Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Happy Galentine’s Day, everyone! Valentine’s Day, while perhaps more well-known and vastly more commercially successful, is not the only holiday in February that deserves some love. And if you ignore Groundhog Day, the Lunar New Year, Super Bowl Sunday, and Mardi Gras, you’ll finally land on one of our favorite holidays of the year: Galentine’s Day! Originally introduced by hit television show Parks and Recreation in 2010, February 13th is a day dedicated to celebrating sisterhoods across all genders and ages. Dozens of you may be wondering how to celebrate this historic day. It can be a lot of pressure to find the time (and money) to spend quality time with friends. There are only so many hours in a day to make your friends feel appreciated, after all!

Fortunately, we here at the Spencer Research Library have combed through our Digital Collections and curated a list of our top ten ideas to help make your Galentine’s Day historic! Gather your closest friends and try out these fun (and inexpensive) activities.

1.) Teach a cooking class together.

Nothing ages finer than friendship, and what “butter” way to show how “fondue” are than to make something delicious to share with one another! Let’s not “mince” words. You “knead” to show how well you “jell” together!

2.) Enjoy the nice weather with an outdoor activity.

With the weather so nice, why don’t you “rope” some of your closest friends into a fun outdoor activity? “Jump” into the spring-like weather and keep your lines from getting crossed because friendship is not something to “skip” out on!

3.) Serenade one another.

Why not express to your friends how much they mean to you through the transcendent power of music? Whether you throw on a classic or compose a new, original tune, dedicating a song to a friend can be the perfect way to keep your friendship harmonious.

4.) Play a rousing game of cards.

What’s wrong with a little competition every now and again? If you and your besties prefer a quieter night out of the spotlight, a game night can be an excellent way for everyone to be dealt a good hand.

5.) Spill the tea.

With good tea and conversation, you’ve got any get-together in the bag. Everyone could use some time to “steep” into someone else’s business and get that good-natured tea. Remember: sharing tidbits with friends helps you all “blend!”

6.) Design new outfits for one another.

When celebrating the ties that bind, gather a group of friends to create a new wardrobe together! Show how at ease you are with one another by knowing all your style quirks and colors. Friendship will never have felt so seamless, and you can count on being anchored for life!

7.) Hold a costume party.

What better way to show how authentic your friendship is than by pretending to be other people? Show new sides of yourself to old friends in a themed extravaganza celebrating famous friendships throughout history!

8.) Hold a sports tournament.

Take time out from your day-to-day to place your friendships front and center. It would be foul to leave your friends on the sidelines, so why don’t you call them in to assist you with a sports tournament? Just a little free throw-away idea for you and yours!

9.) Build a show pyramid.

If you’re looking for signs on how to clasp your friendships tight and provide that foundational base for your squad, cheer up because we have the ultimate friendship activity! Grip your friends tight together and prove to them all that this isn’t some sort of stunt but the real deal!

10.) Leave your life behind and take a trip.

If life is making it hard for you and your friends to “coupe,” don’t leave each other in “suspension” and shift your perspective with a trip! You’ll find your spirits starting to lift as you leave that exhaust behind and steer you and your friends into new adventures.

Charissa Pincock
Processing Archivist

I developed Spencer’s current short-term exhibit to compliment the research I conducted about Clinton Lake and the Wakarusa Museum as an undergraduate student. While writing my thesis paper last year, I used a lot of the materials featured in this exhibit as primary sources. I hope this blog post will elaborate more on the complex history of Clinton Lake and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from a community perspective.

Originally passed by Congress in 1917, the Flood Control Act directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin evaluating issues of flood control along tributaries of the Mississippi River. This included the longest tributary of the Mississippi River: the Missouri River, which feeds the Kansas (Kaw) River. On July 13, 1951, after a series of storms produced up to 16 inches of rain, the Kaw spilled over its banks. More than 115 cities along its path in eastern Kansas – most notably Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City – were flooded. In Lawrence, the river crested at 29.90 feet (11 feet above flood stage). The flood also washed out 1 million acres of land and nearly 10,000 farms. For many local community members, the Flood of 1951 represented a once-in-a-lifetime disaster. The flood forced 85,000 people to abandon their homes and amassed $760 million in damages (nearly $5 billion today).

