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 34,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

The KU men’s basketball team practicing at Robinson Gymnasium, 1907.
KU’s first freestanding gym had just opened in May of that year.
Robinson was torn down in 1967 to make way for Wescoe Hall.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/13 1907 Practice:
Athletic Department: Basketball (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Reporting on the 1907-1908 basketball season and the importance of Robinson Gymnasium, the 1908 Jayhawker yearbook stated the following.

For the first time in the annals of Basket-ball at the University of Kansas did the Jayhawker quintet carry off the undisputed championship honors of the Missouri Valley; for such was the brilliant record made by Captain George McCune’s Basket-ball squad this winter, under the efficient coaching of “Phog” Allen. The season was in every respect the most satisfactory ever experienced here. The splendid new Gymnasium gave the boys a satisfactory court to practice on, while as a place for holding match games it has no equal in the West. For the first time the entire student body of the University really got behind the Team and pulled with it for victory. The crowds ranged everywhere from two hundred up to a thousand, while for enthusiasm even the most exciting Foot-ball contests could hardly have equalled [sic] the rooting and yelling at the spectacular Basket-ball contests this winter.

The KU men’s basketball team, 1907-1908.
Coach Phog Allen is standing in the back on the left,
with the dark sweater. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 66/13 1907/1908 Team:
Athletic Department: Basketball (Photos). Click image to
enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

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 34,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

It’s a snowy day on Mount Oread, so this week’s photo shows what a snow-covered KU looked like roughly one hundred years ago.

View of campus, covered in snow, looking south, 1915.
From left to right are Spooner Hall (then Spooner Library), Dyche Hall,
Green (now Lippincott) Hall, Old Fraser Hall, Chemistry Hall, Old Snow Hall,
Bailey Hall, Strong Hall, Robinson Gymnasium, Old Haworth Hall, and
Marvin Hall. Potter Lake is also visible. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 0/24/1 Snow 1915 Prints: Campus: Areas and Objects (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

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 34,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Happy New Year, Jayhawks! We don’t have any information about the context of this week’s photograph, but the students’ fun adornments definitely remind us of a New Year’s celebration.

A group, presumably of KU students, at a party, 1943-1944.
Note the bottles of soda, probably Coca Cola. University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG 71/0 1943/1944 Prints: Student Activities (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Please remember that Spencer Research Library is closed through Monday and will reopen on Tuesday, January 3rd.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

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 34,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Happy holidays, Jayhawks! We hope all of you will be able to spend time with loved ones during the holidays this year.

Remember that Spencer Research Library will be closed tomorrow (December 23rd) through Monday, January 2nd.

Members of Phog Allen‘s family in front of a Christmas tree, circa 1955.
Preliminary research suggests that the gentleman is Phog’s son Milton (“Mitt”)
with his wife Isabel and their children (from left to right) Judith, Jennifer, and Milton Jr.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 66/22 Forrest C. Allen Family
Undated Negatives: Athletic Department: Coaches and Staff (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants

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 33,500 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

KU athletes Wilt Chamberlain and John Traylor, December 1955.
Lawrence Journal-World Photo Collection, University Archives Photos.
Call Number: RG LJW 66/13 Chamberlain, Wilt: Athletic Department: Basketball:
Players (Photos). Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

This photograph appeared in the Lawrence Journal-World on Monday, December 19, 1955. The caption read as follows:

Two Reasons for the Party’s Success

Saturday afternoon’s Christmas party for about 30 youngsters at the Leavenworth Guardian Angel Home, a Catholic-operated orphan institution, was a raging success primarily because of the appearance of seven-foot Wilt Chamberlain, K. U. freshman basketball star, and John Traylor, 155-pound sophomore halfback for the 1955 Jayhawker football team. Basil Green, Lawrence contractor, planned the party and presented the kiddies with gifts, as well as arranging for the Kansas athletes to be on hand to present the group with some athletic gear. Left to right here are six-year-old Eddie Penrice, Chamberlain, Traylor, and four-year-old Paul Wiley. The youngsters were quick to befriend the two distinguished visitors and soon were bombarding them with all sorts of questions.

According to Lyanne Candy Ruff’s dissertation, Thrown on the Cold Charity of the World: Kansas Cares for Its Orphans, 1859-1919, the Guardian Angel Home was the oldest Catholic orphanage for African American children west of the Mississippi River (pp. 189-208).

You can see additional pictures of Wilt Chamberlain and John Traylor at the Guardian Angel Home Christmas party via Spencer’s online collection of University Archives photographs.

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Melissa Kleinschmidt and Abbey Ulrich
Public Services Student Assistants