Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

Happy (day after) Opening Day, baseball fans! For those who don’t know, Opening Day is the day in which the regular baseball season begins for Major League Baseball (and most minor leagues). Opening Day marks new beginnings as players and fans alike start fresh and forget the past season. Yesterday (March 30) all thirty teams in Major League Baseball played games, which is the first time since 1968 that all teams played first games on the same day.

This week in honor of Opening Day we’re highlighting two yearbooks from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum from 1993 and 1994. African Americans began to play baseball in the late 1800s. That is, until racism and Jim Crow laws forced them from their teams by 1900. Afterwards, African Americans formed their own teams, playing anyone who would challenge them. In 1920 a meeting was held at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri. Andrew Foster and a few other Midwestern team owners joined to form an organized league, the Negro National League.

The photos below show pages highlighting the Kansas City Monarchs and Buck O’Neil. Founded in 1920, the Kansas City Monarchs was one of the Negro Leagues’ most famous and successful clubs. According to the MLB History website, the Monarchs took home ten league pennants and only faced one losing season during their association with the Negro Leagues. Kansas City produced more future Major League stars – including Jackie Robinson and Ernie Banks – than any other Negro League club, while also showcasing huge stars like Satchel Paige, Hilton Smith, and Bullet Rogan in times when Black players were kept out of the all-white Majors. First baseman and manager Buck O’Neil also became the first Black coach in the big leagues and served as a scout and Negro Leagues ambassador for many years.

In addition to the yearbooks, the library houses the papers of T. Y. Baird, an owner of the Kansas City Monarchs. The collection contains materials related to the team, including correspondence, game gate information, receipts and bills, payroll information, clippings, player information, magazine and newspaper clippings, and photographs. At Spencer you can also read The Negro Leagues Book edited by Dick Clark and Larry Lester. Published in 1994, the book includes information ranging from the Negro Leagues history, Hall of Fame players, rosters, organized baseball records, and more. The copy the library hold was signed by Larry Lester in 1994.

Interested in learning more? The Negro League Baseball Museum is located at 1616 East 18th Street in Kansas City, Missouri. More information on visiting can be found on their website.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week on That’s Distinctive! we celebrate SPRING! Springs long awaited return was this week on Monday, March 20. With warmer weather and extended sunshine, soon comes the return of spring flowers! You can find lots of great information on the spring equinox from the online farmers almanac.

This week we share a few pages from a book from our collections called One Hundred Fifty Familiar Wildflowers of Central Kansas. Written by Mary Jones, the book was published in Lyons, Kansas, around 1961. Maybe you will be able to spot some of the wildflowers featured in the book while you’re out this spring and summer! Here’s to wishing for warmer and longer days ahead.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) founded the annual February celebration of Black History in 1926 and identified Black Resistance as the theme for 2023.

From Spencer’s African American Experience Collections, I selected the following items to highlight how Black Resistance is an integral part of Kansas history.

With their baby, William, Mr. David and Mrs. Rebecca (Brooks) Harvey escaped from chattel slavery in Van Buren, Arkansas, by joining a unit of Union soldiers who were going to Kansas. Although the family experienced being separated by accident for two months, they successfully reunited in Lawrence, Kansas, and found employment as tenant farmers on land owned by the state’s Douglas County Sheriff. Within five years, the family saved enough money to buy fifteen acres of land in Douglas County. There they built a home and established their farm. Eventually their farm covered more than two hundred acres.

Kansas is where the family’s four children grew up. William attended business school before spending the remainder of his life working on his family’s farm. Sherman graduated from the University of Kansas in 1889; he then taught in Lawrence public schools and later earned a law degree from KU. Frederick established a medical practice in Kansas City, Kansas, after earning his medical degree from Meharry Medical School in Nashville, Tennessee. And, Edward graduated from KU, worked in Washington, D.C. as a clerk for Congressman J. D. Bowersock, and retired to the family farm while serving as an active leader in Douglas County farm organizations and other civic other civic groups.