In response, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a network of levees and reservoirs to prevent future flooding. The Flood Control Act of 1962 authorized funding to dam the Wakarusa River, a major tributary of the Kaw, and build Clinton Lake. In addition to flood control, Clinton Lake would also supply the city of Lawrence with water and provide a source of recreation for locals and tourists alike. Located southwest of Lawrence, Clinton Lake ushered in an era of excitement and uncertainty for the people of Douglas County. Despite protests from many Wakarusa River Valley citizens, the Corps of Engineers began buying land as early as 1968, and construction of the dam started in 1972.

Swift action on behalf of the Corps of Engineers prompted local residents of the Wakarusa region to form the Clinton Lake Landowner’s Association, which advocated for the landownership rights of Wakarusa River Valley citizens. According to Martha Parker, a lifetime resident of Clinton and an active community member, “they did nothing but lie to you. We used to have a saying, ‘How can you tell a Corps man is lying? When his lips start moving.'” An auxiliary group, the Clinton Lake Historical Society (or CLHS) was formed alongside the Landowner’s Association with the goal of gathering and preserving the region’s history, which many feared would be lost forever beneath the lake. Many local community members held feelings of great anxiety about the proposed construction of Clinton Lake. This anxiety was not only rooted in an intense fear of the unknown, which often accompanies forced displacement, but the idea that the disappearance of regional history meant the erasure of one’s personal identity. “People just had no idea what was about to happen to them,” Parker explained. “Tons of people were selling all their belongings, their land, everything. I kept telling folks, don’t sell. Nobody listened.” With the support of the Landowner’s Association and the CLHS, Parker went on to establish the Clinton Lake Museum, known today as the Wakarusa River Valley Heritage Museum.

However, it is important to remember that Clinton Lake displaced more than just rural residents of the Wakarusa River Valley. The process of artificial lake building results in the forced displacement and subsequent migration of different groups of peoples at different moments in time. Yet this process cannot be viewed from a static perspective. Dispossession is not merely an event; it is a process that continues long after initial physical removal. Beginning in the 1800s, Native American nations located within the Wakarusa River Valley were removed from their federally promised lands in order to make room for white settlers. This included the Kaw Nation (whose ancestral homelands included the river valley) along with tribes relocated from the East (namely the Shawnee and Delaware). Therefore, Clinton Lake serves as a force of continuous dispossession. Flooding the land removes any future opportunity for communities, both Native and non-Native, to return to their homes and restore their sense of historical, cultural, and spiritual connection to that place.

This exhibit is free and open to the public in the North Gallery through February 28th.

Claire Cox
Public Services Student Assistant
KU Graduate Student in History

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! I am sharing a collection of Lawrence Bank banknotes. According to the finding aid, “the collection contains four Lawrence Bank notes of three and five dollar denominations. These notes are imprinted with ‘The Lawrence Bank, Lawrence, Kansas’ but were probably issued by the Lawrence National Bank, which was established in the 1860s.”

Incorporated by the territorial legislature in 1858 and located on the east side of Massachusetts street in downtown Lawrence, the Lawrence Bank opened for business in 1860. According to an article in the Lawrence Business Magazine, “the Lawrence Bank issued currency in various denominations, but only bills for $1, $2, $3 and $5 are known to survive.” The existence of the Lawrence Bank was short-lived, as “Quantrill’s raiders robbed and burned the bank. It never reopened after the raid but continued to redeem currency presented for payment until it closed for good in January 1864.”

As seen in the images, the banknotes came into the library’s possession as fragments. They were pieced together and preserved by the Libraries’ conservation department. It’s not often that fragmented items are adhered to a secondary layer, but at times it is deemed necessary by our conservators and curators.

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! I am highlighting a Lawrence staple: the Bowersock Opera House program collection. Known today as Liberty Hall, the building on the corner of 7th and Massachusetts streets used to be known as the Bowersock Opera House and, later, the Bowersock Theatre. Purchased and renovated in 1882 by Justin DeWitt (J. D.) Bowersock, it was a well-known entertainment destination. Bowersock (1842-1922) moved to Lawrence in 1877 and held multiple jobs, mostly in banks. According to the Kansas Historical Society’s Kansapedia, he also “built and maintained the dam across the Kansas River, which powered many of the city’s manufacturers.” Spencer Research Library houses a few collections involving J. D. Bowersock, including his business papers.

