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 5,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Good luck to all Jayhawks on their final projects and exams!

The student reading room in Old Fraser Hall, 1886. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 32/0 1886 Negatives: University of Kansas Libraries (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

Students studying in Spooner Library, 1895. You can still see –
and sit at – some of those tables in Spencer’s North Gallery!
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/0 1895 Prints:
University of Kansas Libraries (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

Studying at Watson Library, 1939. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 32/0 1939 Negatives: University of Kansas Libraries (Photos).
Click image to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

By 1969 American society was increasingly uncivil and the University of Kansas was facing a crisis. The struggle for civil rights and racial equality continued, but was joined by a radicalized white youth. They did not believe that American involvement in the Vietnam War was justifiable and had no interest in being drafted. Tension would remain high throughout the year, culminating in the so-called “Days of Rage” that included racial conflicts, student protests, bomb threats, arson, and sniper fire. This second and final part in a series about two of the most tumultuous years for the University outlines the events from May 1969 to May 1970.

May 9, 1969: Protest Cancels ROTC Review

The annual Chancellor’s ROTC Review was cancelled when 200 protesters broke down the gate into Memorial Stadium. They began by reading the names of the 33,379 servicemen and women killed in Vietnam to date and then joined together on the field and started a sit-in, chanting and waving signs against the ROTC. Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe decided the review could not be accomplished in such circumstances and wanted to avoid violence from the agitated crowd. The protest was organized by KU Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Afterward, 33 of 71 identified protestors were suspended for one semester by KU in confidential hearings. The event left Wescoe visibly drained and worried about what lay ahead; his fears would not be unfounded.

The group of protestors rallies in front of Strong Hall before their disruption
of the ROTC Review, May 1969. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1969: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Protestors during the ROTC Review at Memorial Stadium, May 9, 1969.
ROTC members stand on the track in the background. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1969: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

October 15, 1969: National Vietnam Moratorium Day

More than 3,500 KU students, faculty, and locals paraded on Memorial Drive and Jayhawk Boulevard in protest of the Vietnam War. Later, about 150 people gathered in front of Strong Hall in a silent vigil held behind rows of white crosses. The day also included four KU professors making their case against the war inside Hoch Auditorium, attended by 3,000 students. Similar rallies and gatherings were happening all over the country, pressuring President Nixon to change policy in the Vietnam War.

Protestors lined up behind white crosses on the lawn of Strong Hall on
National Vietnam Moratorium Day, October 15, 1969. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1969: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click images to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Two men silently protesting on campus,
National Vietnam Moratorium Day, October 15, 1969.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/18 1969:
Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

February 23, 1970: University Daily Kansan dumped into Potter Lake

In retaliation for the University printers’ decision to no longer print the Black Student Union’s (BSU) Harambee, the group gathered 6,000 copies of the UDK and tossed them into Potter Lake on campus. Harambee celebrated black culture and encouraged black solidarity. It ran information for a scholarship program established by BSU but also included Black Power Movement ideology, like the need for oppressed people to arm themselves to achieve freedom. The reaction from some white groups deemed the material obscene and inflammatory, leading to the printers’ decision to discontinue its service.

Black Student Union Protest, men pulling copies of the University Daily Kansan
out of Potter Pond, February 23, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1970: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

February 26, 1970: Black Student Union Protest

The BSU presented a list of demands calling for more black faculty members and students and the creation of a black studies program. The timetable for the demands was deemed unrealistic by Chancellor Chalmers, but an African Studies program would be created later in the year.

April 20, 1970: Arson Fire at Memorial Union

The culminating act in a day of mayhem and a week of civil disorder on the KU campus, a period often referred to as the “Days of Rage,” was the April 20, 1970, fire at the Kansas Union. Eventually deemed arson, the fire caused nearly a million dollars in damage and took place against the backdrop of a nation in turmoil over the Vietnam War and racial unrest in a college town considered a “hot bed” of political activism and protest.

Memorial Union fire, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/54/f 1970: Campus Buildings: Memorial Union (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Memorial Union fire, exterior damage, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/54/f 1970: Campus Buildings: Memorial Union (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Memorial Union fire, interior damage, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/54/i 1970: Campus Buildings: Memorial Union (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

May 5-8, 1970

The month of May witnessed the greatest display of campus dissent and disorder. As the end of the 1970 school year approached, KU protesters urged fellow students to go on strike. After the US invasion of Cambodia and four student deaths at Kent State, the campus was on high alert.

May 5: A coffin-bearing crowd of 500 marches against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State massacre.

May 6: ROTC Review was cancelled for the second straight year as a crowd of 1,000 rallies against the group on campus. About 200 re-grouped and damaged the Military Science Building on campus.

Military Science Building, damage from student protests, May 7, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1970: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

May 8: Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers held an Alternative Convocation attended by 12,000 and allowed students to choose between finishing the semester in classes or completing the semester early and taking part in some political activity of their choice. Antiwar activists were upset the University did not take an official stand against the war and close down. Conservative politicians, regents, and alumni thought the Chancellor caved in to student radicals.

