Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Spencer Research Library’s Kansas Collection is home to the Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection, which documents a fascinating family of photographers and the images they took of the town and its residents. The studio was successful for seventy-five years, despite a tragic event that should have ended it.

James Boucher Shane. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

James B. Shane was born in Kentucky in 1840. In the early months of the Civil War he enlisted as a sergeant in the Union 16th Regiment, Kentucky Infantry. Shane served until July 1865 despite suffering serious injuries during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864: his hearing was significantly damaged by his close proximity to cannonade and he lost a leg after a rifle ball shattered his left knee.

After the war, Shane returned to Kentucky, intending to resume his legal studies. Quickly discovering that his severe hearing loss would put him at a serious disadvantage in the courtroom, he had to abandon law as a career. Having read many accounts of westward expansion, Shane left Kentucky and headed to Kansas in 1866. He eventually settled in and around what later became Dickinson County, living there for twelve years and at various times farming, teaching school, working for the railroad as a land agent, and holding various elected positions in local government.

James Shane’s railroad photography car. Shane-Thompson
Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 500.
Click image to enlarge.

In 1878 Shane moved his family to Lawrence, Kansas, to provide his ten children with access to better schools. The following year, Shane spent three weeks with a specialist in Chicago, receiving treatments for his worsening hearing loss. The doctor had several framed photographs of famous men displayed on his office walls, and this gave Shane the idea to have his picture taken. While visiting with the photographer, Shane took an interest in the work of photography and paid the photographer $50.00 for two weeks of lessons. By the end of this time, Shane was hooked. He gave the photographer $200.00 to purchase a photography “outfit” for him and then bought a railroad car for $100.00 to use as his gallery. He returned to Lawrence with a new profession, although unfortunately his hearing was no better.

Train depot in Lawrence, Kansas. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Salvation Army group. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Shane took his railroad car photo gallery around northeast Kansas and into Iowa. Eventually his wife wanted him stay closer to home, so he parked the car on Massachusetts Street in north Lawrence and bought a house on Louisiana Street. When his business outgrew the railroad car, Shane traded it for a gallery at 829 Massachusetts Street, where Brown’s Shoe Fit is today. It appears that business was quite good because within a few years Shane opened two other galleries in Lawrence, including one at 615 Massachusetts, which currently houses Quinton’s Bar and Deli. Shane also built a little processing shed made of corrugated iron next to the building at 1009 Massachusetts (now Louise’s Bar). He used this shop to re-touch and develop negatives.

 

Train wreck. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Lawrence, Kansas, police officer Sam Jeans.
Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Shane was working in his processing shed on the morning of February 25, 1902. He was taking a break and standing in the entrance of the shed when two local young men out on their lunch break walked by. They said something to Shane and he believed it to be taunting. He had lately been having quite a bit of trouble with local boys taunting and bullying him. In an attempt that Shane said was meant to scare these two, he raised the revolver he kept in his pants pocket and fired, believing he would shoot over their heads. His arm caught on the bar of the awning that covered the doorway, and the bullet hit Edgar Katherman in the back. The young man fell face forward onto the sidewalk, killed instantly, his hands still in his pockets. It is unknown if Katherman had been one of the boys picking on Shane.

Juno Belle Shane Thompson. Shane-Thompson
Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 500.
Click image to enlarge.

Two weeks after Shane’s arrest, his daughter Juno Belle returned to Lawrence from Virginia to operate the gallery. She was a photographer, too, and a graduate of the Illinois College of Photography. She had been employed in a studio in Virginia that, according to a write-up in the March 8, 1902, Daily World announcing her arrival back in Lawrence, was one of the leading studios in that state.

Herbert Thompson’s senior picture in the
KU Jayhawker yearbook, 1910. University Archives.
Call Number: LD 2697 .J3 1910. Click image to enlarge.

While her father was being held without bail, Juno Belle ran the studio alone. She continued to do so after he was convicted and sent to the Kansas State Penitentiary in Lansing. Herbert Thompson became her business partner after their marriage sometime around 1907, and she taught him all she knew about photography. Together they ran the studio until Herbert’s death in 1929, after which Juno Belle again ran the studio alone until her death in 1953.

In prison, Shane was a model prisoner and put in charge of the photography studio. He was sentenced to hang, but the punishment was never carried out. In late 1912, at the age of nearly 72, his health began to decline. His daughters Myrtle, Vara, Neva, and Ella successfully petitioned the governor for their father’s parole. Shane was eventually pardoned in August 1913. He lived in Abilene with his brother for several months before returning to Lawrence, where he lived in the Savoy Hotel. He died there on December 28, 1913.

Eldridge Hotel, Lawrence, Kansas. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Native American family. Shane-Thompson Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 500. Click image to enlarge.

