A Journal of the Central Plains

Kansas History A Journal of the Central Plains

Volume 33, Number 1 ■ Spring 2010

A publication of the Kansas Historical Society By 1889 Cawker City in Mitchell County was holding its fourth A fair’s success depended upon good publicity, as is evidenced fair. It was by no means the only or even the first Kansas town to by the distractingly colorful posters produced to invite Kansans to sponsor such an event. In fact, there were fairs in Kansas before the these events. The 1889 Cawker City fair was advertised in a series of territory was made a state. The territory’s first fair was held in 1858 posters, one of which touted that “a first-class exhibition is guaranteed, at the now dead McCamish in Johnson County. By the 1870s most and the Managers will endeavor in every possible way to provide for Kansas counties hosted an annual fair. the amusement and comfort of both exhibitors and visitors.” The Early fairs in Kansas were a means of boosterism for towns late-September, Tuesday through Friday fair featured a “good band”; still being built by newly arrived settlers. Organized as opportunities open-competition races on its half-mile track; displays of livestock, at town promotion by local agricultural and mechanical societies, fruits, vegetables, household and agricultural products, needle- these fairs emphasized an area’s natural resources, agricultural work, and fine arts; and “a splendid programme of amusements.” produce, manufactured products, and skilled labor as a lure to attract The promised “grand balloon ascensions, with parachute descent,” increased settlement. It was only later, once communities were well depicted on the poster above, certainly fit this bill, and the performers established and more interested in increased production than mere that floated over the town helped to ensure that the 1889 fair sponsored survival, that Kansas fairs became mostly about farming. by the Cawker County District Fair Association was “conceded to be one of the finest in the state.” Kansas History A Journal of the Central Plains

VIRGIL W. D EAN Editor Volume 33 Spring 2010 Number 1 MELISSA T UBBS LOYA Associate Editor

Editorial Advisory Board EXPERIMENTAL AUTONOMY: DEAN 2 Thomas Fox Averill EMILY TAYLOR AND THE WOMEN’S Donald L. Fixico James L. Forsythe MOVEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY James N. Leiker OF KANSAS Kenneth M. Hamilton David A. Haury by Kelly C. Sartorius Thomas D. Isern Patricia A. Michaelis Craig Miner Rita G. Napier “HOLD THE LINE”: THE DEFENSE 22 Pamela Riney-Kehrberg OF JIM CROW IN LAWRENCE, James E. Sherow KANSAS, 1945–1961 Jennie A. Chinn p. 2 by Brent M. S. Campney Executive Director Kansas Historical Society

COVER : Travelers arrive and depart at Lawrence’s THE KANSAS POCKET MAPS OF 42 Atchison, Topeka and Santa OTIS B. GUNN AND DAVID T. Fe depot in the 1950s. Two of this issue’s articles MITCHELL: A CASE OF address life in the city NINETEENTH-CENTURY during the pivotal 1950s and 1960s. BACK COVER : PROMOTIONAL CARTOGRAPHY This 1865 edition of Gunn by Scott R. McEathron & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas is one of a series— made between 1861 and 1866—that is the focus of an article in this issue. ROY EDWARD FRENCH: PIONEER 54 p. 30 OIL MAN, PHILANTHROPIST, Copyright © 2010 Kansas State Historical Society, Inc. AND DOG BREEDER ISSN 0149-9114. Presidential Address Kansas History (USPS 290 620) is published quarterly by the Kan- by James K. Logan sas State Historical Society, Inc., 6425 SW 6th Avenue, Topeka, Kansas, 66615-1099 (www.kshs. org). It is distributed to members of the Kansas State Historical So- REVIEWS 58 ciety, Inc. Single issues are $7. Pe- riodicals postage paid at Topeka, Kansas, and additional mailing ofﬁce. Postmaster: Send address changes to Kansas History, 6425 BOOK NOTES 63 SW 6th Avenue, Topeka, Kansas, 66615-1099.

Printed by Jostens, Topeka, Kansas. p. 42 Dr. Emily Taylor, dean of women at the University of Kansas, consults with a student. Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence.

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 33 (Spring 2010): 2–21

2 KANSAS H ISTORY EXPERIMENTAL AUTONOMY : Dean Emily Taylor and the Women’s Movement at the University of Kansas

by Kelly C. Sartorius

n 1958 Dr. Emily Taylor (1915 –2004), dean of women at the University of Kansas (KU), pressed senior women to accept keys to their dormitories and sororities. Although issuance of keys on college campuses today is a mere detail at the beginning of the fall semester, in the 1950s that was not the case. Instead, college women found their access to university housing constrained by a complex set of rules created by women’s student government and Iultimately determined by administrators. In Lawrence, Kansas, Dean Taylor’s efforts eventually made KU the second campus in the country to allow senior women keys and the ﬁrst to allow all women the freedom to come and go as they pleased while in college. 1 As a university administrator, Taylor laid the groundwork for the eventual elimination of the university rules—parietals—that functioned in place of parental oversight for female students. Taylor’s dissolution of regulations received little attention in 1958. At the time, Taylor ranked as one of the youngest deans of women at a major public institution of higher education in the United States. Nevertheless she broached the possibility of keys for senior women in her second year at KU, though she held no tenure at the university and was the only high-level female administrator on campus. At this same time the position of dean of women had begun

Kelly C. Sartorius is a PhD candidate at Kansas State University in the Department of History. She completed her master’s degree in American studies at the University of Maryland and holds bachelor of arts degrees from Kansas State University and Wichita State University. She currently serves as senior director of development for the Kansas State University Foundation.

The author wishes to thank Dr. Albert N. Hamscher for his helpful comments and close readings of this article, Dr. Sue Zschoche for her insights on the topic, and Dr. Donald R. Levi for his suggestions regarding the structure and organization of the material. In addition, the author appreciates the comments of two anonymous reviewers who strengthened the article through their recommendations.

