Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

This week we’re highlighting an old and disbanded fall tradition at KU: Hobo Day.

Students dressed up for Hobo Day, 1930-1931. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/9 1930-1931 Prints: Student Activities: Hobo Day (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Kevin Armitage from KU’s Department of History describes the event in “No More Hobohemia” on the KU History website:

Enterprising students soon developed the idea of combining the [then-annual] beer bust [in Kansas City] with a special event that featured old clothes, and Hobo Day was born. Prohibition briefly derailed the celebration, but in 1923 students reinvented the tradition as a massive pep rally held before the annual Kansas-Missouri football game.

The rehabilitated event featured students dressed in outlandish Hobo costumes, pep rallies, dances, bonfires and, at times, property damage and fisticuffs between students and professors. An article in the Kansan described the required outfit: “Old clothes, the older the better, plenty of paint, burnt cork, and…a corn-cob pipe are the main essential of makeup of a good ‘hobo.’” A red bandana carrying one’s worldly possession was recommended, but not considered absolutely essential.

Hobo Day was inadvertently discontinued in November 1939 so students could attend the national cornhusking championship near Lawrence.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The Kansas men’s basketball team begins its regular season schedule tomorrow night, and next Tuesday (November 18th) marks Forrest C. “Phog” Allen‘s 129th birthday. In celebration of these two events, this week we’re sharing some photographs of the legendary KU basketball coach. Allen was the Jayhawks’ head coach for thirty-nine years (1907-1909, 1920-1956), compiling a record of 590-219.

As kids/teenagers, Forrest and his brothers formed a family basketball team
known as the Amazing Allen Brothers. They’re shown here in 1904, around the time
Forrest (A4) became a student at KU. His nephew Homer Jr. was the team’s mascot and
went by the nickname Little Ham. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen Family 1904 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Coach Allen, 1928. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen 1928 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Coach Allen, 1950. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22
Forrest C. Allen 1950 Prints: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

We selected this week’s photograph in honor of Veterans Day, next Tuesday, November 11. For more information about this commemorative day and its origins at the end of World War I, see “History of Veterans Day,” provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Want to know more about how the Great War was felt on KU’s campus? Explore the online version of Spencer’s exhibit To Make the World Safe for Democracy: Kansas and the Great War.

Technical School for Drafted Men, Second Detachment, August 15-October 15, 1918.
Class in signalling, or “telegraphers wigwagging.” University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 29/0 1918 Prints: Military Service and ROTC (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

The student-soldiers in this photograph were part of the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), established at more than 500 colleges and universities across the country, including KU. Describing the SATC on campus, the 1919 Jayhawker yearbook stated that “students, after entering the University by voluntary induction, became soldiers in the United States Army, were uniformed and subject to military discipline with the pay of a private. Housing and subsistence was furnished by the government. They were given military instruction under officers of the Army and watched very closely to determine their qualifications as officer-candidates” (244).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The headless horseman tours campus on Halloween, 1976.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 71/0 1976-1977 Prints:
Student Activities (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 1,700 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Next Monday former KU basketball coaches Ted Owens, Larry Brown, and Roy Williams will gather with current coach Bill Self at Allen Fieldhouse for a program celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the facility. In anticipation of this special event, we’re sharing two photographs of the Fieldhouse under construction in 1954. To learn more about its origins, planning, construction, and dedication, see the article “Field House of Dreams” on the KU History website.

Allen Fieldhouse under construction, 1954. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/22/1 1954 Prints: Campus: Buildings: Allen Fieldhouse (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant