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Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog

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Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.

“Snap Shots of My University Life”: The Student Scrapbook of Nola Ayers 

March 7th, 2025
This image has text.
Nola Ayers’s senior picture and a description of her KU life in the 1909 Jayhawker yearbook. University Archives. Call Number: LD 2697 .J3. Click image to enlarge.

Nola Mary Ayers was born in Horton, Kansas, in 1886. She arrived in Lawrence in the fall of 1905 to enter the University of Kansas and graduated from KU with a bachelor’s degree in 1909. Nola documented her college years by creating a scrapbook, as did many other university students at the time. 

Typically, students purchased a large scrapbook from one of the bookstores near the university. Nola broke with tradition by using a blank “Specimens” science notebook to paste in mementos of her life at KU. 

Red book cover with the word "Specimens" in black text.
The front cover of Nola Ayers’s scrapbook, 1905-1909. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.

Nola’s scrapbook was also unique because she was an artist and decorated her album with original pen and ink drawings. One of the first drawings in the scrapbook is a self-portrait where she describes herself as a “poor home sick freshman” whose “college home for the year 1905-06 was 1305 Vermont St. Lawrence, Kansas with Mother Dow to call us eight girls down.” This house on Vermont is still standing in the Oread neighborhood. In the years before dormitories, many students lived in boarding houses near campus; many of these large multi-story houses still exist. 

This image has text accompanied by a black-and-white sketch of a woman sitting at a desk. There is also a photograph of Spooner Library.
Nola Ayers’s scrapbook entry about being “a poor home-sick freshman,” 1905. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.

Nola documented her studies in her scrapbook. As seen in the image below, she took “Hygiene” and “Gymnasium” during her freshman year – courses that all KU students in the early twentieth century were required to enroll in. Nola also studied rhetoric, German, geology, solid geometry, and botany. Her scrapbook reflects her love of drawing, and her coursework included drawing, ornament design, and Greek art. 

List of classes taken by Nola Mary Ayers in the fall and spring terms of her freshman year. There is a black-and-white sketch of a man reading and writing.
Nola Ayers’s freshman-year courses listed in her student scrapbook, circa 1906. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.

Besides coursework, friendships with other students are well represented in the pages of Nola’s scrapbook. She documented slumber parties with other girls, popcorn making, a Halloween party where she dressed as the “Western Girl,” and events at her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma. Nola celebrated Valentine’s Day with a party and red hearts pasted into her scrapbook. 

Two black-and-white photos attached to a larger piece of off-white paper. One shows a group of girls making and eating popcorn. The other shows a group of girls laying on a bed "in Maude's room."
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Two-page scrapbook page. On the left is a dance card and a black-and-white sketch of a girl in an evening gown. On the right are two black-and-white photos: a group at a Halloween party and Nola Mary Ayers dressed as "the Western Girl."
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Two-page scrapbook page with Valentine's notes and red paper hearts.
Selected pages from Nola Ayers’s scrapbook showing her hanging out and celebrating holidays with friends, 1905-1909. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click images to enlarge.

As evidenced by her scrapbook, Nola partook many of the outdoor activities KU students enjoyed in the early twentieth century: walking, boating on the Kaw River, picnicking in the countryside, and attending sporting events. According to the 1908 Jayhawker yearbook, Nola was an “authority on baseball” and an “enthusiastic fan.” Indeed, she pasted photos of the KU baseball team into her scrapbook. Nola also included items related to the KU debate team. Debate was almost as popular as athletic sports during the early twentieth century, and students would travel to other cities like Topeka to support the KU team. 

Two-page scrapbook page with photographs of students enjoying "lunch in the woods" and "a Saturday's stroll." There are also two items from KU debate team events.
A two-page spread in Nola Ayers’s scrapbook, circa 1906. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.

According to a newspaper article, Nola was crowned Queen of the May at the second annual May Fete in 1909. She was a member of Allemania (German Club) and attended their events. She appeared to have attended many dances, plays, and concerts while a student, as documented by the many programs decorating her scrapbook. Plays and concerts were held on campus and in downtown Lawrence at the Bowersock Opera House. 