1. The ﬁrst institution of higher education to provide women with keys was located in Colorado. Emily Taylor, interview by author, summer 1997, Lawrence, Kansas. The author has not been able to determine which school implemented this policy prior to the University of Kansas. Taylor stated that KU was the ﬁrst to provide all women keys. Taylor, interview by author, December 13–14, 2003, Lawrence, Kansas. All interviews by the author are in the personal collection of the author.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 3 to disappear nationally as deans of students took over Within this context, Taylor’s example bears on several their responsibilities. 2 Any of these elements might have historiographical issues: the development of the second derailed Taylor’s plans. Instead the keys she gave her wave of the women’s movement, the roots of student social students quietly opened the door for significant change unrest in higher education, and the primacy of student- in 1966, when the university eliminated curfews for most initiated resistance to campus authorities during the late KU women. At that point, many parents and taxpayers 1960s. When considering cultural change in the twentieth howled in protest. Letters of opposition poured into century, early women’s historians believed that little Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe’s office. Not surprisingly, feminist activism existed between women’s suffrage—the Taylor’s leadership came under scrutiny. Historical first wave of the women’s movement—and the second wave studies of KU student life have noted the 1966 furor over in the late 1960s with the rise of women’s liberation. These eliminating closing hours for women’s residences, but two “waves” reflected different feminist approaches, with little attention has been paid to how the elimination of the first illustrating liberal feminism working to equalize parietals began and how Taylor seeded a flourishing women’s status through existing governmental and social women’s movement at KU. 3 structures and the second seated in radical feminist action, Kansas, a conservative state in the nation’s center, which proposed profound transformation by rejecting seemed an unlikely locale for the activism of the society’s norms as male-defined and fundamentally sexist. women’s movement, civil rights, and student protest. In the 1980s, gender historians began to clarify this vision However, the state experienced the same tensions by revealing that women’s activism existed between the reverberating nationwide in post-World War II America. “first” and “second waves,” particularly during the post- Aside from the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision to war consensus years. 5 desegregate schools, Brown v. Board of Education , Topeka, In other scholarship, historians of student social Kansas , the state also experienced civil rights and student movements on college campuses in the late 1960s have protests. In Wichita, students carried out drugstore sit- maintained that student movements began on the east ins predating those in Greensboro, North Carolina. At and west coasts and consisted of student resistance KU, bombings, arson, and two deaths—one of a KU against university administrations. Like the scholarship student—placed the campus in the midst of the turmoil on the women’s movement, recent research on campus facing more commonly referenced schools like Berkeley unrest has shown more nuance in student activism than and Kent State. Furthermore, by the early 1970s, a group scholars initially believed. For instance, historians have of women, the February Sisters, protested the lack of recently published local histories showing that student daycare and access to women’s healthcare at KU by protest occurred in the heartland of the United States taking over the East Asian Language building until their contemporaneously with that on the coasts. 6 However, demands were met. 4 5. Books such as Marty Jezer’s The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945–1960 (Boston, Mass.: South End Press, 1982) encouraged the idea that 2. Kathryn Nemeth Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women?: the 1950s were a time of repression. For further discussion of women’s Changing Roles for Women Administrators in American Higher activism during the 1950s, see Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor, Survival In Education, 1940–1980” (PhD diss., University of Kansas, 1996); Anne the Doldrums: The American Women’s Rights Movement, 1945 to the 1960s Hoopingarner Ritter, former Associated Women Students (AWS) student (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Susan Ware, “American leader, provided the information regarding Taylor as a young dean. Women in the 1950s: Nonpartisan Politics and Women’s Politicization,” in Ritter, interview by author, February 17, 2009, Arlington, Virginia. Women, Politics and Change , eds. Louise A. Tilly and Patricia Gurin (New 3. One reason for this research gap is that the dean of women’s files York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1990); Linda Eisenmann, Higher Education are sparse for Taylor’s tenure at KU. Taylor stated that she destroyed for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins the majority of her files because she did not want disciplinary cases to University Press, 2006); Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional become public. Although others have completed short interviews with Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Chicago, Ill.: University of Taylor, the author conducted interviews over a period of six years in Chicago Press, 1993); Joanne Meyerowitz, ed., Not June Cleaver: Women Lawrence, Kansas. In addition, on subjects about which Taylor did not and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple elaborate, the author’s interviews with former employees and students University Press, 1994). have been extremely helpful. For discussions of the student movements 6. Douglas Rossinow, The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, at KU, see Beth Bailey, Sex in the Heartland: Politics, Culture, and the Sexual Christianity, and the New Left in America (New York: Columbia University Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999); Rusty L. Press, 1998) shows that at the University of Texas (UT) the “movement” Monhollon, “ This is America?”: The Sixties in Lawrence, Kansas (New York: began contemporaneously with protests on other campuses located on Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). the East and West coasts. It is important to note that the UT efforts were 4. For further discussion of the civil rights movement in Kansas, see fostered in Christian activism rather than rooted in the communist and Gretchen Cassel Eick, Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jewish activism seen in the northeast. Both Bailey and Monhollon Midwest, 1954–1972 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001). On the disproved that student movements originated solely on the coasts, February Sisters see also Monhollon, “ This is America?” ; Bailey, Sex in along with Mary Ann Wynkoop, Dissent in the Heartland: The Sixties at the Heartland . Indiana University (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).

4 KANSAS H ISTORY Kansas, a conservative state in the nation’s center, seemed an unlikely locale for the activism of the women’s movement, civil rights, and student protest. And indeed, female students at KU in the 1950s and 1960s did not initiate social change on campus. Pictured here two female students study in their KU dorm room.

these historians of unrest tend to see the 1950s and early demonstrations against war, racial exclusion, and the 1960s as an age of consensus and traditional gender second wave of women’s liberation. 8 roles interrupted only in the late 1960s by a surge This article calls for closer examination of how the from enlightened, usually male, students. 7 These same relationships between administrators and students historians often posited that youth opposed university shaped both the women’s movement and the social administrators who resisted reform and tried to quell movements that manifested on college campuses across

