Kenneth Spencer Research Library

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 27,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

It’s prom season, so this week’s post highlights a KU tradition that lasted from 1924 through 1941: the women-only, no-men-allowed Puff Pant Prom. Female students attended the dance as couples, dressed as a “Puff” (wearing fancy evening dresses) or “Pant” (donning formal men’s wear). By 1936 the Lawrence Journal-World described the event as “an affair of no small importance in the life of the coed at the University of Kansas.” The dance was ultimately a casualty of World War II; one was scheduled in 1942, but it was canceled because women students were busy with war work and didn’t have time to prepare for the event. The tradition was revived for a few years in the late 1990s.

Preliminary research indicates that KU was not the only school to hold a Puff Pant Prom in the 1920s and 1930s; for example, for a time it was also an annual event at the College of Emporia.

The description on the back of this photograph states “1926-27 girls dressed as men
ready to go to the Puff-Pant-Prom.” University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/26 1926 Prints:
Student Activities: Puff Pant Prom (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Helen Walker of McCune, Kansas, went to the Puff Pant Prom as
actor and 1920s sex symbol Rudolph Valentino and
won a prize for best “male” of the evening, 1926. Photograph by Duke D’Ambra.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/26 1926 Prints:
Student Activities: Puff Pant Prom (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Photographs of the Puff Pant Prom in the Jayhawker yearbook, 1927.
University Archives. Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1927.
Click image to enlarge.

Photographs of the Puff Pant Prom in the Jayhawker yearbook, 1928.
University Archives. Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1928.
Click image to enlarge.

The University Daily Kansan announced the first Puff-Pant Prom on March 3, 1924, with the front-page headline “Women Date Women and Do Your Stuff!”

Lady sheiks, notice! It’s time to ask that heavy love of yours to give you her time on the night of March 14, from 9 until 12. Why? Because that is the date and the hour of the puff-pant prom, a dance to be put on under the auspices of the Women’s Athletic Association for the women students of the University. Half of the women will dress as men, that is, if the men on the Hill will be kind enough to lend their wardrobe for the occasion, and the sheiks at the party must see to it that their ladies are in party dress. The puff-pant prom is to be a program affair. The only males allowed will be those in the men’s orchestra which will play for the dance, but the party will be chaperoned, to maintain order among the gay cake-eaters. The program committee has announced that there will be circle dances, Paul Jones dances, Dutch dances, clogging and stunts. Those working on the program committee are Elizabeth Bolinger, Gladys Snyder, Dorothy Barter, and Davida Olinger. Tickets for the party will go on sale this week. The price will be 75 cents a couple, and 50 cents for stags.

The Kansan also reported on the event after fact, in an article than ran on March 16. The headline noted that a “fashion show and dances furnish[ed] entertainment during intermission.”

“I am heartily in favor of making the Puff Pant Prom an annual affair,” said Dean Agnes Husband in speaking of the women’s dance given at Robinson gymnasium Friday night. “I think it was a great success and that everyone enjoyed herself. These women’s parties are a splendid means of getting acquainted.” About 150 couples, and 15 “men” and women stags, attended the dance. A grand march…started the first women’s varsity dance ever given at the University. The men of the Hill must have been generous in lending their clothes, for good looking tuxedos, tall silk hats, derbies and Sunday ties, were very much in prominence. The women of the party dressed as though they were attending the best Varsity dances given at F. A. U. hall…The four piece orchestra displayed as much pep as the hearty hand clapping and applause from the “men” guests could instill…The only lucky men at the prom were the musicians, two men who sold refreshments, and the four who came to the dance dressed as women. These last guests were not permitted to stay.

Each subsequent Puff Pant Prom followed a similar structure, although it was eventually relocated to the Union and moved from springtime to autumn.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

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 27,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

So far it’s been a cloudy, rainy week in Lawrence, but hopefully we’ll soon see the return of sunny, warm weather that’s perfect for studying outside.

Student reading in the grass in front of Wescoe Hall, 1981. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Wescoe Beach 1981 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

Charlotte Brontë was born on April 21, 1816 in Thornton, England to the Reverend Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell Brontë. Charlotte’s life was marked by tragedy, losing her mother when she was five, the aunt that raised her, and all five of her siblings. Yet despite these sorrows, she was able to use the experiences from her life to become one of the greatest writers of the Victorian era. Her passionate, honest, and rebellious stories continue to inspire authors and readers alike.

Front cover of the Thompson Brother’s Fireside Library edition of Jane Eyre: an Autobiography
with an illustration of Charlotte Brontë, [Nov. 1891?]. Special Collections, Spencer Research Library.
Call Number: O’Hegarty C2307. Click image to enlarge.

Jane Eyre, her most popular work, has bewitched audiences for more than 150 years with its poignant tale of an orphan girl who became a governess and dared to overcome societal constraints by finding true love and gaining financial independence. Although the story in itself is exciting, one of the main reasons for Jane Eyre’s continued popularity is the perfect blend of romance with realism. By pulling from her own life, Charlotte Brontë infuses her novel with verisimilitude. When Jane grieves over the death of Helen Burns, rages against the stifling life of a governess, and despairs over the impossibility of her love, Charlotte is letting us into her personal thoughts, emotions, and experiences. The images I have selected from one of our editions of Jane Eyre highlight these fictionalized autobiographical moments.