Two-page scrapbook page with invitations, dance cards, photographs, and a dance program.
A page of invitations and dance cards in Nola Ayers’s KU student scrapbook, circa 1907-1908. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.
Scrapbook page with two black-and-white photographs: the Kappa Kappa Gamma House at the University of Colorado, and a group of women in graduation caps and gowns.
The bottom photo on this page might show Nola Ayers with her housemates, circa 1909. During her junior and senior years at KU, Nola lived at 1400 Tennessee Street in Lawrence. Call Number: SB 71/99/8. Click image to enlarge.

Nola Ayers married KU alumus Benjamin P. Young in 1910. According to a newspaper article announcing their wedding, the couple settled in Halstead, Kansas, where Ben was a high school principal. Ben and Nola relocated to Ithaca, New York, by 1923 and appear to have lived there for the rest of their lives. They had two children. Ben died in 1958; Nola passed away in 1973 at age 86.

Becky Schulte
Retired University Archivist and Curator of the Wilcox Collection

Manual Retouching of Glass Plate Negatives in the Hannah Scott Studio Collection: Ringle Conservation Internship

March 5th, 2025

I began working as the Ringle Conservation Intern during the fall of 2024, drawn to the position as an art history graduate student with a budding interest in art conservation and passion for collecting antique photographs. Throughout the course of the semester, and the beginning of the spring 2025 semester, I was able to rehouse 2,400 glass plate negatives and contribute to the online database that will be used towards the creation of a future finding aid. Under the guidance of the incredibly kind and knowledgeable conservation staff, such as Whitney Baker, Charissa Pincock, and Kaitlin McGrath, I was able to take my first steps into the world of conservation and archival work, and will look back at this time fondly.

Throughout my time at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library Conservation Lab, I was privileged with the ability of looking into the past through the eyes of Hannah Scott, the Independence, Kansas based photographer and studio owner who operated from the 1910’s into the 1940’s. Each glass plate negative that I carefully removed from their aged and yellowed envelopes showed me a moment frozen in time; a bride on her wedding day with her bouquet cascading to the floor, a baby with a wide, toothless, grin clutching a doll, or an elderly couple still donning the out-of-fashion garb of decades past. I became an undetected observer from a distant time, one who was able to watch children and families grow over the years as they returned time and time again to Hannah’s studio.

As I made my way through the collection I was repeatedly met with glass plates that possessed faint scratches outlining the contours of a face where wrinkles tend to form, or scribbled dots speckling the skin. I continuously wondered what these etchings might be when I came across a plate that had two negatives of the same woman, but on one she was heavily freckled, and in the other, there was not a spot on her skin to be found. On the emulsion side of the plate, her freckles had been meticulously removed one-by-one with a pointed instrument of sorts to render her skin seemingly airbrushed. I instantly recognized that these “scratches” were an example of the pre-digital age method of “photoshopping” photographs, a technique that Hannah would employ to provide her customers with the option of having a perfect portrait to display.

Glass plate negative with scratches on face of left image and no scratches on the right.
Double portrait glass plate negative. Image on the left is the untouched image of a subject with freckles. Image on the right has been manually retouched. Hannah Scott Collection, Kansas Collection.

I had read about the act of manually retouching glass plate negatives in the Victorian era, where the outer edges of a woman’s mid-section were erased to achieve the desired “wasp-waist” look. However, I thought this was an outlying and rare occurrence, but the fact that almost every plate of Hannah’s bears some evidence of retouching shows how common and pervasive this practice was. Furthermore, there was not a specific demographic of Hannah’s client that received this treatment; men and women of all ages, from infants to seniors, were able to take home a photograph of themselves looking their absolute best. Excess stray hairs, deep set wrinkles from decades of emoting, blemishes, freckles, moles, or an accidental hand or prop in the image were all able to be removed by the dedicated photographer’s technique of building up hair-thin lines to erase the undesired.

Glass plate negative with edits to remove stray hair on subject of the portrait.
Double portrait glass plate negative. Example of stray hair removal. Hannah Scott Collection, Kansas Collection.