7. For instance, Rossinow, asserted that the “somewhat surprising 8. For further discussion of student movements, see Terry H. emergence of a ‘new’ political left following the politically conservative Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties (New York: Oxford University era of the 1950s. . . . stemmed from white youth participation in civil Press, 1996); David Burner, Making Peace with the 60s (Princeton, N.J.: rights activism in the early 1950s and 1960s.” Rossinow, The Politics Princeton University Press, 1996); Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, of Authenticity , 1. Also, Renée Lansley argued that the majority of the Days of Rage (Toronto, Canada: Bantam Books, 1987); Todd Gitlin, The studies of student movements on campus focused on free speech and Whole World Is Watching: The Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of Vietnam protest as primarily male-driven events. Renée N. Lansley, the New Left (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Kenneth “College Women or College Girls?: Gender, Sexuality and In Loco J. Heineman, Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American State Parentis on Campus” (PhD diss., The Ohio State University, 2004), Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York: New York University Press, ii–iii, 3. For further discussion of the marginalization of the women’s 1993); Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism movement within student protest historical scholarship, see endnote 4 in the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Kirkpatrick in Alice Echols, Shaky Ground: The ‘60s and Its Aftershocks (New York: Sale, SDS (New York: Random House, 1973); Melvin Small et al., Give Columbia University Press, 2002), 237. Echols also discussed (p. 52) Peace a Chance: Exploring the Vietnam Antiwar Movement (Syracuse, N.Y.: recent scholarship questioning the assumption that the late 1960s were Syracuse University Press, 1992); Irwin Unger, The Movement: A History an “exceptional decade” fostering a surprising change. of the American New Left (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 5 the country. As this case study will show, Taylor not only universities met calls for changes to the curriculum fostered women’s student activism at KU, but she also for female students. Home economics programs grew personified a link between the results of the earlier liberal rapidly from their mid-1800s roots and post-WWII women’s movement and the later wave of radical feminist enrollment trends showed a decrease in core liberal arts activism in the late 1960s. Although women’s subordinate and professional programs and increases in areas like experiences in civil rights and new left organizations nutrition and family studies that emphasized domesticity. are widely understood to have created young women’s As female undergraduates increasingly enrolled in such political consciousness in the 1960s, this article illustrates programs, according to the historian Elaine Tyler May, that women’s activism at KU grew from administrative “older professional women watched helplessly as early influence. Furthermore, this case study provides new feminist gains were depleted. . . . But at the time, those insights about the evolution of feminist action in higher who bemoaned the trends were overshadowed by those education during the 1950s, an area that has been “under who welcomed the domestication of women’s education examined and undervalued,” according to historian as a way of meeting a need expressed by many educated Linda Eisenmann. 9 The events at KU show that female women who found few opportunities for careers.” 11 students did not initiate social change on campus in the Although home economics reflected a serious effort based 1950s and early 1960s, but rather that Taylor pushed on scientific research to professionalize women’s place in women to reconsider their normative views of gender the home, by the 1950s marriage preparation became the roles. Taylor exemplified liberal feminist activism in the subtext for many women’s education. By 1956, the year 1950s on a college campus in the heartland. Her example, KU hired Taylor, one quarter of all urban, white, college though, also reveals the more nuanced nature of student women married while attending college in part because it movements on other campuses as her activities do not was increasingly difficult for women to find professional support the assumption that students achieved all change positions and their chances to marry decreased the longer in this period by resisting university administrators. they waited. At KU the women’s 1953–1954 handbook written by student leaders included more tips on social he consensus culture of post-war America life than on academics. In the “Housing” section under shaped the relationship between student “Him Time,” it informed freshmen that “since none life and the profession of student personnel of us like to be ‘caught’ with p.j.’s, pinned-up hair, or administration in the late 1940s and 1950s. The cold-creamed faces, we have specified calling hours for ColdT War created a society focused on stable domesticity men.” 12 The handbook authors clearly thought putting both in public policy and in homes across the country. a woman’s best appearance forward and controlling Marriage rates rose and the baby boom resulted. In access to female living quarters critically important for higher education, Progressive Era advances for women’s campus success. education were rolled back. 10 Across the country, These realities, along with the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, significantly affected women’s enrollments and the production of female 9. Linda Eisenmann, “A Time of Quiet Activism: Research, Practice graduates. 13 This act, commonly called the GI bill, and Policy in American Women’s Higher Education, 1945–1965,” History of Education Quarterly 45 (Spring 2005): 17. The argument that brought large numbers of men to campuses across the the second wave of the women’s movement was born from women’s country and changed university demographics. In 1920, participation in civil rights protests and the new left belongs to Sara M. Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil women constituted 47.3 percent of enrollments, but by Rights Movement & the New Left (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1979). the mid-1950s the proportion decreased to a third of the See also, Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, student body. At KU alone, between 1945 and 1949 a 1967–1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 23–50. Monhollon, “ This is America?,” 200, stated that the women’s movement at KU also came from these experiences, though he also credited Taylor with the growth of liberal feminist views at KU. 10. The post-war consensus culture is understood to have existed 11. May, Homeward Bound, 79–83; quotations on 81 and 83. between 1945 and 1965, although it is often referred to as “the 1950s,” 12. Associated Women Students, “KU Cues: Official Handbook for when it was at its height. Two books of many that examine this culture Women,” 1953–54, 1954/55 folder, Chronological Records, 1947/48– are: Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold 1964/65, Associated Women Students, Box 1, University Archives, War Era (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1988); and Lizabeth Record Group 67/12, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Cohen, A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Kansas, Lawrence (hereafter cited as “AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12”). Postwar America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003). Lynn D. Gordon, 13. The GI bill resulted in the “displacement” of many women Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (New Haven, Conn.: according to Linda Eisenmann, Higher Education for Women in Postwar Yale University Press, 1990) dates this period from 1890 to 1920. America, 54–55.

6 KANSAS H ISTORY After WWII marriage preparation became the subtext for many women’s education. By the mid-1950s one quarter of all urban, white, college women married while attending college in part because it was increasingly difﬁcult for women to ﬁnd professional positions and their chances to marry decreased the longer they waited. Above men and women attend class at KU in 1950.

