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 9,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The Hilltop Child Development Center Halloween Parade
passing by Spooner Hall, 1987-1988. Photo by Robbin Loomas Kern.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 0/42 1987/1988 Prints
University General: Hilltop Daycare (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

La Sfera, a 15^th-century schoolbook, opens with basic concepts of cosmography and geography and ends with an itinerary of seaports of the southern Mediterranean and Black Seas. This manuscript poem in Italian is illustrated with astronomical and geographical diagrams, a drawing of the Tower of Babel, and miniature extracts from sea charts showing the coasts described.

Fig. 1. Diagrams showing celestial bodies and the division of the Earth into zones according to classical tradition appear near the beginning of La Sfera (ff.2v-3r). Special Collections, call number Pryce MS P4. Click image to enlarge.

Portolan charts, a type of sea chart that originated in the Mediterranean and was used in navigation from circa 1300 until the late 1600s, formed the model for the map illustrations in La Sfera.

Fig. 2. The portolan-style map illustrations exaggerate the shape of the seacoast and emphasize coastal place names and major cities (here Tripoli and Tunis), as well as giving approximate distances (f. 21v). Special Collections, call number Pryce MS P4. Click image to enlarge.

Some have attributed its authorship to Leonardo Dati (1362-1425), but, as a leader of the Dominican order, he was unlikely to have written a textbook in Italian. Boys destined for the law and Holy Orders were taught in Latin, while education for commercial careers took place in vernacular lay schools.

Figs. 3a-b. The text and place names are in Italian. The pen-and-ink drawings of mountains, water features, and the cities of Damascus and Jerusalem have been colored with watercolor washes (f. 22v). Left: overall view, right: detail of Jerusalem. Special Collections, call number Pryce MS P4. Click images to enlarge.

The confusion about authorship arose, because La Sfera’s author was Leonardo’s elder brother, Gregorio (Goro) Dati (1362-1435), a Florentine silk merchant whose 20 children (by a succession of four wives) doubtless provided the inspiration for writing La Sfera. The survival of more than 150 manuscript copies and several printed editions from the 15^th and 16^th centuries attests to La Sfera’s popularity. Goro Dati knew the Mediterranean Sea firsthand from trading voyages on merchant vessels, but he left La Sfera’s circuit of the Mediterranean coasts unfinished, perhaps because he died while writing it. In 1514 Giovanni Maria Tolosani completed and published the itinerary as a printed book.

La Sfera is written in ottava rima, a form of poetry employing stanzas of eight lines. It belongs to an Italian tradition of vernacular geographical poetry, known as geografie metriche. A later example was Francesco Berlingieri’s publication in 1482 of Geographia of the ancient Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy, re-written in Italian verse. Also dating from the 1480s were Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti (Zamberti)’s sonnets in Venetian dialect about the Greek islands. The ease of memorizing poetry may account for its use in textbooks published elsewhere in 16^th-century Europe, such as the 2^nd edition Johannes Honter’s Rudimenta Cosmographia published in Latin verse in Kronstadt (now Brasnow, Romania). Based on its script and paper watermarks, Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s manuscript copy dates from circa 1450. As well as annotations, the dirty outer leaves, stains left by spilled liquid, and the remains of a snakeskin used as a bookmark attest to its use.

Figs. 4a-b. The leaves in this opening have added marginal notes and a passage marked by a pointing finger (ff. 10v-11r). Left: overall view, right: detail of pointing finger. Special Collections, call number Pryce MS P4. Click images to enlarge.

This manuscript was probably used first as a textbook, without a cover, and later bound in a codex with other texts, from which it had been separated before its acquisition in 1966.

Karen Severud Cook
Special Collections Librarian

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 8,200 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

This week’s images are among the earliest we have of the KU campus, showing the new university within its first two years. The stereoviews were taken by renowned Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner in 1867 and 1868 for his series Across the Continent on the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division. Gardner’s 194th birthday is this Saturday, October 17th. These photographs form part of the George Allen Photograph Collection in Spencer’s Kansas Collection.

“State University, Lawrence, Kansas,” 1867-1868. Shown is North College,
the first building at KU and its only structure until 1872. Located on forty acres
donated by former Kansas governor Charles Robinson and his wife Sara,
the site was located where Corbin and Gertrude Sellards Pearson Halls currently stand.
Alexander Gardner, Across the Continent on the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division.
George Allen Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 137. Click image to enlarge.

