Kenneth Spencer Research Library

As an elder millennial who loved history as a child and grew up with American Girl, I’ve been excited about the company’s 40th anniversary this year. As a result, I will be sharing a series of posts highlighting Spencer collection materials that connect to AG’s six original historical characters, in chronological order of when they “lived”: Felicity Merriman, Josefina Montoya, Kirsten Larson, Addy Walker, Samantha Parkington, and Molly McIntyre. Each post will focus on a different character and explore a selection of items that relate to the time and place in which she “lived” and topics or themes explored in her stories.

When readers meet Josefina Montoya, she is a nine-year girl described as having a big heart and big hopes. She lives with her father and sisters on a ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico – then part of Mexico – in 1824. Josefina’s stories are set against the backdrop of Mexico’s recent independence from Spain, and a significant plot point is the arrival of Americans via the Santa Fe Trail (which passed through Douglas County, Kansas, roughly fifteen miles south of Lawrence and KU). Throughout her stories, Josefina grieves and remembers her deceased mother; adjusts to changes at the ranch brought about her aunt, Tía Dolores; deals with goats, including her nemesis Florecita and the orphaned baby goat Sombrita; and starts the journey of becoming a curandera (healer).

A letter from O. Wheeler, Camp Leavenworth, Kansas, to Dr. C. Keeny, Liberty, Missouri, August 8, 1827. Most of the letter concerns a “disorder” or illness affecting Wheeler’s horse. The U. S. Army established Camp (now Fort) Leavenworth in 1827, the same year this letter was written, to serve as a forward base protecting the Santa Fe Trail. Call Number: RH MS P174.

Selected Additional Collection Items

Maps

• Regni Mexicani seu Novæ Hispaniæ, Floridæ, Novæ Angliæ, Carolinæ, Virginiæ, et Pennsylvaniæ, nec non insvlarvm archipelagi Mexicani in America septentrionali [The Kingdom of Mexico, or New Spain, Florida, New England, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, as Well as the Insular Archipelago of Mexico in North America] by Johann Baptist Homann, 1722. Call Number: Orbis Maps 1:60.
• A Map of Louisiana and Mexico = Carte de la Louisiane et du Mexique, 1820. Call Number: Orbis Maps 1:134.
• Map of the Western Territory of the United States by Lt. Enoch Steen. Coverage includes Indian lands from 80 miles east of Leavenworth to 50 miles west of Pikes Peak and Black Hill to Santa Fe. Call Number: RH Map S31.
• A Map of the Indian Territory, Northern Texas and New Mexico: Showing the Great Western Prairies by Josiah Gregg, from Commerce of the Prairies, 1844. Call Number: RH Map Q57.
• Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico [Map of the United States of Mexico], 1847. Call Number: Orbis Maps 2:61.
• Map of Santa Fe County, New Mexico, 1880s? Shows railroads and pre-European pueblos in and near Santa Fe County. Call Number: RH Map R529.

New Spain and Mexico

• Exploratory Travels Through the Western Territories of North America by Zebulon Pike, 1811. During his 1806-1807 expedition to the region south and west of the Louisiana Purchase, Pike ended up in Spanish territory. His party was captured by Spanish soldiers, and their subsequent journey took them through Santa Fe. Call Number: D678.
• Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution: Including a Narrative of the Expedition of General Xavier Mina by William Davis Robinson, 1820. Call Number: Howey C4191.
• Six Months’ Residence and Travels in Mexico by William Bullock, 1824. Call Number: Ellis Aves C207.
• A View of South-America and Mexico, Comprising Their History, the Political Condition, Geography, Agriculture, Commerce, &c. by John M. Niles, 1825. Call Number: B11232.

New Mexico, Santa Fe, and the Santa Fe Trail

• The Daily New Mexican newspaper, published in Santa Fe, 1880-1881. Call Number: RH H24.
• Santa Fe: Ancient and Modern, Including Its Resources and Industries edited by W.G. Ritch, 1885. Call Number: RH C1375.
• Southwest on the Turquoise Trail: The First Diaries on the Road to Santa Fe edited by Archer Butler Hulbert, 1933. Call Number: RH C451.
• Historic Santa Fe, Founded About 1525: Oldest Town in the United States: The End of the Old Santa Fe Trail, 1940s? Call Number: RH AK121.
• Santa Fe Trail: First Reports, 1825 by Augustus Storrs and Alphonso Wetmore, 1960. Call Number: RH B1126.