“flood of veterans threatened to drown the institution.” professional administrative positions available to women Between 1945 and the 1959–1960 school year, enrollments at coeducational state universities. 16 Both dean positions increased from 6,300 to over 11,700 students. In the 1947– began as dormitory disciplinarians providing oversight 1948 academic year, the number of students spiked when on curfews and student behavior in the late nineteenth veterans numbered 6,488 of 10,900 KU students. In 1946 century, with the dean of women enforcing rules of Chancellor Deane W. Malott said he welcomed all GIs conduct in order to prohibit sexual activity and ensure at KU, noting that he thought female students would female students’ virtue. The dean of men handled all be pleased to have veterans on campus and that the male student needs while the dean of women managed men would “in turn attract more girls [to KU]. Thus . . . female student concerns in what was a sex-segregated [enrollment] expansion spirals upward.” 14 For established system. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the academic women who saw advances decline during two roles evolved into administrative posts that reported the Great Depression, these dramatic increases in male to the chief university officer. Their responsibilities enrollment meant that the gains of the Progressive Era for revolved around counseling, the extracurricular portion women in various professional fields further eroded. In of students’ experiences, and discipline. addition, the percentage of women earning PhDs declined The influx of veterans, however, caused many and continued to do so throughout the 1950s. 15 universities to focus on male students as administrators For university administrators, the rising enrollments wrestled with inadequate classroom space as well as increased their workload and rearranged the historical limited student housing. This transfer of attention, organizational structure of campus administration. combined with several other factors, caused universities Traditionally the counterpart to the dean of men, the to eliminate or weaken dean of women positions. In dean of women often held one of the only high-level the 1920s, schools began receiving higher accreditation marks when student personnel operations consolidated under a single dean of students. In addition, the 14. Clifford S. Griffin, The University of Kansas: A History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974), 502, 503, 530, 617. 15. Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women,” 85. Susan Levine, Degrees of Equality: The American Association of University Women and the 16. Deans of women were not the only women in academic Challenge of Twentieth-Century Feminism (Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple administrations. At land grant institutions, deans of colleges or University Press, 1995), 91. departments of home economics were often women.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 7 result of this shift in organization dramatically changed the influence of women in coeducational university administrations. Deans of women assumed other titles such as “counselor,” as they moved on organizational charts from positions parallel to deans of men to posts supervised by them. The adjustment meant that the only high-level female administrator on many campuses lost her position on the major committees charting the direction of the university. Until women began assuming other faculty and administrative roles on campuses in the 1980s, the new structure systematically excluded their voices at the top of many coeducational campuses across the country. 17 At KU, however, the influence of the dean of women did not weaken despite the local presence of national factors. In June 1953, Chancellor Franklin Murphy— himself a young chancellor in his thirties—followed the national trend and streamlined his student personnel staff “in a move to enlarge and coordinate personnel services for students” by promoting Dean of Men Laurence C. Woodruff to the new position of dean of students. Although the organizational chart showed the dean of women as subordinate to Woodruff, Murphy nevertheless continued to allow the dean of women direct access to the chancellor’s office, as noted in the press release announcing the change: “‘This move in no way affects the right of direct access to the chancellor’s office possessed by the dean of women,’ Dr. Murphy said. ‘She retains the primary responsibility for women’s activities.’” 18 In 1955, when Taylor’s predecessor, Martha Peterson, announced that she had accepted the dean of This cover of an Associated Women Students handbook from 1954– 1955 reflects at least a few ideas Taylor would agree with when she women post at the University of Wisconsin, Woodruff became KU’s dean of women in 1956, particularly that female students used her resignation as the opportunity to argue for the were at the university “to study and to learn to think.” At the same creation of an associate position reporting to him for all time, however, handbooks from this period generally focused more on social life than on academics, informing female students, for example, women’s student affairs. Woodruff asserted: “Such a that “since none of us like to be ‘caught’ with p.j.’s, pinned-up hair, or change of course is not at all acceptable to the militant cold-creamed faces, we have specified calling hours for men.” Cover suffragette but is the plan currently being followed by courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. most of the institutions which we might like to emulate.” When Murphy initially offered employment to Taylor,

Depression forced administrative cuts that encouraged universities to place student personnel under a single 17. Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women,” 3–4, 80–99. Further discussion of such points may be found in Dorothy Truex, “Education administrator. As a result, deans of women positions of Women, the Student Personnel Profession and the New Feminism,” began to disappear. Between 1940 and the end of 1959 Journal of National Association of Women Deans and Counselors 35 (Fall 1971): 13–21. these forces caused numerous deans of women to lose 18. In this reorganization of student administrators, Murphy also their jobs to the new dean of students who was invariably promoted the assistant dean of men, Donald K. Alderson, to dean a man, often the former dean of men. Moreover, in 1940, of men. KU News Bureau, June 27, 1953, Dean of Students folder, Correspondence, Department: Aids and Awards—Dormitories 86 percent of deans of women reported directly to the 1953/54, Chancellor’s Ofﬁce, Franklin D. Murphy, Box 1, University chief ofﬁcer at their institution. By 1962, only 30 percent Archives, RG 2/11/5, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence (hereafter cited as “Murphy Papers, UA, RG had the same access to the primary decision-maker. The 2/11/5”).

