Kenneth Spencer Research Library

The herbal is a medical garden in book form–hence the titles Hortus Sanitatis and Gart der Gesundheit–and as such contains data on the appearance, gathering, preparation, and use of medicinal plants. Remedies from the animal and mineral kingdoms are often included as well. Although the works shown here are from the early part of the Golden Age of the Herbal (roughly 1470-1670), these practical manuals have been popular with scientist and non-scientist alike since antiquity, and a stroll through any bookstore today will attest to a resurgence of that popularity. The Department of Special Collections has a rich and growing garden of herbals spanning six centuries.

Left: Otto Brunfels, Herbarum vivae eicones, [1532], call number Summerfield E60 v.1. Right: Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus, De medicinali materia, [1542], call number Summerfield D291 item 1. Click images to enlarge.

Left: Christovam da Costa, Trattato  . . . della historia, natura, et virtu delle droghe medicinali, 1585, call number Summerfield C1125. Right: Incipit Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum, [1509], call number Summerfield C2114. Click images to enlarge.

Adapted entry from the catalog for the exhibition, All that in this delightfull Gardin growes, Department of Special Collections, 1983
Sally Haines, Rare Book Cataloger

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 26,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Four students in front of the east wing of Strong Hall, 1911. Construction of the
structure began in 1909. Because of budget constraints, “West Ad” and “Center Ad”
were completed in stages, ending in January 1924. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/87 1911 Prints: Campus: Buildings: Strong Hall (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt, Megan Sims, and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

Jacobus de Burgo Sancti Sepulcri (fl. 1380) was a notary and magistrate’s forensic official for misdeeds in Bologna. This is his official record of the charges and pleas he handled in twenty cases involving Bolognese citizens. The cases are mostly minor assaults and theft, although there is one long case of sorcery, seduction, quackery, and con-games.

In one example, German-speaking Ubertus, son of the late Henricus de Norfa, came to the house of Gimignanus Ramainus and stole a woman’s tunic, colored green and worth 10 pounds. Talianarius the notary translated the charge into German for him. He confessed everything.

Liber excusationum in causis criminalibus, Bologna, 31 October 1380 to 24 January 1381. Left: Front cover. Right: First page. Call number MS E77. Click images to enlarge.

Doodle on inside of back cover. Call number MS E77. Click images to enlarge.

Adapted from Civil, Canon, and Common: Aspects of Legal History. An Exhibition of Books and Manuscripts in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, 1996.
Alexandra Mason: Catalogue and exhibition; James Helyar: Design

Lewis Lindsay Dyche, noted naturalist, explorer, lecturer, professor and taxidermist, was born on March 20, 1857, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In the history of the University of Kansas there have been many faculty members who led interesting and adventurous lives and made valuable contributions both to academia as a whole and to the University in particular, but perhaps none more so than Dyche.

Lewis Lindsay Dyche in hunting attire, shown in a lantern slide taken on his trip to
Alaska and Greenland, 1894. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 41/0:
Faculty and Staff: Dyche, Lewis Lindsay (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

While still just an infant, Dyche’s parents moved west and settled in Kansas. At that time, Kansas had just been opened for settlement. It is said that women from a Sac and Fox tribe cared for him while his mother recovered from an illness she acquired while on the journey west. Growing up on the prairie allowed Dyche the opportunity to explore and roam, fish, and hunt. He also began to collect specimens and developed a desire to learn about the creatures inhabiting the world around him. This lead to a love of nature and a thirst for knowledge about the animal kingdom that would stay with him throughout his life.

Dyche stopped attending formal school when he was just thirteen. He was able to earn money by selling game and furs and raising cattle. In 1874, at the age of 17, he decided to use the money he had saved to get a formal education and enrolled in the Kansas State Normal School in Emporia. During his time there, he met Francis Huntington Snow, a faculty member at the University of Kansas. Professor Snow impressed Dyche with his knowledge of and enthusiasm for natural history, and after graduation Dyche, then twenty, followed Snow to the University. Dyche would go on to graduate and acquire multiple degrees. In 1882 he joined the faculty, and during his tenure he taught courses in natural history, anatomy and physiology, taxidermy, and zoology.