Household Matters

• Quatro libros de la naturaleza, y virtudes de las plantas, y animales que estan receuidos en el uso de medicina en la Nueua España [Four Books on the Nature and Virtues of Plants and Animals for Medicinal Purposes in New Spain] by Francisco Hernandez, 1615. Call Number: Summerfield B2225.
• Mexican recipes, early 1800s. This is a collection of culinary recipes – written in various hands and mostly undated – that appear to be from central and southern Mexico. The collection was previously featured on Spencer’s blog. Call Number: MS 346.
• A New Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages compiled by by Henry Neuman, 1823. Call Number: C26852.
• El cocinero mexicano, o Coleccion de las mejores recetas para guisar al estilo americano [The Mexican Cook, or Collection of the Best Recipes for Cooking in the American Style], volume 3 only, 1831. This work is one of two cookbooks from 1831 that are considered the first on Mexican cuisine published in Mexico. Call Number: B14945.

Caitlin Klepper
Public Engagement Librarian

Good luck to all Kansas law school graduates who are taking the bar exam next week! In honor of the occasion, we’re sharing the first two parts of the first Kansas bar exam, which was administered in Topeka on October 13-14, 1903, and later published in the Summary of the First Year’s Work of the State Board of Law Examiners. The Board’s first three annual reports – which include the bar exams administered during those years – can be found in Spencer’s collections (Call Number: RH C5864), although they are housed at the Annex and must requested ahead of a Reading Room visit.

The general guidance to “follow instructions in the Bulletin of Information to Applicants” included in the first exam was replaced by more specific instructions in the second (February 1904) exam: “The Board calls special attention to the fact that answers ‘yes’ and “no” will not be considered. In every case give the principles involved and the reasons for the answer. ” This statement was repeated for the third exam in June 1904, and additional clarification was added: “Write your answers plainly, on one side of the paper only, and guard your spelling and punctuation. Accuracy, clearness, and conciseness will be given weight.”

More details about the first bar exam can be found in the paper “The State Board – A Landmark in Lawyer-making” by Lucius H. Perkins, D. C. L., secretary of the Kansas Board. Perkins presented the paper at the first national conference of the State Boards of Law Examiners, which was held at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. It was reprinted – “by request” – in the Board’s Second Annual Report (1904-1905). Perkins noted that applicants who had been “admitted to the highest courts of another jurisdiction and actually practiced for more than three years immediately preceding their application” were tested via an oral examination. Beyond that,

“all other examinations are in writing. We proposed eighty questions, divided into four sessions of three hours each [across two days]. We require a few definitions and ask a few categorical questions; but by far the greater number are hypothetical, and are intended to raise the ordinary questions that might be put to a lawyer any day. We ask no catch [trick] questions, nor any of extraordinary difficulty. Our aim is to test the applicant’s mental caliber as well as his knowledge of the law, and we give good credit for a brainy answer even though the solution be wrong…

At the beginning of an examination the clerk of the supreme court [sic] gives each applicant a number, with which he signs all his papers. The board does not know one from another, and each performance is passed upon solely on [sic] its merits. This impersonal method relieves the board from every suspicion of partiality.”

Newspaper coverage of the first Kansas bar exam. Left: The Topeka Daily Capital, October 9, 1903. Middle: Capper’s Weekly: The Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, October 13, 1903. Right: The Topeka Daily Herald, October 15, 1903. All articles accessed via Newspapers.com. Click images to enlarge.

Additionally in his paper, Perkins describes the process by which individuals applied to take the bar exam, commenting that “the methods adopted by the Kansas board are in accord with the most advanced thought and the most successful experience in this work.”

“We furnish each applicant a regular set of printed forms, consisting of an application, affidavit of the applicant, affidavit of his preceptor, and a certificate of the local district judge and three practicing attorneys that he is a person of good moral character, and, if qualified, a suitable person to be admitted to the bar. We also send a copy of the rules and a bulletin of information. The applicant is required to frame his petition to the supreme court [sic], and it must be in his own handwriting. He files his petition in the office of the clerk of the supreme court, and sends a copy of it with all his other papers to the secretary of the board. In the application he gives his history, and especially the character of his education, the studies pursued, and what he has been doing for the past five years.

One of the most important requirements is that he give a satisfactory account of himself, and no man will be received in the examination if there is any cloud upon his character. We cannot reach the rascals who are already in, but the State Board of Law Examiners stands between [unscrupulous attorneys] and the lawyers of the future. We cannot catch them all, but we shall stop those whose rascality is already known.

Our requirements of preliminary education are equal to a four-year course in a standard high school. No diploma, ipso facto, admits the applicant to the examination. We reserve the right to determine what schools shall be accredited, and a diploma from a law school does not excuse the applicant from the preliminary examination, unless the standard of admission is up to the standard of the board. All applicants are examined. Graduates from our own or any other university or law school are not exempt.”