Lithograph by Ethel Gabain from Imprimerie Nationale’s 1923 edition of Jane Eyre.
This illustration depicts Jane Eyre at the puritanical Lowood School visiting her dying friend, Helen Burns.
As a child Charlotte lost two sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, to pulmonary tuberculosis due to the terrible conditions
at the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Lowood was modeled off of the Clergy Daughters’ School
and the character of Helen Burns was inspired by her oldest sister, Maria, who had been like a mother to Charlotte.
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Number: G64. Click image to enlarge.

Lithograph by Ethel Gabain from Imprimerie Nationale’s 1923 edition of Jane Eyre.
This illustration depicts Jane, as a governess, sitting ignored by her employer, Mr. Rochester,
and his upper class visitors. Charlotte Brontë served as a governess for a school and for private families
and found it degrading, as she explains in this quote from her letters cited in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
“I see now more clearly than I have ever done before that a private governess has no existence,
is not considered as a living and rational being except as connected with the wearisome duties she has to fulfill.”
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Number: G64. Click image to enlarge.

Lithograph by Ethel Gabain from Imprimerie Nationale’s 1923 edition of Jane Eyre.
This illustration depicts Jane weeping over her wedding dress after discovering that her groom, Mr. Rochester,
was already married. While teaching in Brussels, Charlotte fell in love with her French tutor, Constantin Heger,
a married man, but her love was not returned. She sent many letters to him with no response,
sending her into depression that would often manifest itself in headaches.
Special Collections, Spencer Research Library. Call Number: G64. Click image to enlarge.

If you’re interested in learning more about Charlotte Brontë or her other works, come visit us at Spencer Research library and check out these resources:

• Brontë, Charlotte. Napoleon and the Spectre: a Ghost Story. London: C. Shorter, 1919. Call Number: D916
• Brontë, Charlotte. The Professor: to Which are Added the Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, Now First Collected. London : Smith, Elder and Co., 1860. Call Number: Yeats Y290. [William Butler Yeats personal copy].
• Brontë, Charlotte. Shirley: a Tale. London : Smith, Elder and Co., 65, Cornhill, 1849. Call Number: C217. [First Edition].
• Brontë, Anne, Brontë, Charlotte, and Brontë, Emily. Poems. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1846 [i.e. 1848]. Call Number: B2118. [Fist Edition, Second Issue].
• Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder, 1857. Call Number: C4771.

Mindy Babarskis
Library Assistant
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 27,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

If you’ve seen the recent proliferation of dandelions on Mount Oread, you might think KU needs to bring back a short-lived springtime event from the 1940s: Dandelion Days.

Several people pulling dandelions on the lawn in front of Old Fraser Hall, 1940s.
Seen in the photo are Dyche Hall and, beyond, the Union. Kansas Alumni photo.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/3 1940s Prints: Student Activities:
Dandelion Days (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Pulling dandelions in front of Strong Hall, 1940s. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/3 1940s Negatives: Student Activities: Dandelion Days (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Pulling dandelions in a grove of trees, 1940s. Green Hall (now Lippincott) is
seen in the background. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/3 1940s Negatives:
Student Activities: Dandelion Days (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

An article in Kansas Alumni (1999, volume 97, number 3) describes what Dandelion Days were all about:

The University’s first Dandelion Day took place April 23, 1941, amid the hype of reporters and photographers, students and University dignitaries. The mission? Eradicating the pernicious yellow pests that littered the Hill and kept Buildings and Grounds workers fighting a losing battle for green grass. In all, 3,400 students and faculty, including Chancellor Deane Malott and his wife, Eleanor, turned out to battle the baneful blossoms, collecting 93,000 pounds of dandelion debris in a mere three hours. The Lawrence Journal-World reported that “it was a total war against the yellow flower with a hey-nonny-nonny and a rah-rah-rah.”

Despite the roaring success of the first Dandelion Day, which was sponsored by the Men’s Student Council and featured picking teams, carnival concessions and a street dance, the day’s durability was doomed. Within months, Pearl Harbor was attacked and World War II enveloped KU. In 1946, Dandelion Day was resurrected, complete with a Dandelion King and Queen and photographers from Life and Look magazines on hand to capture the merry moments of postwar college life. However, the return of the fight against the yellow flowers was short-lived. The next years were ruined by bad weather and, by 1949, the erstwhile diggers had so thoroughly eliminated the difficult dandelions that the day was declared defunct (60).

Check out more Dandelion Days photographs online.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

A true account and declaration of the horrid conspiracy against the late king, His present Majesty, and the government: as it was order’d to be published by His late Majesty – Thomas Sprat’s official account of the failed 1683 Rye House Plot to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and successor) James, Duke of York – is no doubt a fascinating and dramatic tale of intrigue. As a conservator, however, I’m interested in the stories that Spencer Research Library’s three different first-edition copies of this title tell through their physical condition and bindings.