Chancellor Chalmers with students at Memorial Stadium for the
Alternative Convocation, May 8, 1970. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/18 1970: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Day of Alternatives, Chancellor Chalmers addressing students at Memorial Stadium, May 8, 1970.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/18 1970: Student Activities: Student Protests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

JoJo Palko
University Archives Intern

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 5,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Since ancient times, the first day of May (May Day) has been marked in the northern hemisphere with spring festivals and celebrations. However, if you were a male underclassman at KU between 1891 and 1904, chances are you would have marked the day by participating in a large public brawl – the May Day or Maypole Scrap – with your fellow classmates.

Group gathered for the May Day Scrap, 1903.
Old Fraser Hall is seen on the right, with Old Blake in the background on the left.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/10 1903: Student Activities: May Day (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

The last May Day Scrap, 1904. Note the maypole in the background.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/10 1904: Student Activities: May Day (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Students – some seated and bound – at the May Day Scrap, 1904. Taking prisoners was a
feature of the event: “captives were tied and bound with whatever materials happened to be at hand:
rope, wire, even chains. Sometimes the prisoners were thrown into a hedge or rolled down a hill;
once they were even padlocked in a room in a Lawrence house.”
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/10 1904: Student Activities: May Day (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Spectators at the May Day Scrap, 1904. Although female students generally
kept to the sidelines during the skirmish, they also sometimes
aided their classmates. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/10 1904: Student Activities: May Day (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Scholar Henry J. Fortunato from KU’s Department of History describes the event this way in his article “Mayday Mayhem”:

In its early days, the Maypole Scrap regularly pitted alliances of sophomores and seniors or law students against a force of juniors and freshmen. Over time as it evolved into a KU tradition, the fighting was usually limited to freshmen and sophomores.

Typically, preparations for a confrontation began shortly after midnight on May 1 when a group of freshmen would assemble in the vicinity of present-day Fraser Hall and erect a tall maypole flying their class flag. They anchored the pole securely and often coated it with concoctions that might include such ingredients as tar, turpentine, lamp black, molasses, axle grease and barbed wire.

By morning, a mob of freshmen milling around the pole would taunt all passersby – students as well as professors – into tipping their hats as a sign of respect. Those who refused had to outrun their tormentors. If captured, these recalcitrant individuals were threatened with having their faces pressed into the grimy mixture on the maypole unless they made the appropriate obeisance. It was an offer that most chose not to refuse.

The real action began when the sophomores launched their attack. Their goal was to scatter the defending freshmen and pull down the maypole, generally within a set period of time. The resulting fray was usually a matter of pushing, shoving, tackling, and charging, but over the years, sophomore classes experimented with other more novel tactics.

More pictures of the May Day Scrap are available via Spencer’s digital collections.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

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

We are moving into high tornado season here in the Great Plains (typically April through June). In the spirit of the season, today we feature images from the Kansas Collection of tornado damage to unlucky Kansas towns.

On April 21, 1887, the town of Prescott, Kansas (Linn County) suffered complete destruction. According a newspaper report from the time, “every house was either carried away or ruined” in this settlement of one-thousand residents. Hailstones “as large as hen’s eggs” preceded the tornado. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper featured front-page illustrations of the damage caused to an underground dugout.

Image from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper of May 7, 1887, depicting a spike entering through the roof of a dugout during a tornado on April 21, 1887. Kansas Collection, call number RH H102. Click image to enlarge.

 

On May 2, 1898, a cyclone hit Wellington, Kansas (Sumner County) and caused widespread damage. Here is a view of the toppled Lutheran Church, taken the day after the tornado struck.

Photograph of the Lutheran Church, Wellington, KS, in 1898. Kansas Collection, call number RH PH P2356.3.
Image from Kansas Collection Photographs LUNA site. Click image to enlarge.

 

A tornado hit the W.O. Tanner home in Mullinville, Kansas (Kiowa County) on June 11, 1915, leaving it damaged but standing. The A.W. Kline family was not as fortunate, suffering complete destruction of their home. Writing on the back of the photo below, representing these two family homes, indicates that “mules and cattle [were] carried two miles” in this storm.

Two images from Mullinville, Kansas showing tornado damage in 1915. Above: W. O Tanner home. Below: A. W. Kline home. Kansas Collection, call number RH PH P1625.1. Image from Kansas Collection Photographs LUNA site. Click image to enlarge.

 

If you live in tornado country you will have heard many tales of selective and odd damage left by a tornado, with complete destruction next to a perfect area of order. A tornado that hit Andale, Kansas (Sedgwick County) in 1918 provided such an example of unusual cyclone damage: the wind ran spikes of wood through tree trunks as seen in the image below.

Spikes through tree trunks, 1918. Kansas Collection, call number RH PH P2767.
Image from Kansas Collection Photographs LUNA site. Click image to enlarge.

 

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

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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 5,000 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Celebrate Arbor Day tomorrow by enjoying this week’s images of some lovely trees in Marvin Grove.

Marvin Grove (Lovers Lane), 1920s. Note the corner of the football stadium in the background.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Marvin Grove 1920s Prints: Campus:
Areas and Objects (Photos). Click on image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Marvin Grove, 1940s. KU News Bureau. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Marvin Grove 1940s Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Marvin Grove, 1977. Photo by Rob Johnson. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Marvin Grove 1977 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (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