After doing some research of my own, I discovered that the practice of manually retouching glass plate negatives had been in place since the 1840s, and involved the use of either a graphite pencil or knife to scratch out or cover up whatever it may be that was preventing the desired image. Such retouching appeared almost invisible, both in the glass plate negative and in the final positive. I was able to see evidence of the retouching only when I viewed the emulsion side of the negative from a certain angle where the light could reflect off the scratches. Such a trick-of-the trade exemplifies how not so different we are today from those who lived almost a hundred years ago, and how certain behaviors, such as the editing of photographed portraits, show a formidable continuity over time. I can almost imagine the scene appearing in front of me; Hannah in her studio hunched over a negative, surrounded by various tools and instruments, a soft, rhythmic, scratching noise permeates the air as she works on perfecting her customer’s portrait, the hours ticking by, a radio playing a vintage tune hums in the background, unknowingly creating the plate that would end up in my very hands all these years later.

Glass plate negative with scratches on surface.
Manual retouching on the emulsion side of a glass plate negative. Hannah Scott Collection, Kansas Collection.
Glass plate negative with scratches on surface.
Manual retouching on the emulsion side of a glass plate negative. Hannah Scott Collection, Kansas Collection.

For further reading on manual retouching of glass plate negatives see https://pastonglass.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/the-art-of-retouching-pre-photoshop/ and https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/83262/how-photo-retouching-worked-photoshop

Alessia Serra
2024-2025 Ringle Conservation Intern
Conservation Services

In the Conservation Lab: Valentine’s Day Edition

February 14th, 2025

Currently, I am treating a group of parchment leaves that make up a legal document. The text discusses partitions of land in Wickenby and Great Humby, hamlets in Lincolnshire, England. The document is dated September 21, 1716.

Group of parchment documents affixed to one another with fourteen wax seals at the bottom edge.
Partition: Wickenby, Great Humby, September 21, 1716.
Call number MS 240A:783.

The large pieces of animal skin are affixed to one another with sewing and fourteen red wax seals. Each seal was stamped with a heart, pierced by two arrows.

Detail two wax seals imprinted with hearts, on a parchment document
Partition: Wickenby, Great Humby, September 21, 1716.
Call number MS 240A:783.

How appropriate to discover fourteen red hearts on a document on Valentine’s Day, February 14!

Whitney Baker
Head, Conservation Services

New Finding Aids: January-December 2024

January 17th, 2025

Ah, the highs and lows of 2024. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster over the past year for the manuscripts processing team here at Spencer with changes in leadership, new digital workflows, and university-wide events like the Watson Library centennial celebrations. Last year we “got out of the basement” and worked more closely with faculty members and staff across campus on larger, multi-year processing projects and adding to existing collections. One of the most fulfilling parts of archival processing work is directly working with history to shape how we see the past long into the future. Entering 2025, the manuscripts processing team has many exciting collections in the works that we cannot wait to share with you all. In the meantime, here are the new finding aids published in 2024!

Kansas Collection

Emanuel Haldeman-Julius letter, January 12, 1921 (RH MS P1006)

World War II era V-Mail form envelopes, circa 1942-1945 (RH MS P1007)

Nate Foster papers, 1977-1981 (RH MS 1601)

Black-and-white photograph of a man lifting a large barbell weight.
A photograph of Kansas-based powerlifter Nate Foster in a competition. Foster was active from the late 1970s into the mid-1980s, and he also coached the U. S. Women’s Powerlifting Team at the World Championships in Hawaii in 1981. Nate Foster Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1601. Click image to enlarge.

Barbara Burghart-Perreault collection, 1886-2020, bulk 1950-2010 (RH MS 1604 + other call numbers)

Abstract color artwork of houses on hills.
Pastel sketch of houses on the San Francisco hills by Kansas native Barbara Burghart-Perreault, 1967. Barbara Burghart-Perreault Collection. Call Number: RH MS R544. Click image to enlarge.

Quivira Lakes collection, 1981-2003 (RH MS 1605)

Vote for liquor-by-the-drink mug collection, 1986 (RH MS 1607)

Photograph of a clear glass beer mug that has text in blue.
A mug listing local Lawrence businesses supporting liquor-by-the-drink legislation, 1986. The proposed legislation removed a food purchase requirement at restaurants to buy alcohol. Vote for Liquor-By-The-Drink Mug Collection. Call Number: RH MS 1607. Click image to enlarge.