Two of the three copies recently crossed my bench in need of treatment, and when I looked up their catalog record I noticed that there was a third copy at Spencer, so I pulled that one from the stacks in order to examine them one next to the other. It was so much fun to compare the three volumes and to imagine how they’d begun their lives all together in the same place – Thomas Newcomb’s print shop – before being sold and going out into the world on their various journeys, only to arrive back together again in our stacks over three hundred years later, each bearing the distinct marks of its own life of use. I’ll refer to them as Copy 1 (E242), Copy 2 (E242a) and Copy 3 (E3324). Let’s do some wild comparatively tame speculation about the life stories of these books.

Spencer Research Library’s three copies of the True account of the horrid conspiracy: E242 (left), E242a (center), and E3324 (right). Click image to enlarge.

View of the spines of the three volumes: E242 (top), E242a (middle), and E3324 (bottom). Click image to enlarge.

According to the practice common at the time, it is likely that all three of these copies left the printer, and maybe even the bookseller, in an unbound or partially-bound state, or possibly in temporary bindings; the buyer would then take the book to a bindery to be properly bound in his preferred style. Of Spencer’s three copies, only Copy 2 is in a binding roughly contemporary to the time of the book’s printing, though it’s hard to say if it truly is its original binding. It is a full leather binding with minimal decoration – a single tooled line along the edges of the boards – and it has obviously been heavily used; there is a good deal of general wear and tear to the text block and leather, and the front board was detached, held in place with gummed cloth tape. On the inside, the absence of pastedowns allows us to see the irregular turn-ins, the texture of the board, and the laced-in cords that all indicate the binding’s age.

Front board and front inside cover of E242a after treatment. Click image to enlarge.

The historic repair on this volume is cringe-inducing, in the way that all tape is offensive to conservators, but I admit to finding it somewhat charming as well, with its hand-scrawled title and date. This volume also had gummed cloth tape along the inner hinge; that tape was removed because it was causing damage to the paper, but the tape across the spine was left in place primarily because of the character that this oddly appealing feature lends to the volume. In addition to removing the tape from the inside of the book, I reattached the front board, reinforced the back board, and surface cleaned the text block where it was needed.

Handwritten labels on gummed cloth tape on the spine of E242a. Click image to enlarge.

Copies 1 and 3, having been rebound, may lack some of the old-book charm displayed by their edition-mate, but their bindings still tell (or at least suggest) something about the lives they have lived. We can only guess as to exactly when these volumes were rebound; my guess would be that Copy 1’s current binding is from the late 19^th or early 20^th century, while Copy 3 was bound somewhere in the first half of the 20^th century (and I welcome thoughts and comments to corroborate or refute these estimates!).

When Copy 1 arrived in the lab for treatment, its paper spine was torn in several places and the case, which had been attached to the text block by just the flyleaves along a narrow strip down each shoulder, was nearly detached. The title page was torn and the text block was quite dirty, showing a great deal more wear than its newer case. This binding provides some measure of protection for what was seemingly a much-used volume, but the binder didn’t take extra steps to clean or mend the text block; this is a very utilitarian case binding. As part of its treatment, I mended the case, reinforced the case attachment to the text block, surface cleaned the most soiled parts of the volume (text block edges and the first and last several pages), and mended the tears with Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste.

Front cover and front inside cover of E242 after treatment. Click image to enlarge.

Copy 3, by contrast to the other two, is in very good condition; its text block is significantly cleaner and its binding is sound, probably the work of a commercial bindery or workshop. While any traces of a historic binding are lost, the information contained in the volume has been preserved, which some would argue is ultimately the most important thing. Still others might assert that its current binding can still tell us a lot about what readers, institutions, and book collectors value in the books they use/collect and how those values inform decisions such as how and whether to rebind a volume. Copy 3 does not appear to have been nearly as well-used as its mates, or perhaps it is just that it was not as ill-used – the good condition of its text block may be a sign that its owner(s) simply took very good care of it. Its modern library-style binding is not especially attractive, but it does its job well: it protects the text block and doesn’t cause it any harm.

Front cover, dedication, and title page of E3324. Click image to enlarge.

I have focused so far primarily on the bindings of these volumes, but before I conclude I want to point out an interesting printing detail on the title pages. Here are the three title pages side by side:

Title pages of True account of the horrid conspiracy: E242 (left), E242a (center), and E3324 (right). Click image to enlarge.

If you look closely, you can see that there’s a printing error on the large comma following the word “KING,” except on the title page of Copy 2, in the middle. Here’s a closer look (click image to enlarge):

At some time in the past, Copy 2’s title page sustained a small loss at the fore-edge, including part of the comma and the double border lines, and someone had filled the loss by lining the entire page with a piece of plain paper. This person (or perhaps some other, later person?) then drew in the missing lines and filled out the comma with ink. Was this the same person who applied the tape and handwritten labels on the spine of Copy 2? We shall never know, but it certainly is fun to wonder.

Angela Andres
Special Collections Conservator
Conservation Services