8 KANSAS H ISTORY When Taylor’s predecessor announced she was leaving KU, then Dean of Students Laurence Woodruff used her resignation as the opportunity to argue that the dean of women should become an associate position reporting to him, asserting that “such a change of course is not at all acceptable to the militant suffragette but is the plan currently being followed by most of the institutions which we might like to emulate.” When Taylor was initially offered the job she was asked to report to Woodruff, pictured here talking with a group of KU students. She refused the position under those terms. Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. he asked her to report to Woodruff. She refused the activities to an assistant as well. In fact, Taylor recalled position under those terms, requesting a direct report to later that people often thought Woodruff was the dean of the chancellor. 19 By complying with her request, Murphy men, and Alderson was the assistant dean of men. 21 rebuffed Woodruff and instead solidified a woman’s The personnel assigned to the two offices further voice in the KU administration. 20 illustrate the differences in the roles of dean of men and Salary data also reflected Murphy’s support for a dean of women at KU. Taylor began with one assistant strong dean of women. During the 1957–1958 school year, in 1956–1957. By 1975, when she left KU, a total of eleven he paid Taylor a salary of $8,000, while Dean of Men Don salary lines and a graduate assistant comprised her staff. Alderson (the former assistant dean of men) received only In comparison, the dean of men’s office relied primarily on $6,700. These salaries illustrate the informal operation graduate student help. Taylor amassed a larger staff than of KU’s student personnel administration most clearly. the dean of men and acquired significant influence at a Despite their titles Woodruff functioned as the dean level similar to the dean of students. At KU, reorganizing of men with Alderson as an assistant responsible for student affairs did not result in the dean of women losing discipline. The dean of women remained responsible to her influential position as she did at other institutions. the chancellor and she eventually delegated disciplinary Instead, by continuing the sex-segregated structure, Murphy provided Taylor a platform to implement 19. Woodruff to Murphy, March 8, 1956, Dean of Students folder, activities for female students and to experiment with her Correspondence, Department: Medicine—Zoology, 1955–56, Murphy vision of fostering women leaders. Papers, Box 3, UA, RG 2/11/5; Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003. 20. Murphy wrote to Woodruff to deny Woodruff’s request to eliminate the “dean of women” title in favor of an assistant dean or 21. In 1957–1958 Woodruff received a salary of $10,500; Taylor an associate dean title. Murphy noted that it was “desirable to clothe $8,000; and Alderson $6,700. Even with tentative increases suggested the woman in the office with the additional dignity that goes with the for the 1958–1959 school year, Woodruff was slated to earn $11,000; phrase, ‘dean of women,’” and also suggested that “our system has Taylor $8,500; and Alderson $7,000. Department: All Student Council— worked quite sell since 1952.” Murphy to Woodruff, March 16, 1956, Chancellor’s Office (Lawton) 1957/58, Murphy Papers, UA, Box 1, RG Dean of Students folder, Murphy Papers, Box 3, UA, RG 2/11/5. 2/11/5; Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 9 initiatives, and students—particularly women—viewed them as the ultimate authority. 22 Under such an arrangement in the 1950s, KU women were accustomed to curfews that mirrored the types of control that a parent commonly imposed when they lived at home. At KU, the Associated Women Students (AWS)—a student organization for women—governed residence halls and sororities, overseeing women’s student life on campus. 23 As part of a national organization, the Intercollegiate Association of Women Students (IAWS), the AWS implemented numerous rules for all women’s living groups, ranging from a code of closing hours (curfews) for the housing units to regulations governing men’s calling hours, women’s calling hours at men’s living quarters, “quiet hours” for study and sleeping, and “late permissions” for returning home later than curfew. Enforcement of rules was also heavily codified by the AWS, with minor violations handled by one’s residence and “severe” or repeated cases by the AWS judiciary board, which consisted of AWS student officers and the dean of women. 24 Officers of a living unit, housemothers, and dormitory counselors often referred a woman to the judiciary board for what would Salary data from early in Taylor’s tenure at KU reflects that the be judged trivial infractions by today’s standards, such administration supported a strong dean of women. During the 1957– as arriving home between one and five minutes late for 1958 school year, Taylor was paid a salary of $8,000, while Dean of curfew several times. Ultimately, at KU and universities Men Don Alderson, who effectively operated as an assistant to Dean of Students Laurence Woodruff, received only $6,700. Photo of Alderson across the country, responsibility for ensuring discipline courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of among female students belonged to the dean of women Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. and safety provided the rationale for the rules. Although security was one factor, these rules primarily limited Taylor’s influence and the effectiveness of her staff unsupervised time for male and female students in order were determined by both her administrative philosophy to enforce social norms against premarital sex. 25 of student self-governance and the wider assumption that student personnel administrators fulfilled university obligation for in loco parentis through parietal rules. In 22. Emily Taylor, “Optimum Use of Students in Faculty Committees,” other words, they acted as university agents to maintain Journal of the National Association of Deans of Women 17 (March 1953): 126–29. At KU in 1943, students and administration agreed on a new discipline in the place of students’ parents. Most universities student government constitution that created an All Student Council developed a dual system of rules for student conduct. One (ASC) of thirty members to set the policy for student life. The Board set, governed by the dean of men, applied to all students, of Regents approved the program, with the stipulation that all ASC regulations would be subject to the chancellor’s veto. Griffin, The including women. The other set concerned only women University of Kansas, 637. and was overseen by the dean of women. As the forces of 23. “A.W.S. Regulations for University of Kansas Women, 1958–59,” 1957/58—1958/59 folder, Taylor Correspondence, Records 1952/53– consolidation in student personnel pushed men to the top 1965/66, Dean of Women’s Papers, Box 1, University Archives, RG of the administrative structure, the two-fold set of rules 53/0, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence. By 1958 the Lawrence Daily Journal-World reported that the remained. Often, these rules were peer-reviewed—or “self- AWS had grown to a significant stature on campus in its first twelve governed”—by students through student organizations. years: “AWS Grows to Its Present Stature From Small Group,” Lawrence Daily Journal-World , September 1958, clipping, 1958/59 folder, AWS This structure allowed university administrators to Records, UA, RG 67/12. ascertain student opinions on various issues by crafting a 24. “AWS Regulations for University Women, 1956–57,” 1956/57 “channeling procedure between it [student government] folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. 25. Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women?,” 25–27; Lansley, and the administration of the University.” However, “College Women or College Girls?,” ii–iii, 1–5; Bailey, Sex in the administrators retained their right to “veto” student Heartland , 78–79.