Alvamar Estates collection, June 1, 1966-December 21, 1968 (RH MS 1608)

Floyd Schultz history, 1922-2011 (RH MS 1609)

Victoria Shinn collection, 1952-2000 (RH MS 1610 + other call numbers)

O’Sullivan family history, 1955-2018 (RH MS 1611)

Lawrence Free State High School calendars, 1997-1999 (RH MS S89)

Special Collections

Central American textile maps, approximately 1745-1897 (MS S16)

Real Sociedad Económica de Amanetes de la Patria de Guatemala collection, 1830-1883 (MS 110)

Hong Kong return to China newspaper collection, July 1997 (MS Qa51)

Political ephemera from national elections in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama, 2001-2010 (MS 384 + other call numbers)

Photograph of a pamphlet by the Movimiento Libertario party titled "Plan de Gobierno 2010-2014." It shows a man stretching out his hand to the reader.
A political candidate’s policy plan from a national election in Costa Rica, 2010. Political Ephemera from National Elections in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama. Call Number: MS 384. Click image to enlarge.

Orsetti family papers, 1180-1874, bulk 1450-1820 (MS 131 + other call numbers)

River City Reunion audiovisual recordings, 1987, 1993, and February 1995 (SC AV 56 + other call numbers)

University Archives

Albert Bloch slides, 1906-1959 (PP 657)

Personal papers of Charles E. Skidmore Jr., 1949-1944 (PP 658)

Personal papers of Angela V. Woodhull, 1984 (PP 659)

Two items: Black-and-white sketch of a man sitting at his desk with the caption "Dr. Lee Bee in his office (when no one is looking)." Black-and-white program cover with performance details against the silhouette of six men in suits; five wear conical hats and one wears a graduation cap.
Character notes and a performance booklet for The Last of the True Scholars by Angela V. Woodhull. The University of the Kansas Theatre Department performed the play on October 26-31, 1984. Personal Papers of Angela V. Woodhull. Call Number: PP 659. Click image to enlarge.

Walter J. and Virginia H. Meserve family photographs, 1951-1953 (PP 660)

Personal papers of Arthur Davidson, 1927-1971 (PP 661)

Personal papers of Edward R. Canda, 1968-2023 (PP 662 + other call numbers)

Charissa Pincock
Archives and Manuscripts Coordinator

Digital Reunification and 16th Papal Diplomacy in Spencer’s Graziani-Commendone Collection

December 10th, 2024

It might surprise readers to know that the Kenneth Spencer Research Library holds a sizeable collection of Italian manuscripts and papers dating (primarily) from the 1300s to 1800. These range from individual items, such as a 15th century manuscript volume of Italian poetry that includes Petrarch’s Canzoniere (MS C24), to large groups of materials, such as an extensive collection of an Italian family’s business records dating from the 16th-18th centuries.  This last collection was featured in a Fall 2022 exhibition entitled Keeping the Books: The Rubinstein Collection of the Orsetti Family Business Archive curated by Whitney Baker, Head of KU’s Conservation Services.

Included among Spencer’s Italian manuscript holdings is the Graziani-Commendone collection, a collection of correspondence, letter-books, reports, historical texts, and other documents primarily concerning papal diplomacy (particularly in Poland and Eastern Europe) during the Counter-Reformation. It is named for the two men whose letters lie at the center of the collection:  Giovanni Francesco Commendone (1524-1584), an Italian papal diplomat (nuncio) and cardinal, and Antonio Maria Graziani (1537-1611), his secretary, who served as a papal representative in Poland and later became the Bishop of Amelia and a nuncio for Venice. Many of the materials in the collection were amassed by Graziani and his family and offer fascinating insight into the complex politics (religious and otherwise) of the late 16th century as Catholic and Protestant groups jockeyed for power in Europe.