“Lawrence, Kansas from Fort. State University, on the Left,” 1867-1868.
Alexander Gardner, Across the Continent on the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division.
George Allen Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 137. Click image to enlarge.

Front and back of the stereoview card, “Lawrence, Kansas, from
Mount Oriad [sic], Kansas,” 1867-1868. Alexander Gardner,
Across the Continent on the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division.
George Allen Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 137. Click image to enlarge.

Author John Charlton provides some context for these images in his article “Westward, The Course of Empire Takes Its Way” (Kansas History, Summer 1997).

[Gardner’s] series of stereographic images begins at the Union Pacific Railway, ED, company offices and depot in St. Louis, Missouri, and follows the railroad’s construction progress westward between Kansas City, Missouri, to just past Fort Hays, on the High Plains…

Gardner’s photographs in Kansas, and his photographs along the survey for the railway company’s planned future route, were made in the late summer of 1867 through the winter of 1868 between St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, California. He was commissioned by Union Pacific officials to make this photographic series to illustrate the company’s report of its survey of a southern railroad route across the continent with the goal of gaining congressional approval of federal funding for construction. The Union Pacific Railway, ED, line was in close competition with the Omaha-based Union Pacific Railroad to build the first transcontinental railroad (118).

You can further explore KU’s early years by visiting Spencer’s current exhibit, “Achievement of a Dream: The Birth of the University of Kansas.”

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

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

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 6,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We’re excited that Homecoming is right around the corner, so this week’s photograph shows 1938 Homecoming Queen Dorothy “Denny” Lemoine (center) and her court, Helen Johnson (left) and Elizabeth Kemp (right). Lemoine was chosen by the football team.

The KU Homecoming Queen and her attendants with campus officials on the field at
Memorial Stadium, November 1938. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/1 1938 Prints: Student Activities: Homecoming (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

According to an article on the KU History website, the first Homecoming Queen was crowned at KU in 1925. The “ceremony did not become a tradition until 1933. A new queen was crowned each year until 1969, when anti-war demonstrations and stormy race relations led to the committee’s decision that it was ‘more appropriate to recognize those who embody the academic spirit for which this community was established.'”

From left to right in the photograph are:

• Colonel Karl F. Baldwin: A career Army officer, Baldwin (1885-1967) was a Professor of Military Science and Tactics and the ROTC commandant at KU from 1936 to 1941. Born in Iowa, Baldwin spent part of his childhood in Kansas. He received a B.S. in civil engineering (1908) and an M.A. (1918) from Norwich University, then The Military College of the State of Vermont.

• Chancellor Ernest H. Lindley: A native of Indiana, Lindley received his B.A. (1893) and M.A. (1894) degrees in psychology from Indiana University before obtaining his Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University in 1897. He spent over twenty years as professor of psychology and philosophy at Indiana before becoming the president of the University of Idaho in 1917. Lindley (1869-1940) served as the Chancellor of KU from 1920 to 1939.

• Attendant Helen Virginia Johnson: Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri, Helen graduated from KU in 1941 with a major in English. While at the university she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and the Young Women’s Christian Association (Y.W.C.A.). She also served on the Women’s Student Government Association (W.S.G.A.) and was the Vice President of her junior class. Helen was also a Kansas Relay Queen and a Jayhawker Queen.

• Homecoming Queen Dorothy Deneise Lemoine: Dorothy graduated from KU in 1940 with a degree from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Also from Kansas City, Missouri, she was an intramural manager and a Hobo Queen, plus a member of Pi Beta Phi, Sociology Club, the Women’s Athletic Association (W.A.A.), and French Club. She became engaged to star KU halfback Dick Amerine about a month after this photo was taken.

• Attendant Elizabeth Ellinor Kemp: A member of the Class of 1939, Elizabeth majored in Spanish. The Kansas City, Missouri, native was also a member of Spanish Club and Alpha Delta Pi.

• Ralph T. O’Neil, Chairman of the Kansas Board of Regents: O’Neil (1888-1940) was born in Osage City, Kansas. He obtained an A.B. from Baker (1909) and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard (1913). A World War I veteran, O’Neil was a long-time attorney in Topeka who also served as the national commander of the American Legion (1930-1931) and the president of the Kansas Bar Association (1939-1940).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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