Readers, do you have a favorite question from the first Kansas bar exam?

Caitlin Klepper
Public Engagement Librarian

In honor of the celebrations surrounding the 250th birthday of the United States this week, we’re taking a look back at how KU commemorated the bicentennial fifty years ago.

A year of intensive planning, special projects, and varied events at the university culminated in the Sunflower Spectacular fireworks show at Memorial Stadium on July 4, 1976. The show “featured the cooperation of the University Alumni Association with Vince Bilotta as coordinator, the Summer Band Camp under the direction of Robert Foster, and the Lawrence Jaycees with their annual sponsorship of the fireworks display.” Prior to the show were afternoon and evening performances of patriotic music at the Memorial Campanile and Carillon, part of a bicentennial summer concert series. Lawrencians also participated in a broad array of off-campus festivities that weekend, concluding the Douglas County Bicentennial Commission’s similarly busy and productive year.

Fireworks during the Sunflower Spectacular show, July 4, 1976. In the first two images, note the spectators on the hill near the Campanile. Photos by George Millener for the Lawrence Journal-World. Lawrence Journal-World Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH LJW (negatives). Click images to enlarge.

A questionnaire attached to the final report of KU’s seventeen-member Bicentennial Committee stated that 1,335 individuals had been “actually involved and participating” in its various commemorative efforts. The Committee also estimated that more than 70,500 people had attended KU’s bicentennial events (“based on estimates where numbers could be determined”). “The philosophy of the University Bicentennial Committee,” noted the document, “was reflected in the nature of the projects and events that were identified and sponsored. The emphasis was upon activities that coordinated closely with the major missions of the University in its academic programs, its research projects, and its responsibility of service to the people of the state of Kansas.”

Reflecting back on the academic year, the editors of the 1976 Jayhawker yearbook wrote (somewhat hyperbolically):

If nothing else, the student of ’76 always will remember this year for the pomp and sure-coin-stance of the American Revolution Bicentennial. Attending an official Bicentennial university, living in an official Bicentennial community, taking a course in the history of the American Revolution from W. Stitt Robinson, professor of history and chairman of the KU Bicentennial Committee, celebrating homecoming with the theme of Jayhawk Rebellion, going to one of the five Humanities Series lectures with a Bicentennial theme, taking in a Saturday afternoon of Bicentennial music at Off-the-Wall-Hall, watching the official Bicentennial flag flutter in the Bicentennial breeze, seeing musical presentations, theater productions and museum exhibits with a Bicentennial flavor, applauding a Bicentennial Rock Chalk Revue, seeing the KU Symphonic Band off for a Bicentennial tour and dancing to Bicentennial banjos in a Bicentennial street dance during a Bicentennial Festival of the Arts were some of the things the Bicentennial student did.

Caitlin Klepper
Public Engagement Librarian

As an elder millennial who loved history as a child and grew up with American Girl, I’ve been excited about the company’s 40th anniversary this year. As a result, I will be sharing a series of posts highlighting Spencer collection materials that connect to AG’s six original historical characters, in chronological order of when they “lived”: Felicity Merriman, Josefina Montoya, Kirsten Larson, Addy Walker, Samantha Parkington, and Molly McIntyre. Each post will focus on a different character and explore a selection of items that relate to the time and place in which she “lived” and topics or themes explored in her stories.

When readers meet Felicity Merriman, she is a “spunky, sprightly” nine-year-old girl living in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1774. Her stories are set against the backdrop of rising tensions between Patriots and Loyalists just before the American Revolution, and the theme of independence runs throughout them. Felicity herself balks at learning expected housewifery skills, and she attempts to free a beloved horse named Penny from an abusive owner. The questions of freedom, liberty, and equality asked in the stories are not extended to the enslaved characters (and one free person of color) who are mentioned or implied. Other topics in Felicity’s books include education for girls, illnesses and injuries, British taxation especially on tea, her father’s store, and maintaining friendships in the face of disagreements.

Selected pages in The Ladies’ Diary, or, Woman’s Almanack for the Year of Our Lord 1774. Published in London between 1704 and 1841, The Ladies’ Diary, or, Woman’s Almanack famously featured puzzles and mathematical questions in addition to calendars and important dates. Spencer’s 1774 copy appears to feature a red two-pence duty tax stamp. It is also bound with nine other popular Company of Stationers almanacs from the same year; similar volumes from several years between 1744 and 1826 can also be found at Spencer under the call number “Bond B17.” Call Number: Bond B17 1774. Click images to enlarge.