10 KANSAS H ISTORY In contrast, the rules for men nationally and at KU included no curfews or closing hours. Unlike women, men possessed keys to their dormitories, fraternities, and rooming houses, and came and went as they pleased. 26 At KU men’s rules were few, focusing primarily on appropriate and legal consumption of intoxicating beverages and proper behavior at such social events as dances and other university extracurricular activities. At KU officers of the All Student Council (ASC), under the direction of the dean of men, set these rules that applied to every student. Similar to the AWS, the ASC punished infractions with a disciplinary board. Because women were governed by both AWS and ASC rules, their extracurricular lives were tightly controlled. However, the ASC rules left men largely free to do as they chose with only abbreviated regulations to govern their behavior. When comparing the two sets of rules at KU and other universities, it is clear that the in loco parentis structure functioned by policing women’s campus life with the assumption that once the women returned to their housing, most men would as well. Thus, the women’s rules existed primarily to create and maintain gender role boundaries, circumscribing women’s daily Taylor closely guided the female student leaders she worked with. She activities and providing a process for the university met at her home with the Associated Women Students Senate president administration to enforce propriety. This inequitable on Sundays or in her office on Mondays in preparation for the weekly AWS Senate meetings. “She fed me ideas,” said Anne Hoopingarner application of the concept of in loco parentis meant that Ritter, AWS president during the 1960–1961 academic year. “I knew “socially acceptable standards” were maintained largely exactly what I was supposed to do when I ran the meeting. . . . I felt through the discipline of women rather than of men. very enabled and knowledgeable. Looking back, I was her disciple.” Photograph of Hoopingarner from the 1961 Jayhawker yearbook. Although some women’s historians have labeled sex-segregation in coeducational institutions as limiting for women, Lynn Gordon argued that the first AWS that the KU position interested her because the AWS chapter at the University of California-Berkeley actually reported only to the dean of women and the chancellor provided a base of power and a “means of pushing for for administrative approvals. She knew that under this equality and education” during the Progressive Era. arrangement she could “get more done.” In her 1955 The separation of women from men provided women article, “Use of Students on Faculty Committees,” Taylor influence as they developed their leadership skills and argued that student personnel administrators should built support for their initiatives as a group. Without routinely provide student leaders with opportunities to men in their organizations, social norms did not relegate influence and to make university policy. She envisioned women to non-leadership roles. Instead, they determined governing bodies as a way for students to help design their own issues and worked to achieve desired results. campus procedures in more than name only. Although The segregation provided power to the women Gordon it was controversial on most campuses to allow student studied. 27 involvement in disciplinary matters, she advocated that Taylor used the AWS chapter at KU in a manner student groups set general policies and that administra- similar to the one Gordon examined at the Berkeley tors implement the policies privately in individual cases 28 campus. Taylor approached the student government in order to protect students’ privacy. Thus, Taylor saw group as a venue for her agenda. In fact, she noted women’s student government as a training ground for

26. Bailey, Sex in the Heartland , 78–80. 28. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003; Taylor, “Optimum Use 27. Gordon, Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era , 84. of Students in Faculty Committees,” 126–29.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 11 leadership and a venue for female students to define advise female students regarding vocational options by their own policies. For her, self-governance was not having them understand the preconceptions that such about discipline. It was about self-determination. When students held from representations of working women reflecting on her career, Taylor recalled that nationally in popular culture. As she stated in her study: AWS advisors “kept talking about self-governing as if that’s what they were doing, governing somebody.” There was once a day when these matters Taylor disagreed. She believed that AWS should have posed few problems of significance for been “devising ways through . . . programming to help counseling of women students in contrast women understand more about the world and be more with men. Convention defined the roles independent and learn more leadership skills.” 29 Taylor of men and women much more clearly wanted to provide women the opportunity to become than it now does, and the role of counselor autonomous by developing personal behavioral stand- was correspondingly simpler. . . . Men ards and the confidence to apply them in their own lives and women students do, however, have without an authority dictating their personal actions. differential counseling needs. For example, men students are not ordinarily faced with he idea of women’s self-governance begged the necessity for making any choice between philosophical questions for all deans of women marriage and a career. The great majority are as they sought to define and fulfill the purpose expected to assume the obligations of both. of woman’s education. Because the student Most women still do make a choice, or at Tpersonnel profession rooted itself in the liberal tradition least believe that they are making one. They of educators like John Dewey, who focused on holistic often find themselves, however, uncertain counseling—treating each individual student as a whole about their desires, forced by unforeseen person in order to develop his or her full potential— circumstances to assume unanticipated deans of women like Taylor found gender role expecta- roles, and faced with cultural inconsistencies tions at the heart of their job. “At each stage of advisement, which increase their difficulties. . . . boys (women) deans and their advisees were forced to ask, and girls in our society are taught similar ‘Education for what?’” 30 For deans of women, the practice values; at the same time, girls may accept of student administration meant maximizing a woman’s a stereotype of themselves that presents capabilities. Queries regarding women’s “full potential” them as universally desirous of marriage, meant juxtaposing post-war social expectations that homemaking, and childcare, a concept that assumed women would become wives and mothers with guides and influences their conduct. 32 an educational philosophy that would prepare them for careers and emphasize intellectual development. During Taylor believed a counselor should clarify the the 1950s and early 1960s, the Journal of the National “advantages and disadvantages” of women’s choices. In Association of Deans of Women filled its pages with articles fact, she labeled the consideration of a woman’s options about balancing social expectations with educational and as a “duty” for those advising female students. career intent. Each female dean faced these difficulties At KU this philosophy underpinned her actions, regarding the objective of women’s education, although programs, and approach as she exchanged the traditional most avoided “feminism” due to controversy surround- understanding of “self-governance” for what she termed ing the subject. 31 personal responsibility in AWS. Before Taylor’s arrival, Taylor set out to have her students consider why— the AWS Senate planned to spend more time on rules and for what purpose—they attended university. In in order to clarify expectations. Taylor took a different her 1955 dissertation, Taylor analyzed perceptions and approach and began to initiate her vision for leadership stereotypes of employed women in periodical short through student governance. 33 She wanted to spend less fiction. Her purpose was to better prepare counselors to

32. Mary Emily Taylor, “Employed Women in Recent Periodical 29. Emily Taylor, interview by author, July 4, 1997, Lawrence, Short Fiction: The Fictionalized Portrait of Employed Women Projected Kansas. Against a Background of Factual Data” (EdD diss., Indiana University, 30. Tuttle, “What Became of the Dean of Women?” 2, 9, 14–15, 25–27, 1955), 1–2. 39 (quotations), 41–42. 33. In spring 1956, AWS senators recommended “that we choose 31. Ibid ., 86–87. the girls to work on the Rules and Regulations Committee next fall

