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 an item from our artificial portraits collection. Artificial collections contain smaller collections that have been grouped and stored together based on some similarity. Oftentimes, items in artificial collections do not come to the library together. Per the finding aid for the portraits collection, “many of the purchases were selected by Spencer Research Library’s Kansas Collection photo archivist during the 1980s and 1990s. The collection consists of real photographic postcards, lithographic print postcards, cabinet cards, cartes de visite, mounted and unmounted prints, glass plate negatives, and other visually-based formats of individuals, couples, and groups posed formally, often in photographic studios.” The items date from approximately 1868 to 1986.
The portrait shared today is of John Brown (May 9, 1800-December 2, 1859). Brown was an American abolitionist who, according to PBS, “could not be deterred from his mission of abolishing slavery.” Throughout his life, Brown settled in many various states, held numerous jobs, and fathered twenty children. He “first reach[ed] national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and fighting in Bleeding Kansas,” notes Wikipedia. For example, “in May 1856, Brown and his sons killed five supporters of slavery in the Pottawatomie massacre, a response to the sacking of Lawrence by pro-slavery forces.” In 1859, Brown was “captured, tried, and executed by the Commonwealth of Virginia for a raid and incitement of a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry.”
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.
If you haven’t already, you might be starting to wonder just how obsessed I am with Spencer’s Tibbetts collections. The answer is VERY. This week on That’s Distinctive! I am sharing a third collection from John C. Tibbetts: his portraits collection. The finding aid mentions that “this collection consists of over 560 portraits of musicians, writers, actors, and other notable figures, in gouache and pen and ink, done by Tibbetts. Each portrait is signed or inscribed by its subject(s). Tibbetts painted hundreds of portraits of the subjects he interviewed during his time working in television and radio.” The Tibbetts portrait collection consists of twenty oversized boxes and one oversized folder. An article covering Tibbetts’ first accession to the library can be found in the Lawrence Journal-World.
This week we share Tibbetts’ portraits of Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Sigourney Weaver, and Tim Burton. The collection houses signed portraits of many other well-known names and faces from Hollywood. Most portraits show individuals who were active in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Portrait of actor Jim Carrey by John Tibbetts, 1995. John C. Tibbetts’ Portraits Collection. Call Number: MS Q74. Click image to enlarge.
Portrait of actor Robin Williams by John Tibbetts, 1995. John C. Tibbetts’ Portraits Collection. Call Number: MS Q74. Click image to enlarge.
Portrait of actress Sigourney Weaver by John Tibbetts, 1986. John C. Tibbetts’ Portraits Collection. Call Number: MS Q74. Click image to enlarge.
Portrait of director Tim Burton by John Tibbetts, 1989. John C. Tibbetts’ Portraits Collection. Call Number: MS Q74. Click image to enlarge.
When the Spencer Research Library receives a collection of personal papers it can sometimes include materials that aren’t papers at all. Further, the creator of the papers may just be the most famous of a whole constellation of friends and family members whose stories are also revealed in those papers.
This first came to my attention, as an assistant in the Processing Department, with the personal papers of E. H. S. Bailey (call number: PP 158). Edgar Henry Summerfield Bailey arrived at the University of Kansas in the fall of 1883, where he taught chemistry for the next fifty years until his death in 1933. In addition to teaching he also authored the lyrics for the famous KU “Rock Chalk” chant and pioneered the detection and exposure of fraudulent practices on the part of food manufacturers in the early 20th century.
Late in his life, he took a great interest in genealogy, and his papers include much about his relatives in 19th century Connecticut. Among them, his maternal grandmother, Charity Birdsey Miller, is vividly represented by a surviving portrait in oil (artist unknown) that also arrived with the Bailey papers. A stern, sensible-looking woman, she is portrayed wearing eye glasses. Those spectacles are included with Bailey’s papers in the University Archives, as is the original case in which they were sold by a jeweler and optician in Meriden, Connecticut.
Top: Portrait of Charity Birdsey Miller. Personal Papers of E. H. S. Bailey. Call Number: PP 158, Oversize Folder 8. Bottom: Charity Birdsey Miller’s eye glasses and eye glasses case. Personal Papers of E. H. S. Bailey. Call Number: PP 158, Box 4, Folder 140. Click images to enlarge.
For further insight into the life of this woman, the collection includes her Last Will and Testament, as well as probate documents inventorying her possessions and their distribution among her three grown daughters.
Thus, a collection which might have been expected to address only the life of a Midwestern academic in the early 20th century can also be of great value in illuminating the life of a virtuous woman of modest property in early- and mid-19th century New England.
Larry M. Brow
Program Assistant, Spencer Research Library Processing Department