The title page and publication note of An Oration Delivered March 5, 1774: At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston; To Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March 1770 by John Hancock, Boston: 1774. “Some boast of being friends to government,” Hancock asserted in this speech. “I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.” This speech can be read online through the Massachusetts Historical Society; a transcription is available through the UMKC School of Law “Famous Trials” website. Call Number: D845. Click images to enlarge.

The frontispiece (left) and title page (middle) of The Experienced English Housekeeper, for the Use and Ease of Ladies, Housekeepers, Cooks, &c. by Elizabeth Raffald, London: 1778. On the right is a fold-out copper plate diagram of a first-course dinner arrangement consisting of 25 dishes, part of what Raffald calls a “grand table”: “January being a month when entertainments are most used, and most wanted, from that motive I have drawn my dinner at that season of the year.” A second copper plate diagram shows another 25 dishes, and Raffald asserts that the third (dessert) course “must” therefore “be of the same number.” Call Number: C3670. Click images to enlarge.

The title page and a selection of treatments in Every Man His Own Physician by John Theobald, London: 1766 (a “new edition, improved). Historically known as chlorosis, “green sickness” was primarily diagnosed in young, unmarried teenage girls. “Gripes” is an older term for influenza. Note that the cure for headaches includes “leeches behind the ears.” Call Number: B9522. Click images to enlarge.

Selected Additional Collection Items

Colonial British America, Virginia, and Williamsburg

• Map, North America, as Divided Amongst the European Powers, London: 1774. Call Number: Orbis Maps 1:85.
• The Office and Authority of a Justice of Peace Explained and Digested, Under Proper Titles by Richard Starke, Williamsburg: 1774. Includes a section on penalties for (ahem, Felicity) stealing horses. George Washington had a copy of this work in his library. Call Number: C14997.
• Map, A New and Correct Map of North America, With the West India Islands; Divided According to the Last Treaty of Peace, Concluded at Paris. 10th. Feby. 1763, London: 1777. Call Number: N6 Orbis 1:81.
• Map, Bowles’s New Map of North America and the West Indies, London: 1781. Call Number: N7 Orbis 1:82.
• Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson, London: 1787. Call Number: C1485.
• Colonial Williamsburg, the First Twenty-Five Years; A Report, 1952. Call Number: RH D1411.

Rising Tensions Before the American Revolution

• First [-Fifth] Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire [sic] into the Nature, State, and Condition, of the East India Company, and of the British Affairs in the East Indies, London: 1773? These reports document the UK Parliament’s investigation into the East India Company in 1772 and 1773. One result of this inquiry was the Tea Act of 1773, which features prominently in Felicity’s stories. Call Number: G374 v.3 items 6-10.
• Considerations on the Measures Carrying on With Respect to the British Colonies in North America, anonymously written by Matthew Robinson, 2nd Baron Rokeby, London: 1774. Call Number: 18th century Prose 716.
• Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress, Held at Philadelphia, on the Fifth of September, 1774, Philadelphia: 1774. Call Number: 18th century Prose 2275.
• American Independence the Interest and Glory of Great Britain by John Cartwright, London: 1774. Call Number: C1497.
• Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq. on American Taxation, April 19, 1774, London: 1775. Call Number: C3454 item 3.

Slavery in Colonial British America

• A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions by Anthony Benezet, London: 1767. Call Number: C3749.
• Thoughts Upon Slavery by John Wesley, London: 1774. Call Number: Howey B2111.
• Fragment of an Original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes; Written in the Year 1776 by Thomas Day, London: 1784. Call Number: Howey C3950 item 2.

Household Matters and Girls’ Education

• The Ready Calculator: or, Trader’s Certain Guide, in Computing the Price, or Amount of Any Quantity of Goods and Merchandizes by Thomas Slack, London: 1771. Call Number: Howey B856.
• An Essay Upon Nursing and the Management of Children, From Their Birth to Three Years of Age by William Cadogan, Boston: 1772. Call Number: C1801.
• Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Young Lady. In Two Volumes by Mrs. (Hester) Chapone, London: 1773. Call Number: B3783.
• An Essay on the Learning, Genius, and Abilities of the Fair-Sex: Proving Them Not Inferior to Man, From a Variety of Examples, Extracted From Ancient and Modern History, an English translation of Defensa de las mujer by Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y Montenegro, London: 1774. Call Number: B7649.
• The Toilet of Flora, an English translation (with alterations) of La toilette de flore by Pierre-Joseph Buc’hoz, London: 1775. Contains “a collection of the most simple and approved methods of preparing baths, essences, pomatums, powders, perfumes, sweet-scented waters, and opiates for preserving and whitening the teeth” with “receipts [recipes] for cosmetics of every kind, that can smooth and brighten the skin, give force to beauty, and take off the appearance of old age and decay.” Call Number: B8738.
• The Complete Vermin-Killer: A Valuable and Useful Companion for Families, in Town and Country, London: 1777. Includes “safe and quick methods of destroying bugs, lice, fleas, rats, mice, moles, weazels [sic], caterpillars, frogs, pismires, snails, frogs, moths, earwigs, wasps, pole-cats, badgers, foxes, otters, and fish and birds of all kinds.” Also includes “useful family receipts, for the preparation of medicines” and “directions for the purchase, management and cure of horses.” Call Number: Ellis Omnia C437.