12 KANSAS H ISTORY time discussing rules and more on intellectual endeavors. almost no discussion. The minutes simply noted that the To this end she first reorganized the AWS by changing changes occurred. As a result, each housing unit could the concerns with which the group dealt. She added two determine its own behavioral standards for itself within new committees, “Bright Women,” which researched the parameters of the parietals. alumnae with careers, and the “Roles of Women” group Finally, Taylor expanded AWS membership from that examined women’s place in society. She hosted women in organized housing units to include all females lecturers on the “Problem of Women in Political Action” attending KU, including those living off campus. 35 As a and the “Status of Women” in the United States. These result, any restructuring of women’s student life would topics contrasted starkly with KU students’ traditional then apply to all women. Through all of these changes, programming that included a fashion show and a “Best Taylor set the stage for a shift from discussion of parietals Dressed Girl” contest. In addition, she added an annual to scholarly conversation and intellectual development. scholarship dinner to reward academic success. 34 This transition would clear the way for counseling of Second, Taylor restructured the disciplinary function women that considered employment and other options of AWS by changing the “judiciary board” to the “board beyond the conventional confines of gender roles. of standards.” This change in the judiciary board’s As she redefined the AWS, Taylor established an name signified Taylor’s desire to eliminate the punitive advising pattern that would support her efforts to tone regarding parietals. In addition, Taylor assigned mentor female leaders. By personality, Taylor demanded the board of standards to an assistant dean, thereby excellence from the students with whom she worked. delegating disciplinary policy issues and removing One remarked later in life that mentorship by Taylor herself as a figurative parent. Taylor further revised was like being “a post under a pile driver.” 36 Taylor told the disciplinary operations when she and an AWS women who wanted counseling about boyfriends that committee rewrote the AWS constitution outside regular she had nontraditional ideas: senate meetings. These changes placed more disciplinary power with the student residence organizations so that I warned them that my advice would be very the governing body of women’s living groups resolved unconventional and that I had no sympathy their own disciplinary infractions unless the behavioral for many things. . . . [One] young woman problems were frequent or particularly significant. The said she wanted to talk about . . . this awful revisions provided more autonomy and responsibility story about this fellow that she was dating to the women’s housing units. (Later, during a rules [who] was treating her so badly and [she] convention, the women would actually attempt to just went on and on. And I said . . . no I didn’t return these powers to the dean of women’s office.) The say anything for awhile, I just listened. And AWS Senate, accustomed to the administration setting then she said, “What do you think I should student disciplinary policy, adopted these revisions with do?” And I said, “Well, I think you should get yourself another man.” 37 and have them work at it all year instead of just at the last of the year.” In another case, Taylor advised a woman distraught over AWS Senate Minutes, May 8, 1956, 1955–56 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12; Taylor, “Employed Women in Recent Periodical Short her Protestant parents’ displeasure with her Catholic Fiction,” 3. boyfriend. Taylor asked the woman her age, told the 34. The changes to the AWS programming are found in: 1957 All Women’s Day materials, 1957/58 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12; student that she was old enough to make up her own “AWS Senate Retreat Minutes,” April 26, 1960, Taylor’s home, 1959/1960, mind, and that she was marrying the man and her AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12; “AWS Orientates New Students” and parents were not. Taylor never spoke with the student “Committee to Study ‘Bright Women’ in Kansas,” University Daily Kansan , September 28, 1961; see also, clippings, July–November 1961 again, but noticed her engagement announcement not folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. Taylor’s interest in career women was evident in her dissertation topic. Also, Taylor’s correspondence with Kate Hevner Mueller, professor of education, Indiana University, 35. “1955–56 AWS Judiciary Board Report,” 1955–56 folder, AWS illustrates her desire to change the student conversation topics to more Records, UA, RG 67/12; assistant Dean Patterson is listed as the intellectual ones. Mueller to Taylor, October 3, 1956, 1956/57 folder, advisor to the board of standards, “Board of Standards 1959–60,” AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. Finally, in preparation for All-Women’s 1959/60 folder; AWS Senate Minutes, December 4, 1956, and March 5, Day, Taylor asked the AWS leadership to review documents such as 1957, 1956/57 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12; Ritter interview. “Reference Data on the Status of Women in America. Part I. Legal 36. Genevieve Taylor McMahon, sister of Emily Taylor, interview Discrimination Against Women. Part II. Discrimination in Politics,” by author, December 31, 2007, Lawrence, Kansas. 1956/57 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. This reading assignment 37. Emily Taylor, interview by author, June 4, 1998, Lawrence, shows Taylor actively educating women about sexism. Kansas.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 13 long after in the newspaper. 38 In short, Taylor’s no- much of their time crafting and enforcing behavioral nonsense responses to students, faculty, and other rules. She determined that until women dissolved this administrators determined her reputation as a significant aspect of the AWS, the focus on scholarship and sex force on campus. In particular, if she thought a point was equity would be secondary at best. nonsensical, she quickly—and often bluntly—pointed out what she saw as problematic logic. aylor began her efforts to shift student focus In addition to her direct counseling and professional to scholarship by planning an experiment in style, Taylor closely guided the AWS. She met at her student governance through a convention. At home with the AWS Senate president on Sundays the 1958 spring retreat, during her second year or in her office on Mondays in preparation for the atT KU, Taylor convinced the AWS Senate to reconceive weekly AWS Senate meetings. “She fed me ideas,” said the parietals governing women. Taylor proposed a one- Anne Hoopingarner Ritter, AWS president during the day convention of delegations from each living unit to 1960–1961 academic year. “I knew exactly what I was determine new behavioral standards. In this activity, supposed to do when I ran the meeting. . . . I felt very Taylor explicitly implemented her plan for student enabled and knowledgeable. Looking back, I was her government by giving the women the opportunity to set disciple.” 39 Taylor also hosted at her home receptions and their own policies regarding behavioral expectations. 42 an annual overnight retreat for the AWS Senate. Ritter By the fall, a steering committee requested each living remembered Taylor describing her views and educating unit formulate a complete set of rules covering all areas the student leaders who attended these events. For of women’s activities that its members believed the AWS instance, the 1960 retreat minutes record a conversation should regulate. However, the delegations—beset by regarding “situations where men are given priority over women who in their own words “could not forget about women for no reason” and “equal chances for education the old rules”—generated few new ideas. 43 opportunities, and in occupations after school.” Ritter Despite the opportunity to independently set their said Taylor often relied on female students to “market” own guidelines at the convention, the women failed her suggestions through their gossip networks. “She to accept the freedom offered by Taylor as they simply wasn’t radical or confrontational; she co-opted us,” recreated existing curfews and male visiting privileges. reported Ritter, who added that Taylor subtly asked the The lack of new conceptions and approaches indicated women broad questions about their roles in society, their that women at KU could not imagine themselves outside reasons for attending university, and their plans for their the structure of the parietals. Even the officers with whom lives after graduation. Ritter said of Taylor’s questions, Taylor met weekly found reconceptualizing the parietals “In her query was . . . a more forward looking agenda to be difficult as the minutes frequently recorded the than I was aware.” 40 senate having trouble envisioning options for women’s Reflecting herself on her time at KU and on her general student life that were not controlled by the campus. efforts to change the parietals, Taylor said she worked In particular, when the AWS Convention began, the to move the students to implement changes. She also women—rather than embracing the opportunity to create said, however, that “there was a limit to how far ahead their own rules—actually recommended less autonomy of them [students] you could get.” 41 Taylor mentored for themselves, voting to further limit restrictions by by the Socratic method, encouraging the women to assigning approval for any curfew exceptions to the think critically about the parietal rules, to reconsider dean of women. This vote reversed one of the AWS conventional roles for women, and to intellectually constitutional revisions initiated by Taylor, in which engage in the issues of sex equity. Taylor’s interest in she reassigned from her office the approval authority removing parietals stemmed from her belief that female for rule exceptions to the housemothers or governing students avoided scholarly inquiry because they spent boards of the living units. With this move the dean of women made clear that she did not want the authority of

