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.
Hello October! If you were around last year, you might remember that for the whole month of October I shared “spooky” items from our collections. This week we are going to ease into it by sharing an item from the Herd family papers. Also, if you’ve been following That’s Distinctive! for a while, you know I just love using the Herd family papers. The collection offers a wealth of items that cover a wide range of dates and topics, so I can almost always find something relevant to what I am looking for. The item shared today is a Halloween party invitation. It’s not just any regular invitation though; it’s in the form of a poem.
I promise to be all treats and no tricks this October. However, finding items to share sent me on quite the adventure. Having FIVE weeks to cover is a lot of material. Not wanting to overlap with last year or step on any toes of other items that have been shared in various blog posts, I went on a hunt for these items. Hence, I’m going to my trusty collection for this first item. No matter how you choose to celebrate (or not), I hope this spooky season is good to you.
A Halloween party invitation poem, undated. Herd Family Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1374. Click image to enlarge.
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 some watercolor paintings from the Lawrence, Kansas, Photographs Collection. Spanning the early 1800s through the twentieth century, the collection is an artificial collection comprising of “wide variety of photographic media, including prints, stereographs, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, glass plate negatives, glass plate positives, nitrate negatives, and other flexible negative types.” When a collection at Spencer Research Library is deemed “artificial,” it just means that not everything in the collection came to the library together. Artificial collections are often put together based on topic, in this case Lawrence, Kansas. The collection, which covers a wide array of subjects, spans 32 document cases, one slide box, two card file boxes, eleven oversize boxes, and ten oversize folders.
The watercolors shared this week were done by Orlando E. Wilson. I could not find any information about Wilson online. The paintings shared today show the Union Pacific Railroad depot, the Lawrence National Bank, and the Eldridge Hotel as it was before and rebuilt after Quantrill’s Raid. I stumbled upon these paintings while working on an exhibit I am currently putting together. They weren’t of use to me for the exhibit, but I found them fascinating enough to share. There are a few more within the collection that I am not including today.
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 some photographs from University Archives. Housing all things KU related, University Archives collects and preserves manuscripts, maps, blueprints, artifacts, photos, and more. The collection houses over a million photographs alone. As with last week’s post, this week’s images come from the library’s digital collections, which can be found on the “Find Collections” page of Spencer’s website. While not nearly all of the photos from University Archives are digitized, there are a ton to browse in the online collection.
The images shared this week show various scenes from inside KU Libraries. KU Libraries consist of six locations across campus: Watson (which is turning 100 years old), Anschutz, Spencer, Spahr Engineering, Art & Architecture, and Music & Dance. With over 5.6 million items on campus and even more available online, the libraries offer a wide variety of materials that serve users – especially KU students, faculty, and staff – and help them reach their goals. The Libraries’ mission is to “advance research, teaching, and learning at the intersection of people and ideas.” So while I boast that Spencer has something for everyone, every library on campus has something to offer.
Library bookstacks, probably in Watson Library, 1954. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/0 1954 Prints: University of Kansas Libraries (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
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Two views of the Undergraduate Reading Room at Watson Library, 1955. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/0 1955 Prints: University of Kansas Libraries (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Bookshelves for reserve materials, probably in Watson Library, 1996. University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/0 1996 Prints: University of Kansas Libraries (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
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 items from the Lawrence Journal-World photograph collection. Spencer Research Library holds the newspaper’s physical photograph collection, which contains about 545 boxes of negatives and an additional 113 boxes of prints. The collection spans the 1950s through 2001. Topics in the collection include athletics, anniversary celebrations, weather events, agriculture, organizational meetings, and more. The collection is organized chronologically by date rather than topic, which can make sorting through the photos an adventure for patrons.
The images shared today are from our digital collections, which can be found on the “Find Collections” page of Spencer’s website. The library has many digital collections available online for patrons to view from anywhere they please. Per the website, “KU Libraries Digital Collections provide free, public access to thousands of objects digitized from across Spencer’s holdings, including photographs, documents, and audiovisual materials.”
Bell Telephone employee Claude Milliken, March 1955. Lawrence Journal-World Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH LJW. Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Kevin Heck with Ringing Bros. circus elephants, September-October 1954. Lawrence Journal-World Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH LJW. Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
Three-year-old Chris Hunsinger looking at prizes during the Douglas County Derby, June 1957. Lawrence Journal-World Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH LJW. Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).
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 a few items from the Katie Armitage papers. Per the finding aid, “Katie Hart Armitage is a Lawrence, Kansas-based independent historian. [She] has worked both in a voluntary and in an official capacity at the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence and the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, as a researcher, consultant, educator, and tour guide.” The collection, which consists of eight boxes and three oversize folders, “has been arranged into three series: Programs and special projects, Correspondence and Lawrence community materials, and Research materials.”
The items shared today are recipes from the Great Depression era, plus a later article from the Lawrence Journal-World titled “Depression Memories.” In the United States, the Great Depression was a severe economic downturn that spanned the 1930s. The stock market crash of 1929 marked the beginning of a decade of poverty, deflation, and lost opportunities. As noted in the Journal-World article, families had little money to get by. They could only afford the essentials, which meant they had to get creative with their recipes.
I found these documents interesting because it can be surreal to think about living through an event such as the Great Depression. We often don’t think about how those times affected people and the memories they left behind. As you look at the recipes, think about whether you would want to try them. Being a picky eater, they don’t sound too appetizing to me. But, I am sure that I would do whatever was needed to get by.
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Recipes for Depression cake and wheat nut homemade cereal, plus a 1998 Lawrence Journal-World article of local residents’ recollections of the Great Depression, with accompanying recipes. Katie Armitage Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1479. Click images to enlarge.