Horses

• Observations Upon the Shoeing of Horses: With an Anatomical Description of the Bones in the Foot of a Horse by James Clark, Edinburgh: 1770. Call Number: 18th century Prose 1841.
• A Treatise on Cattle: Shewing the Most Approved Methods of Breeding, Rearing, and Fitting for Use, Horses, Asses, Mules, Horned Cattle, Sheep, Goats, and Swine by John Mills, Dublin: 1776. Call Number: C4072.

Caitlin Klepper
Public Engagement Librarian

As I work to develop the Spencer’s new Latina/o Collections*, I wanted to take a moment and look back at the interesting materials that are already sitting within our library stacks and viewable in our Reading Room today! All the materials presented allow us to briefly see how Latina/os have gathered and built community within different places across Kansas.

Take a look at some of those materials below.

Aztlán de Leavenworth, volume 1

First published May 5, 1970, Aztlán de Leavenworth was a bilingual Chicano prisoner newspaper edited and published at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas. It features poet and activist raúlrsalinas’ famous poem “A Trip Through the Mind Jail.” Other members of the publication team included Albert Mares, Ruben Estrella, Alfredo Arellanes, Ricardo Mena, and Beto Palomino. Inspired by Aztec history and iconography, the newspaper is named after Aztlán, the ancestral home of the Aztecs, and features images of Tizoc and designs inspired by Aztec art.

Left: The front cover of Aztlán de Leavenworth, 1970. Right: The page of Aztlán de Leavenworth featuring “A Trip Through the Mind Jail,” 1970. Call Number: RH H79, volume 1. Click images to enlarge.

KACMAA Special Report, 1981

This 1981 special report was created by Kansas’ Advisory Committee in Mexican American Affairs (KACMAA). As explained in the report’s introduction, it “optimistically highlights important accomplishments and measurable in Hispanic’s social, economic, and political life” but also “clarifies the work that remains to be done.” While the KACMAA originally concentrated on projects to promote people of Mexican heritage, the organization evolved to include all Hispanics and Latinos across the state and is now known as the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission.

Music groups in Emporia

Taken some time in 1932, these photographic prints from the Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas (Call Number: RH PH 182) allow us to see some of Emporia’s early musical groups. The first photo shows members of the Mexican band Orquesta de Leora posing with their instruments, while the second features the women who made up the Coro de Santa Catalina, or St. Catherine’s Choir. St. Catherine’s Catholic Church still exists to this day and continues to offer Catholic services to Spanish speakers in Emporia.

Left: Photograph of Orquesta de Leora, 1932. Right: Photograph of St. Catherine’s Choir, 1932. Oral History Project Regarding the Hispanic Community of Emporia, Kansas. Call Number: RH PH 182, Box 1, Folders 11 and 19. Click images to enlarge.

MEChA & HALO Pamphlets

Records of a Latina/o focused group at the University of Kansas have existed since the 1970s. However, before it was LASU (Latin American Student Union), KU’s Latino student group went by many names. It first went by the name AMAS (Association of Mexican American Students), and then it was MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán). The group took the name HALO (Hispanic American Leadership Organization) when it was re-established in the 1980s, and it finally became LASU to further expand its inclusion of all students of Latin American heritage or background.  

Rebekah Ramos
Curator of Latina/o Collections

Sources

“A Trip Through the Mind Jail: A Textual History of raúlrsalinas’ Magnum Opus” by Santiago Vidales Martínez in Textual Cultures 14.1 (2021): 208–229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14434/tc.v14i1.32858

Kansas Hispanic & Latino American Affairs Commission website, “Our Mission and Our Origins from KACMAA to KHLAAC.”

KU Latin American Student Union website, “LASU History.”

*While many terms exist to identify people in the United States of Latin American origin and/or ancestry (i.e. Hispanic, Chicano, Latino, Latina/o, Latinx, Latine) at Spencer Research Library we chose to use “Latina/o” for the collection’s title. As the collection grows and evolves, the term used might change.