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!

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!

Starting tomorrow, continuing students at KU can enroll for their spring classes. This weeks’ photos highlight the process before computers and the Internet: paper course descriptions, timetables, and forms, plus lots and lots of walking and waiting in line…especially if the course you wanted was already full.

To help explain the photos, we’ve also included the enrollment procedures for the Spring 1974 term.

Students picking up paperwork in Hoch Auditorium, 1968.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 14/0 1968 Prints:
Office of Admissions/University Registrar (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Finding departmental stations in Allen Fieldhouse, 1972.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 14/0 1972 Prints:
Office of Admissions/University Registrar (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Picking up Class Cards at departmental stations in
Allen Fieldhouse, 1976. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 14/0 1976 Prints: Office of
Admissions/University Registrar (Photos). Click image to
enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Enrollment procedures explained in the Timetable of Classes, Spring 1974 Enrollment Edition.
University Archives. Call Number: RG 14/0/3. Click image to enlarge.

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!

Not sure about what to wear to class, to Late Night in the Phog tomorrow night, or to some other upcoming event? Perhaps take some inspiration from the “Campus Fashions” section of the KU Student Handbook from 1965-1966.

“Suggested women’s dress for a variety of occasions” in the
KU Student Handbook, 1965-1966 (pages 65-66).
Note the parenthetical statement addressed to KU’s male students.
University Archives. Call Number: UA Ser 76/0/2. Click images to enlarge.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Brian Nomura
Public Services Student Assistant