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.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing another item from the Herd Family Papers. I have shared items from the collection many times and likely will continue to do so due to its wide variety of offerings. Spanning the time period of 1817-2013 with over 37 boxes and 47 volumes, this one collection alone has something that may interest just about anyone.
The item shared today is a sheet of paper titled “How to Protect Yourself Against War Gases.” The document was distributed by the Air Raid Wardens Service in 1942 during World War II. According to the World War II American Experience museum, Air Raid Wardens were men and women “tasked with protecting the lives of their fellow neighbors. By day, the Air Raid Warden visits his neighbors and educates them about blackouts and what to do if an air raid were to occur… By night, these same wardens will don their helmet, flashlight, gas mask, medical kit, air raid siren, gas alarm, whistle and maybe a stirrup pump fire extinguisher and patrol their neighborhoods enforcing blackout and air raid drills.”
Thankfully the war never made landfall in the contiguous United States, but many precautions were taken in anticipation of potential attacks. For example, the paper shown today states that the ultimate defense toward the enemy is to remain calm. The paper also shares rules and steps of what to do in case of an air raid.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing an item from our Kansas Collection. While I frequently share books, photos, and diaries from the collection, it houses so much more. The collection also contains historic documents such as Douglas County records, architectural drawings and blueprints, and other planning documents. Today I share A City Plan for Lawrence, Kansas, from 1930. The document is a 92-page typescript report that includes recommendations regarding streets and transportation, public properties, schools, and zoning. The report was prepared by Hare & Hare, a Kansas City, Missouri, landscape architecture and planning firm that was founded by a father-and-son team in 1910. The firm’s projects ranged from cemeteries and parks to larger scale planning projects. One of the firm’s most notable projects was the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. After a couple of mergers over the years, today the firm is known as Ochsner Hare & Hare, a Design Studio of Olsson Associates.
As seen by the table of contents shown below, the plan covers a wide range of topics including transit, zoning, growth and distribution of population, and private property. The plan opens with some general historical background of the city to help readers situate themselves. Of the pages shared, the “Cultural Opportunities” section seems to be hopeful that the city will have a lasting impact on students at the University of Kansas and Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) who come from out of town. The “Parks and Recreation Areas” section seems to urge the city to take pride in its leisurely spaces and to preserve those areas for use. It can be interesting to look back in time and see what the priorities were for those running the town then compared to those who are in charge now. Similar to looking back at pictures, you can “see” how things have shifted throughout time.
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Selected pages from A City Plan for Lawrence, Kansas, 1930. Call Number: RH MS P695. Click images to enlarge.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing an item from our Wilcox Collection, which is one of the largest assemblages of U.S. left- and right-wing political literature in the country. Since it was established in 1965, the Wilcox Collection has grown to include coverage of more than 10,000 individuals and organizations. The collection covers a wide array of topics including women’s rights. Most of the materials date from 1960 to the present.
The item shared today is a book titled 101 Wonderful Ways to Celebrate Women’s History. Written by Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, the book (which is also referred to as a guide) was published in 1986 by the National Women’s History Project. It offers many different ideas on ways to celebrate women’s history. Shown today are some of the ideas presented for potential school programs. The guide notes that the activities within the section were “developed and recommended by classroom teachers around the country.” Other sections within the guide include school-community programs, as well as community programs. Some program ideas include designing women’s history posters, writing short public service announcements, and exhibiting books and works written by women at libraries. The book also has a slew of appendices that offer a wealth of information surrounding women’s history.
One of the guide’s authors, Mary Ruthsdotter, was actually a founder of the National Women’s History Project in 1980. A couple of years earlier, several of the group’s founders organized a local Women’s History Week in Sonoma County, California. Inspired by their success, women’s groups around the country lobbied for the week of March 8th to be National Women’s History Week. Congress later voted to make the entire month of March National Women’s History Month. Mary Ruthsdotter worked as the National Women’s History Project director for twenty years. The organization, now known as the National Women’s History Alliance, is still around today. National Women’s History Month continues to be celebrated today to ensure important women who fought for our rights are not forgotten.
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The front cover and selected pages from 101 Wonderful Ways to Celebrate Women’s History by Bonnie Eisenberg and Mary Ruthsdotter, 1986. Call Number: RH WL D9150. Click images to enlarge.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing a book from our Kansas Collection. The book, titled Poems of the Plains, and Songs of the Solitudes, Together With “The Rhyme of the Border War,” was written by Thomas Brower Peacock and published in 1888. The book is a compilation of older revised poems as well as poems Peacock had never published before. The copy of the book housed at the library is signed and dated by the author.
The library houses many other books by Peacock including The Vendetta, and Other Poems (1876), The Rhyme of the Border War (1880), and a later addition of Poems of the Plains, and Songs of the Solitudes, Together With “The Rhyme of the Border War” (1889). As one can see, The Rhyme of the Border War is included in the book shown today and was originally published as a stand-alone book in 1880.
This is one of those books I found while walking through the stacks. It just seemed to jump out to me on one particular day and I took note of the call number to pull it for the blog. It can be frustrating sometimes when I pull a book and cannot find much information on it or the author, but I suppose that should be expected especially the older the books are. Nevertheless, I do still get to enjoy the smell of old books while fumbling through the pages.
