Kenneth Spencer Research Library

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes stories, in Scientific American, 1896

May is National Bike Month, so this week we’re sharing some photographs from the Kansas Collection that show turn-of-the-century Kansans with their bicycles.

Group of bicyclists participating in a Leavenworth-Kansas City bicycle race, 1896.
Leavenworth Public Library Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 72.
Click image to enlarge.

Mattie Parrish with a bicycle, Junction City, Kansas, 1897.
Joseph J. Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

F, 1 Bicycle Corps with their bicycles, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1897.
Joseph J. Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Samuel Elliott with his children Maude, Jeannette, Sam,
and Louise on a bicycle, circa 1904. Photo by Alfred Lawrence,
734 Massachusetts, Lawrence, Kansas. Elliott Family Papers.
Call Number: RH MS-P 338. Click image to enlarge.

Group sitting on a loading dock with a bicycle, circa 1913.
Kansas Collection Photographs. Call Number: RH PH P1088.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Be sure to also check out additional digitized photos of bicyclists in the Pennell Collection.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

The following images were taken by Joseph Judd Pennell, a professional photographer in Junction City, Kansas, from 1888 to 1923. The images in the collection represent a comprehensive record of life in a turn-of-the-century small Kansas town and the nearby army post of Fort Riley.

Football team on Thanksgiving Day, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1896.
Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

A major U.S. Army post, Fort Riley was the site of a light artillery unit; several cavalry units, including the 9th and 10th black cavalry troops; one of the best cavalry schools in the world; and Camp Funston, a major army induction center during World War I.

Kitchen staff in the 20th Battery Dining Hall prepared for Thanksgiving dinner, Fort Riley,
Kansas, 1904. Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Soldiers gathered in the 20th Battery Dining Hall for Thanksgiving dinner, Fort Riley,
Kansas, 1904. Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Although primarily a studio portrait photographer, Pennell also went out into the community to photograph. He recorded business, social, church, and school activities; people’s prized moments and possessions; and events that touched everyone’s lives, such as floods, parades, President Theodore Roosevelt‘s visit, the racket nine-cent sale, polo games, and Chautauqua. Revealed within the photographs is the detail and complexity of rural and urban life. The collection as a whole shows how a town and its people changed over time, evidenced in things like the styles of fashion and consumer goods, the appearance of new buildings as the town grew, and the entrance of technology into everyday life. One of the most notable technological changes that Pennell documented was the gradual movement from horse to automobile power.

Dining room set for Thanksgiving dinner, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1905.
Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

6th Band dining room set for Thanksgiving dinner, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1913.
Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Spencer’s Pennell collection consists of approximately 30,000 glass plate negatives, 6,074 contact prints (some dry-mounted on boards), 302 original Pennell photographs, and ten studio register books containing Pennell’s negative identification system. The glass plate negatives vary in size from 4″ x 5″ to 12″ x 20″, with the bulk of the collection in the 5″ x 7″ format. There are also a small number of flexible negatives and forty-six large panoramic negatives.

Kathy Lafferty
Public Services

Several archival collections in our Kansas Collection contain images showing Christmas scenes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We’ve selected a few to show here; we hope they help get you in the holiday spirit!

Room interior with Christmas tree and presents, 1896.
Leavenworth Public Library Photograph Collection.
Call Number: RH PH 72. Click image to enlarge.

Louise and Margaret Walbridge sitting under the Christmas tree
with their toys, Profile Ranch, Russell County, Kansas, circa 1897.
Louis Chester Walbridge Collection. Call Number: RH PH 21. Click image to enlarge.

7th Battery dining hall set for Christmas dinner, Fort Riley, Kansas, 1906.
Joseph Judd Pennell Photograph Collection. RH PH Pennell.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Douglass Grade School, Manhattan, Kansas, Christmas 1945.
James E. Butler Collection. Call Number: RH MS-P 507. Click image to enlarge.

John A. Hodge with his grandson, ten-year-old Johnnie L. Hodge, Christmas 1949.
The pair are examining Owen Wilson’s new “knockdown” electric train cars.
Photograph by Dowdal H. Davis, son-in-law. Dorothy Hodge Johnson Collection.
Call Number: RH MS-P 549. Click image to enlarge.

Winner of Christmas decoration contest, Topeka, Kansas, circa 1950s. Photograph by Joe Douglas.
Joe Douglas Collection. Call Number: RH PH 90. Click image to enlarge.

Christmas decorations on Massachusetts Street at 7th, Lawrence, Kansas, undated.
Lawrence Photo Collection. Call Number: RH PH 18H.
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Happy Thanksgiving from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library! As you eat your turkey (or tofurky) and pumpkin pie this holiday, enjoy a taste of Thanksgivings past from the Kansas Collection.

Above: Humphrey, Lyman Underwood (Kansas Governor 1889-1893). Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Topeka, KS: [State Printer?], 1889. Call Number: RH P872. Click image to enlarge.

Above: Pennell, Joseph Judd (photographer). Football Team Thanksgiving Day, Fort Riley.  1896.
Pennell Photography Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell: print 64.2: box 3: Pennell number 9401.
Click image to enlarge.

Above:  Pennell, Joseph Judd (photographer). Men Gathered in 20th Battery Dining Hall, Fort Riley, for Thanksgiving
Dinner.  1904. Pennell Photography Collection. Call Number: RH PH Pennell: print 64.2: box 3: Pennell number 9401.
Click image to enlarge.

Above:  Hughes, Leon K. (photographer). Graves-Williams-Dandridge Family at Thanksgiving.  Wichita, Kansas. 1953.
L. K. Hughes Photography Collection.  Call Number: RH PH506, box 12, folder 8. Click image to enlarge.

Want to see more?  Visit the newly launched Leon K. Hughes: African American Life in Wichita Kansas online exhibition (and contribute identifications and additional information through its interactive comment feature).  Browse photographs from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library in the University of Kansas Luna Insight Image Collections.