The Opera House burned down in 1911 due to a fire started by poor electrical wiring. The building was completely rebuilt the following year. It became the Jayhawker Theater in the 1930s, and during the 1960s and 1970s it transformed into a night club and disco. In 1986, the building was renovated and renamed Liberty Hall. Today Liberty Hall continues to show movies and host live events. It also houses a video library and just recently opened a candy shop called Squishingtons.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

While each year we at Spencer process many new collections, we are also adding to preexisting collections through the continued generosity of our donors. From Pulitzer Prize-winning authors to LGBTQIA2S+ activists, an individual’s history doesn’t end when their collection comes through our doors. Individual and organizational histories continue to evolve past the snapshots their historical records provide, and we at Spencer aim to provide as complete a picture as we can! One collection we’d like to draw particular attention to is an addition to the Reuter Organ Company photograph collection (Call Number: RH PH 68). Through this collection, patrons can follow the construction of uniquely hand-crafted pipe organs before they were built into their new homes in institutions all over the world. And now, with a 2023 addition, patrons can see even more of the grandeur of these massive instruments as well as the incredible skill and historical craftsmanship of this Lawrence-based company!

The history of the Reuter Organ Company starts in 1917 when Adolph Reuter established the Reuter-Schwarz Organ Company with his business partner Earl Schwarz. After a disastrous tornado blew through the company factory, the company relocated to the Wilder Brothers Shirt Factory on New Hampshire Street in Lawrence, Kansas, after fulfilling a commission for the city’s Masonic Temple in 1919. Schwarz departed from the company shortly afterwards, and the company was renamed the Reuter Organ Company. In less than ten years, the company grew from a six-employee operation to over 50 full-time employees with over 50 commissions a year. However, after lean years during the Great Depression, the Reuter Organ Company faced a manufacturing ban on musical instruments during World War II and stayed afloat by producing government-sanctioned boxes for munitions materials with a skeletal crew. After the war, the company began to flourish again, and Reuter began hiring skilled staff with formal music education and expertise in organ construction. Through the knowledge base of its staff, the company began to experiment and further develop traditional construction techniques with new pipe organ technology to develop a signature “Reuter sound.”

After Adolph Reuter’s retirement in 1961, the company continued to evolve under the direction of longtime employee Franklin Mitchell. Mitchell, with then newly appointed production manager Albert Neutel, purchased the company in the early 1980s. Together, the two continued to refine the Reuter technical craft, particularly with the mechanical aspects of organ construction and the tonal sound of the company’s organs. After Mitchell’s retirement in 1997, Albert Neutel was joined in management by his son, Albert “J.R.” Neutel, a former longtime employee of the company. Under the Neutel family’s direction, the Reuter Organ Company moved operations from New Hampshire Street to a newly constructed and specially designed factory and administrative facility in northwest Lawrence in 2001. Sixteen years later, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary by holding a public open house in their newer facility and inviting old and new customers alike. By this time, the company had constructed over 2,200 pipe organs for public and private institutions around the world. The company had also built a respected name in organ rehabilitation within the pipe organ community. In 2022, amid the retirement of several longtime key staff members, J.R. Neutel, the company’s current president, decided to sell Reuter’s factory and administrative facility. A major selling point of the Reuter Organ Company is the institutional and craft knowledge of its staff. There is a strong tradition of old staff mentoring new staff and passing down historic pipe organ construction techniques. Operating at the same scale without that same level of institutional knowledge was deemed impossible. And in the beginning of 2023, the Reuter Organ Company further scaled back operations to only fulfilling the customary 11-year warranties offered to their past clients with special consideration for smaller projects.

To honor this historic company and to showcase a new addition to the Reuter Organ Company photograph collection, we here at Spencer have created a temporary exhibit to display images of a few of the beautiful pipe organs Reuter’s has constructed over the years and to dip into some pipe organ terminology. Have you ever wondered were the phrase “pulling out all stops” comes from or just how big the biggest musical instrument in the world can get? Come on by to learn more about this incredible company and the incredible instruments it made! The exhibit opened free to the public in Spencer’s North Gallery on November 1st and will continue to be on display until early January 2024. We hope you “stop” by!

Charissa Pincock
Manuscripts Processor