Francis Snow, undated. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 2/6 Undated Prints: Chancellors:
Francis Snow (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

The relationship between Dyche and Snow was one of mutual admiration. Snow realized that Dyche was extremely intelligent and that they had much in common. He saw great potential in Dyche and became a mentor to him. Together they went on several collecting trips, venturing out west to gather specimens of mammals, fish and birds for the University’s teaching collections.

Poster from Lewis Lindsay Dyche speaking tour, undated.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 41/0: Faculty and Staff:
Dyche, Lewis Lindsay (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Dyche would go on to arrange many such collecting trips, including treks to Alaska and Greenland. On each trip he carried a list of specimens he would look for, filling in the gaps in the University’s collection as he went. To become a better taxidermist, Dyche went to New York to be trained by William T. Hornaday, chief taxidermist for the National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1893, with Dyche leading the way, the specimen collection was arranged into a diorama and put on display at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition. The diorama would become the foundation of the Dyche Museum of Natural History, known today as the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, one of the most visited sites in the state to this day.

Moose section of the diorama prepared by Lewis Lindsay Dyche,
“World’s Fair Exhibit of North American Mammals,” 1893. KU was known as
Kansas State University early in its history. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 33/0: Museum of Natural History (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

The horse Comanche survived the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.
After his death, Lewis Lindsay Dyche taxidermied the horse for the 7th Calvary,
but Comanche stayed with the museum’s collections. The photo here shows
Dyche and his crew working on Comanche in 1891. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 33/0: Museum of Natural History (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Dyche became the State Fish and Game Warden in 1910. As his career progressed, he had become more and more a proponent for the preservation of endangered species and spoke out for the need of soil and water conservation. He wrote the legislation for the creation of laws to protect species and set hunting and fishing limitations. Today the Dyche Museum of Natural History stands as a testament to his life’s work and his dedication to education and conservation.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 25,400 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Marilyn Stokstad, KU distinguished professor emerita of art history, who died on March 4th at age eighty-seven. The KU community is remembering Dr. Stokstad for her remarkable career as well as the significant contributions she made to the university.

Marilyn Stokstad (center) at an exhibition opening at the
Spencer Museum of Art, 1962. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 34 1962 Prints: Museum of Art (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Marilyn Stokstad, 1979. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 41/ Faculty and Staff: Stokstad, Marilyn (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

I do not remember when I first met Marilyn Stokstad, but she remembered meeting me. When I interviewed for the position of head of Spencer Research Library, Marilyn recalled a conversation with me years before, where I apparently shared my frustrations with the challenges of graduate school and my fears for what the future held.

Since I returned to Kansas and met Marilyn for the second time, she has been such a presence, such a FORCE, that if I were honest with myself, I would have admitted I thought she might outlive me. I would come to realize that her memory was outstanding, but so was her passion, her scholarship, her enthusiasm, and her generosity.

The Stokstad Reading Room at Spencer Research Library represents not just her generosity, but her understanding that sometimes you have to change amazing things to keep them amazing. She understood the role of librarians and archivists in re-envisioning many of the third floor public spaces, and it’s comforting to know that her support was a vote of confidence in the work we do every day.

The University of Kansas has shared many tributes to the impact Marilyn had as a scholar, a colleague, and a benefactor; she was all those things. But along with that, Marilyn was also an inspiration, a hero, and a friend. We miss her already.

Marilyn Stokstad at the grand opening of the Stokstad Reading Room
at Spencer Research Library, November 2011. She is standing with
Lorraine haricombe, former Dean of KU Libraries, and
Kent Miller, Interim Co-Dean of KU Libraries.

Beth M. Whittaker
Assistant Dean for Distinctive Collections
Director of Spencer Research Library