations and photos from that time of bands like the Ramones and the Clash.

What are some of your favorite pastimes outside of work?

A lot of my life outside of work is consumed by reading about politics and participating in political organizations, although I don’t know if I should call that a pastime since it isn’t exactly enjoyable a lot of the time, especially these days. When I really want to relax, I take a long hike or go to a baseball game (I am a Royals and Nationals fan). I am also an obsessive music fan (and musician) and love to play card games.

Kate Stewart
Curator of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements

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 Wilcox Collection, which is one of the largest assemblages of U.S. left- and right-wing political literature in the country. Since it was established in 1965, the Wilcox Collection has grown to include coverage of more than 10,000 individuals and organizations. The collection covers a wide array of topics including women’s rights. Most of the materials date from 1960 to the present.

The item shared today is a book titled 101 Wonderful Ways to Celebrate Women’s History. Written by Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, the book (which is also referred to as a guide) was published in 1986 by the National Women’s History Project. It offers many different ideas on ways to celebrate women’s history. Shown today are some of the ideas presented for potential school programs. The guide notes that the activities within the section were “developed and recommended by classroom teachers around the country.” Other sections within the guide include school-community programs, as well as community programs. Some program ideas include designing women’s history posters, writing short public service announcements, and exhibiting books and works written by women at libraries. The book also has a slew of appendices that offer a wealth of information surrounding women’s history.

One of the guide’s authors, Mary Ruthsdotter, was actually a founder of the National Women’s History Project in 1980. A couple of years earlier, several of the group’s founders organized a local Women’s History Week in Sonoma County, California. Inspired by their success, women’s groups around the country lobbied for the week of March 8th to be National Women’s History Week. Congress later voted to make the entire month of March National Women’s History Month. Mary Ruthsdotter worked as the National Women’s History Project director for twenty years. The organization, now known as the National Women’s History Alliance, is still around today. National Women’s History Month continues to be celebrated today to ensure important women who fought for our rights are not forgotten.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services