KU’s second copy of the book is available to check out from Watson Library, or it can be viewed online through the Library of Congress. The Internet Archive also has an online copy of Peacock’s 1872 work Poems. Finally, Washburn University offers a nice overview of early poems about Kansas that includes a mention of Peacock’s work.
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The front cover, author inscription, and selected poems from Poems of the Plains, and Songs of the Solitudes, Together With “The Rhyme of the Border War by Thomas Brower Peacock, 1888. Call Number: RH B112. Click images to enlarge.
Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created this series to provide a lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique items at Spencer. “That’s Distinctive!” is meant to show that the library has something for everyone regardless of interest. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, you can leave a comment at the bottom of this page. All collections, including those highlighted on the blog, are available for members of the public to explore in the Reading Room during regular hours.
This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing a Civil War-era item from the Kansas Collection. My research for this post sent me down a rabbit hole of sorts finding new and interesting information at every turn. It has been a while since I have found an item that has piqued my interest as much as this one has and I am truly excited to be able to share it on the blog for others to see. At face value, the item itself might seem quite boring, but it is the story the item tells that truly resonates with the viewer. That’s the thing with housing rare materials: much of it might seem “useless,” but you never know what that one newsletter, postcard, banknote, diary, etc. might mean to someone and their research. Much of what the library houses is about preserving history for future generations to access.
The item I am highlighting is a daily journal (diary) that belonged to Aaron Pugh. From the finding aid, Aaron Pugh was born in Carrol County, Ohio, on January 21, 1833. Aaron enlisted in the U.S. Army on July 4, 1863, at the age of 30. The 1860 federal census says that, prior to joining the Army, Pugh was a (married?) farmer in Marcy, Iowa. Preliminary research indicates that the diary follows Pugh’s life from approximately July 4, 1863 to March 25, 1984. As a side note, I actually stumbled upon this item by looking for Fourth of July items. That’s the fun of finding aids; sometimes search terms bring up somewhat unrelated but still quite interesting results. Once enlisted in the Army, Pugh was a soldier in Company M of the 8th Regiment of Iowa Cavalry. IAGenWeb, a side project of the free genealogical website USGenWeb, lists a roster of the members of the 8th, which includes an entry for Pugh. The roster says that Pugh entered the Army as a Fourth Corporal and was promoted to Second Corporal March 26, 1864. March 26th is where the diary entries come to an end.
Much of the diary contains basic daily entries commenting on the weather or stating that the unit had stayed at camp or moved camp. Some entries are more in-depth about trips Pugh went on or letters he wrote. The diary is slightly larger than my palm with three days per page, which leaves little room for entries. When first looking over the diary, I thought it was cool but didn’t feel it was worth sharing. I wasn’t sure there was much to write about or anything that would draw users in. However, through a basic search of Aaron’s name and the dates of the diary I found that the University of Iowa houses a collection of letters that he wrote during his time in the Army. A few of those letters coincide with entries in Pugh’s diary. I one letter, from December 8, 1863, he writes to his friends about where his unit had been camping and how things were going. He notes that they had taken some thirty prisoners in recent times. He also states that in the last few days “we chased some forty [,] five or six miles and captured several there.” This is where it gets interesting because looking back in the diary, there is an entry on December 4, 1863, that says “chased Bushwhackers caught four or five.” The combination of the letter and the diary really gives you a glimpse into what Pugh was experiencing at the time. The next few days in the diary go back to mentioning being at camp all day as if nothing ever happened. Another letter on January 16,1864, also coincides with the diary. While the letter seems to just be a general update to his friends, Pugh notes in his diary that he “wrote a letter home.” Making the connection between the letters and the diary adds a layer of excitement to the journey the items take the reader on.
Between the diary, letters, and online resources one can follow the journey of Aaron Pugh and his regiment through the Civil War. On July 30, 1864, Pugh was captured as a prisoner-of-war during McCook’s raid on the Atlanta and West Point Railroad near Newnan, Georgia. Pugh died a prisoner-of-war at Andersonville, Georgia, on October 4, 1864. Records from the time list his cause of death as “scorbutus,” i.e. scurvy. Pugh is buried in Andersonville National Cemetery, plot 10297. There is also a memorial to Pugh in Hill Cemetery in Boone, Iowa. Historic photos of Andersonville prison – taken when Pugh was there – are available online through the National Park Service.
It took a lot of digging to find some information on Pugh and the events he may have endured but in the end, I feel it was worth it. Until I stumbled upon it, the item had no past transactions of being used. I feel like now it has a new level of meaning and might someday be of use to a researcher.
Aaron Pugh’s diary, 1863-1864. Call Number: RH MS P926. Click image to enlarge.
Aaron Pugh’s first entry in his diary, July 4, 1863. “This is the Day that I am Dated to of Enlisted on the Enrollment papers,” he wrote. Call Number: RH MS P926. Click image to enlarge.
Aaron Pugh’s diary entry for December 4, 1863. “Chased Bushwhackers, he notes, “caught four or five.” Call Number: RH MS P926. Click image to enlarge.
Aaron Pugh notes that he “wrote a Letter home” in his diary entry for January 16, 1864. Call Number: RH MS P926. Click image to enlarge.
Aaron Pugh ended his diary on March 25, 1864, with the note “in camp and Raining.” Call Number: RH MS P926. Click image to enlarge.