The Graziani-Commendone Collection, as housed in manuscript boxes and protective enclosures, pictured in the Spencer Research Library's Reading Room.
The Graziani-Commendone Collection, as housed in manuscript boxes and protective enclosures. The collection spans multiple call numbers.

Over four hundred years later, a group of scholars in Italy recognized the historical potential of these materials and undertook a digital humanities initiative (the Nuncio’s Secret Archives project) to digitally reunite Graziani materials residing in the Graziani family archives in Vada, in the Province of Livorno in Italy, with those that are now dispersed and housed at the University of Kansas and the New York Public Library. Together, research teams at the University of Parma, the University of Padua, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia have created an online portal  (https://grazianiarchives.eu/) that combines digitized images of selected manuscripts with detailed metadata and historical/contextual information, enabling researchers to conduct advanced, structured searches and trace figures, places, and other references across the collections. The result is an enormously useful resource which offers unprecedented insight into aspects of papal diplomacy, European multi-denominational societies, and politics (particularly in Poland and Eastern Europe) during the second half of the 1500s. The site is currently in Italian, but it is accessible to English-speakers if viewed using a browser like Chrome that permits automated translation into other languages.

Screenshot of the main landing page for the Graziani Archives portal (viewed with GoogleTranslate English translation overlay).

Screenshot of the main landing page for the Graziani Archives portal (as viewed with GoogleTranslate English translation overlay).  This digital humanities resource was created as part of the Nuncio’s Secret Archives project.


In April of this year, I travelled to Parma, Italy to participate in the closing conference for Nuncio’s Secret Archives project. Titled La Chiesa di Roma e l’Europa multiconfessionale nella prima età moderna: attori, politiche, esperienze (The Roman Church and Multi-denominational Europe in the Early Modern Age: Actors, Policies, Experiences), the conference brought together scholars from across Europe. As a complement to the conference papers grounded in the religious and political history of the early modern period, my paper outlined the story of how the Graziani-Commendone collection came to reside in Lawrence, Kansas at a university roughly 5000 miles from either Italy or Poland. It’s a fascinating story that involves KU’s strength in Italian manuscripts as well as the politics and diplomacy of a much more contemporary period: the Cold War. The collection was acquired during the late 1960s as KU’s special collections sought to support KU’s recently created “Slavic and Soviet Studies Language and Area Center” (now known as the Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian Studies [CREES]). Though there isn’t room in this post to go into the acquisition history in detail, its story draws extensively on surviving correspondence between the Head of Special Collections, Alexandra Mason, and Alexander Janta, a bookseller of Polish national origin, from whom KU acquired the majority of its Graziani-Commendone materials and with whom KU also worked to build its holdings of rare books related to Poland. Because the provenance of collections is important for a variety of reasons, including how researchers understand and contextualize the documents in a collection, special collections libraries and archives often maintain internal files related to the acquisition of the collections they hold.

Folder open showing a letter/report from Graziani to Commendone, reporting on the diet in Warsaw to elect a new Polish-Lithuanian king, 5 May 1573
Letter from Antonio Maria Graziani to Giovanni Francesco Commendone, reporting from the assembly in Warsaw convened to elect a new King for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 5 May 1573. This twelve-page report discusses the voting on the contenders, noting that “Francia” (Henry Valois, Duke of Anjou and later Henry III of France) had, at this point, the majority of the votes. Valois (1551–1589) would ultimately be the one to ascend to the Polish throne. With respect to the history of the Graziani-Commendone collection, this letter was among the first Graziani items the Library acquired from the bookseller Alexander Janta in 1967. Graziani-Commendone Collection. Call #: MS 62:I: Item 26


For researchers interested in learning more about religion and politics in Europe (and especially papal diplomats in Poland) during the second half of the 16th century, we encourage you to explore the Graziani Archives portal and to visit Spencer Research Library’s reading room to examine our full Graziani-Commendone collection. Live more than 100 miles from the University of Kansas? Not a problem! Apply for Spencer Library’s Alexander and Valentine Janta Endowment Travel Award, which supports research with Spencer’s 16th and 17th century collections for Poland, including the Graziani-Commendone collection. Applications are due by January 5, 2025.

Elspeth Healey
Special Collections Curator