Browse Items (44 total)
- Collection: Kansas History and Life
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The Firebrand: Clay Center, Clay County, Kansas; December 1883-November 1884
Among the 713 newspapers in print in Kansas in the 1880s, a single short-lived newspaper provides insight into political shifts and battles in small towns. The Firebrand newspaper in Clay Center provided inflammatory rhetoric for a single year, also…
Cheyenne Dog Soldier Depredations on Settlers in the Northern Kansas Frontier; From 1864 to 1869
During the 1860s, Indian tribes raided frontier settlements across the plains, most notably the Cheyenne in North Central Kansas. Numerous counties in Kansas felt the scarring effect of the raids; however, the counties of Jewell, Mitchell,…
Technology, Mechanization, and the Life and Death of a Kansas Common Pasture:
The Story of the Westmoreland Common Pasture, Westmoreland, Pottawatomie County, Kansas,
1860-1940
Many small towns in Kansas had a shared dairy commons. The author of this study connects the commons in Westmoreland, Rock Creek Valley, with the strong German and Sudetenland settler culture; he also traces the life of the commons and its eventual…
Fact vs. Speculation: Finding the Meaning Behind the Westmoreland Slaughterhouse, Pottawatomie County, Kansas, 1859 – 1959
With Germanic and possibly surviving medieval European culture ways implanted in Pottawatomie County, a shared rural slaughterhouse in early Westmoreland provides clues. From oral accounts only, the author locates the site of the original…
Braving the Storm: Suicide in Clay County, 1893 – 1905
The author creates a vivid picture of turn of the century rural life as often impoverished,
harsh, and filled with economic loss. He examines the unusually high suicide rate among young farmers who lost their land in the Panic of 1893. This study…
harsh, and filled with economic loss. He examines the unusually high suicide rate among young farmers who lost their land in the Panic of 1893. This study…
Comparative Study of Contagious Diseases in Clay County
vs. Riley County: Diphtheria, Scarlet Fever, Smallpox,
Typhoid Fever, 1907-1917
Analyzing contagious disease records kept by physicians in two contiguous Kansas counties, this study reaches interesting conclusions about the role of the railroads in
early twentieth century Kansas. Rail lines are suspected disease vectors. The…
early twentieth century Kansas. Rail lines are suspected disease vectors. The…
Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Crime in Wabaunsee Township,
Wabaunsee County, Kansas 1858-1921
This study uses two Justice of the Peace record books to correlate patterns in early Wabaunsee Co., crime rates with major regional and national events. The results of this study show spikes in crime rates following events that put strain on the…
It’s A Cow. It’s A Buffalo. No, it’s A Beefalo!
Kansas 1886
This paper covers the history of the Beefalo in Kansas, a cross of between the Bison bison and domestic cattle. It explains the reasoning for breeding the two animals to make genetic progress. Extensive scientific and popular literature sources were…
A Rural Resort: Farming and Recreation in Scott County, Kansas at Beaver Beach, 1886-1933
The author uses historic accounts to recreate the details of Beaver Beach Amusement Park, which was a source of recreation for rural Scott County residents.
Early Historical Atlas Depictions of Agriculture in Kansas:
1880s-Early 1900s
My research project is over early historical depictions of agriculture in Kansas 1887. I am trying to figure out if farms in the historical atlas of Kansas truly represented agriculture; did the farmsteads, livestock, and crops really look like the…