In 1866, the 3rd Annual Convention of Colored Men convened in Lawrence, Kansas, as citizens and taxpayers to advocate for their civil rights, i.e. their right to vote and to serve in the state militia and on juries. The assembled men concluded:      

“We are among you. Here we must remain. We must be a constant trouble in the State until it extends to us equal and exact justice.”

Unwilling to be denied better economic and political opportunities, African Americans like the Saddler family shown below migrated from Kentucky, Tennessee, and throughout the nation to Nicodemus in Graham County, Kansas, the nation’s first African American town west of the Mississippi River.

George Williams – the son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Williams, a prominent farm family in Pratt County, Kansas – filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the railroad after he was denied access to a train after presenting his ticket to the conductor. Agreeing with a lower court’s findings, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled in 1913 that the train conductor’s action was due to an honest misunderstanding, not racial discrimination. See Williams v. Chicago, R.I. & P. RY. Co. ET AL., 90 Kan. 478, 1913.

At the 1920 Kaw Valley Convention of the African American Baptist Church in Bonner Springs, Kansas, the Women’s Home and Foreign Mission Society delivered a written protest against a highly visible “For Whites Only” sign displayed in “a public place of business”:

“This unsightly inscription is one of the first things that greets the eyes of every self respecting citizen which is a disgrace to the good name of Kansas and its splendid citizenship.”

Deborah Dandridge
Field Archivist/Curator, African American Experience Collections
Kansas Collection

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week we celebrate National Trading Card Day! It happens to be today, February 24th. According to National Today, trading cards (which are commonly made of cardboard or thick paper) originated in the late nineteenth century. Trading cards have a rich history and come with a variety of images depicting people, places, and things (real and fictional). Debuting in the 1860s, baseball cards have become the most popular among sports cards. Even today, baseball cards hold a high resale value and remain popular among people of all ages.

Coming from the Herd Family Papers, Spencer has trading cards that date to around 1962. The collection spans 1817-2013 and offers a wide array of items that members of the Herd family passed down over the years. An inventory of the collection – which includes 34 boxes – can be found in our finding aids.

The trading cards included highlight players from a range of popular teams along with batting records for the previous year. The cards, which were printed by Post, were printed on the backs of cereal boxes to help consumers limit costs of having to buy additional packs of cards. The cards themselves had information on the fronts with the backs being plain grey cardboard. Though they changed in format over the years, Post trading cards were included with cereal boxes from 1960 to 2003. More information on Post trading cards can be found on the Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) website and the Love to Know website.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week “That’s Distinctive!” celebrates Langston Hughes, whose 122nd birthday was on February 1st. (Several years ago, former Kansas Poet Laureate and Washburn University English Professor Eric McHenry discovered that Hughes was likely born in 1901 and not 1902, as had long been thought. McHenry’s discovery was covered by The New York Times in 2018.) An African American poet and social activist born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was “one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry [and] is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance” (per the Wikipedia article about him). In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote non-fiction, plays, and short stories, and he even had a column in The Chicago Defender.

In honor of Hughes’s birthday, this week I am highlighting a small taste of the poems in his book The Dream Keeper and Other Poems. As you can see, some pages in the book include sketches in addition to the poems.

Along with this book, Spencer also holds many other books and manuscripts by Hughes; The Life of Langston Hughes, a biography by Arnold Rampersad (Call Number: RH C7898); and some photos. You can find all of these sources by searching the KU Libraries online catalog and Spencer’s finding aids. You can also view an online exhibit on Hughes curated by former Kansas Collection Curator Sherry Williams.

Though he was born in Missouri, Hughes often claimed to be a Kansan because he grew up in the Lawrence and Topeka areas. Over the years, Lawrence has shown its appreciation for Hughes with a number of plaques around town and an elementary school named in his honor, as well as a library in one of his childhood schools (Pinckney Elementary). Other landmarks connected to Hughes in Lawrence include the church he attended, the library he frequented, and the graves of his grandparents. Hughes later returned to Lawrence and spoke on KU’s campus three times: in 1932, 1958, and 1965. Visitors to Spencer’s North Gallery can listen to a selection of audio clips from his 1965 visit, which include Hughes reading his poetry and sharing some of his reminiscences about his youth in Kansas.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services