Considering that Shane, Juno Belle, and Herbert Thompson operated a photography business in Lawrence for seventy-five years, and given the number of photographs and negatives in the current collection, it is believed that the Library does not have all of the photos ever taken by the studio. The collection contains photographs of Lawrence businesses, schools, events, activities, portraits and groups made by Capt. Shane, but the bulk of the collection consists of portrait photography by Juno Belle and Herbert between 1903 and 1923.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services

June 28, 2014 marked the unofficial 100 year anniversary of the beginning of World War I. On that day 100 years ago, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated. That tragic moment put into motion the dominoes that would fall one month later, resulting in a war that would last four years and forever change the course of history. As the world looks back on this event, I wanted to find what connections the University of Kansas had to the Great War. Simply put: there are a lot. For this entry, I will focus on the beginnings of KU’s involvement with the war. From the Student Army Training Corps (SATC)—a forerunner of the ROTC on campus—to the first American army officer killed, KU becomes forever linked with the Great War.

Overview of the SATC barracks that were constructed on campus. The barracks cost $180,000 and helped house the influx of 2,500 soldiers. University Archives, call number 0/22/89 1918. Click image to enlarge.

Group of SATC classes pose in front of Fowler Shops with the instructors in the center. Classes included carpentry, machinery, auto shop, blacksmith, telegraphy, and radio. University Archives, call number 29/0 1918.
Click image to enlarge.

The University of Kansas Graduate Magazine issues during 1917-1919 offer valuable insight about campus life before, during, and after the United States joined the war. One topic of contention was the SATC. Wanting to make itself fully available for the service of the country, while also still providing quality education to its students, the university administration struggled to produce a compromise. The result was a majority of War Department approved courses combined with a required course on “war aims” to understand the multitude of causes of the conflict. The photographs below are just a sampling of what these courses, including Red Cross classes for women, looked like on campus almost 100 years ago.

SATC Commander Scher talks with a group at McCook Field in 1918.
University Archives, call number 29/0 1918. Click image to enlarge.

SATC telegraph class members practice wigwagging (sending messages by moving two flags according to a code) on the University’s campus. University Archives, call number 29/0 1918. Click image to enlarge.

Of the 9 million war casualties, 129 were KU men and women. Of those 129, Dr. William T. Fitzsimmons was the first American army officer killed in the war. Fitzsimmons was born in Burlington, Kansas, graduated from the University of Kansas in 1910, and received his M.D. in 1912. A lieutenant in the Medical Reserve Corps, he was stationed in France at an allied hospital base. On the night of September 4, 1917, Fitzsimmons’ unit was bombed by airplanes. His death saddened and shocked the university community, bringing what seemed like a distant war immediately closer to home.

Portrait of William T. Fitzsimmons, the first KU (and American) officer to be killed in World War I.
University Archives, call number 0/22/54 1918. Click image to enlarge.

JoJo Palko
University Archives intern

 

 

If you’re interested in matters Polish and Russian or in travels in Slavic lands and in sights seen through western eyes AND if you can read this page from the manuscript diary of an Englishwoman traveling in the summer of 1828 (186 years ago!), then YOU may be the person to transcribe the contents of this little volume. You will get to know “Roberta” and “Mr. Sayer” (their real names), who were her companions on the trip. We can picture Ms. English Lady settling into the pension at night to write … Inside the front cover she begins, “The weight of the statue of Peter The Great …” You’ve seen the blurb; now read the book!

An English Lady: An anonymous manuscript travel-diary, a detailed account of the sights, costumes, social services, village and town life, war aftermath, travel mishaps in Russia and Poland. Warsaw-Smolensk-Moscow-Novgorod-St. Petersburg. 22 June to 21 July 1828. Call Number: MS B144. Click image to enlarge.

Sally Haines
Rare Books Cataloger

Adapted from her Spencer Research Library exhibit, Frosted Windows: 300 Years of St. Petersburg Through Western Eyes.

Screenshot of the top of a Spencer finding aid for the Pillsbury Family Papers. This will be
the example finding aid used throughout this blog post. The full document
is available on the Library’s website. Click image to enlarge.

Have you ever conducted research at an archives or special collections library, come across the term “finding aid,” and wondered, “what in the world does this mean?!” If so, you’re not alone. Finding aids are a standard tool for archival materials, but most people who aren’t archivists, special collections librarians, or experienced researchers are unfamiliar with the term. On the other hand, finding aids are the gateway to archival collections – for better or worse – so understanding what they are is an important component of conducting archival research.

So, what is a finding aid?

It’s a document, on paper and/or online, created by a repository’s staff members.

It generally contains the same information found in a catalog record (an overview of the collection) plus much more detailed information that the catalog record can’t accommodate.

It describes the materials in a specific collection.

It provides contextual information about the collection.

It’s an essential tool for library staff members and researchers. Without finding aids, a library would be full of collections but have nothing written down about them. Locating and understanding collections and materials within them would be immensely difficult, if not impossible.

Who creates finding aids and why?

When a repository like Spencer acquires an archival collection, a substantial amount of work is then required to prepare the materials for use by researchers. This effort, undertaken by library staff members, is called processing. It involves going through all of the materials in the collection; organizing or arranging them in a systematic way that will facilitate use; rehousing materials in acid-free enclosures, like boxes and folders; and administering basic preservation treatments and looking out for larger problems like mold or insect damage, which is harmful to materials and users. As they work, archivists make decisions and discoveries. They record this information; combine it with details gleaned from materials in the collection, provided by the donor, or acquired through additional research; and compile everything in one place, a finding aid.

How do finding aids help researchers?

The primary goal of a finding aid is to aid, or assist, researchers (including staff members) in finding the materials they need. Hopefully, information obtained from finding aids will minimize the amount of time researchers spend examining collections or parts of collections that are irrelevant to their work.

I sometimes think of a finding aid as a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Each section of the document reveals additional details about the collection, and after reading each section the researcher asks him/herself: given what I now know about this collection, do the materials it contains still seem relevant to my project? If the answer is yes, the researcher will either continue reading the finding aid or decide to begin examining the materials in the collection. If the answer is no, the researcher can abandon the finding aid and begin the process again with a new one.

Click image to enlarge.

Look, for example, at the Collection Summary section of the example finding aid above (for Spencer’s collection of Pillsbury Family papers). It provides information to answer these important questions: How much time do I need to allot to go through this collection – is there one box or one hundred? Are the materials in the collection written in a language I can read? Are these the types of materials I need – or, for example, does this collection contain only photographs when I need correspondence? Are the people who created these documents the people I’m researching, or are they related or an entirely different group? Do the materials in the collection fall within the date range I’m studying?

Click image to enlarge.

Subsequent sections of the finding aid more thoroughly answer these questions or address new ones. Perhaps most significant is the Collection Description. This section identifies the contents of specific boxes and/or folders and also indicates how materials are arranged (e.g. by format, date, author or recipient name). Having determined that the collection may be relevant to his/her project, the researcher can use the information in this section to ascertain how much of the collection s/he will need to go through and where specific documents (or groups of documents) are located.

What are the limitations of finding aids?

Depending on factors like the size of a collection, the type of materials it contains, and when it was processed, finding aids generally provide some information about significant people, places, events, and topics represented in the collection. However, without unlimited time to process, staff members are unable to create completely comprehensive finding aids that list all names and topics that occur within all documents in a collection. Most, in fact, are not included.

Think of how many letters about Christmas (and other topics) might be “hidden” in these boxes!
Click image to enlarge.

The result is that a finding aid search may turn up few or no results, not because a repository doesn’t have archival materials on that topic, but because that topic wasn’t specifically named in a finding aid. When this happens, try different search terms or approach your topic from another angle. For example, if you’re looking for information about how Christmas was celebrated in nineteenth-century America, and a search for “Christmas” turns up limited or unhelpful results, you might instead search for collections containing family correspondence from that time period. The larger task would then be to read letters sent and received in December and January of various years.

Finding aids are exceptionally useful, but they can also be tricky documents to navigate, even for experienced researchers. If you encounter any difficulties using Spencer’s finding aids, don’t hesitate to contact me (cdonnelly@ku.edu) or another staff member for assistance.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Staff and students from Conservation Services recently led a workshop for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Mini College program, in which individuals attend a week of lectures, classes, and events on the KU campus. This year we led a group of 21 eager students in our workshop, “Folded and Sewn.”

Clockwise from upper left: sewn pamphlet, stapled pamphlet, accordion book,
Venetian blind book. Click images to enlarge.

The students in this workshop made four simple structures that were created with folding and sewing–no adhesives required. We started with an accordion book, then made a Venetian blind structure that featured a picture of James Naismith on one side and the windows of Watson Library on the other. Next we moved to folded pamphlets: first a stapled one with text about caring for books, and finished with a sewn version featuring images of historic Jayhawks (courtesy of the University Archives).

Kyle Sederstom, Roberta Woodrick, and Whitney Baker, staff of Conservation Services, took turns leading the class. Step-by-step images were also projected on an overhead screen. In addition, we enlisted three conservation student assistants and our summer conservation intern to roam the room and help participants as needed.

Conservation Services staff and students who led the Mini College workshop.

The Mini College participants finished the structures in record time! We had provided two copies of each structure, so there was time for students to review and make a second book. Other students perused examples of pamphlets and accordion structures provided on a front table.

The workshop featured a leader for each bookbinding structure, as well as projected images of each step.

We had a wonderful time hosting this workshop and hope to offer it again in the future.

 

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services