38. Ibid . 39. Ritter interview. 42. Taylor, “Optimum Use of Students in Faculty Committees,” 40. Ibid.; “AWS Senate Retreat Minutes,” April, 26, 1960, 1959–1960 126–29. folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. 997, Lawrence, Kansas. 43. “Summary of New Ideas for AWS Regulations,” January 15, 41. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003; Emily Taylor, interview 1959, 1958/59 folder; “AWS Convention Notes,” February 3, 1959, by author, July 5, 1997, Lawrence, Kansas. 1958/59 folder; “1959 AWS Regulations Convention Chairman’s Report,” 1958/59 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12, 4–5.

14 KANSAS H ISTORY the university to reinforce behavioral standards such as curfew to midnight. They contended that women arriving curfews. She wanted the women to manage themselves home late at night would wake others in the residences. through their living groups. By reversing the decision in Taylor dismissed this argument by suggesting that the the convention, however, the students showed that they houses increase their quiet hours penalties to prevent preferred that the university/dean of women define the potential disruption. Arguing that the early curfews limited curfew and the appropriate exceptions to it. women’s studies, she arranged for more campus buildings Despite the convention vote, the AWS Senate failed to to remain open later. Eight months after the convention, a ratify the reversal. This division over the rules illustrated brief note in the minutes for a September 1959 AWS meeting the fundamental difference between Taylor’s approach indicates that the hours had become permanent at the and students’ overall preference. Taylor wanted the wo- library and other halls. 47 This part of Taylor’s “experiment” men in the living units to determine behavior standards worked. The women accepted late weeknight hours, for each dormitory or sorority. The women preferred to taking a small step toward autonomy and Taylor’s goal let the campus administration decide. Taylor believed that women should make their own behavioral decisions this was due to women’s reluctance to take responsibility without relying on the rules as an excuse. for their own behavior. The women, experiencing college Approval for senior privileges took longer for Taylor life amid strict gender role expectations and social norms to achieve. Although the convention voted to consider that held to a sexual double standard, saw the rules as special freedoms for senior women due to their maturity, something to be broken when personal circumstances the AWS had little consensus on how to structure a plan. dictated, but also as a convenient and polite excuse for Prior to the convention, Taylor introduced to the senate declining dates or unwanted sexual advances. 44 the concept that senior women should carry keys for their The convention resulted in only two notable changes residences. Taylor explained, “We were at this meeting to existing rules—extending the curfew during finals and they were talking about these piddly little things, week to midnight and recommending senior privileges, like 15 minutes here and half an hour there, and I just the latter of which would permit senior women to said, ‘Have you considered keys.’ It was an electrifying operate outside the standard rules in limited situations. 45 moment.” Taylor remembered that the women paused, These two convention recommendations needed the “It took them a while [and they finally] asked ‘to the approval of the AWS Senate for adoption and this group sorority house’?” as they slowly understood the dean’s of student leaders resisted endorsing both. First, because meaning. 48 The women found the idea of controlling the library closed at 10 p.m., the senate contended that their own hours foreign and continued to find it difficult the midnight curfew would be irresponsible by giving to envision university life outside of in loco parentis . the women two hours of unsupervised time with no Anne Ritter, who was president of the senate during scholastic purpose. In order to convince the officers to the year AWS adopted keys, recalled that she resisted adopt the change, Taylor negotiated with the university the change. She, like many other students, believed administration for the library to remain open during the women needed the rules to clarify their behavioral finals week until 11 p.m. When the AWS finally agreed expectations. Ritter said Taylor finally convinced her to to the finals week curfew extension, Taylor structured consider the keys by stressing that many women already it as an experiment that, if successful, would lay the circumvented the rules. “I was naïve. I thought everyone groundwork for more expansive changes. Knowing followed the rules,” said Ritter, remembering how Taylor that any enduring parietal adjustments depended upon proved her point. “[Taylor told me] ‘you think everyone women behaving reasonably, Taylor often reminded the is in at closing hours. Let’s go visit the sororities and students that “the whole group is responsible for the scholarship houses, bring treats and have a party and action of any individuals.” 46 see.’” Ritter recalled driving Taylor around Lawrence Even with no incidents during finals week, the senate one night after closing hours, stopping at each house still balked at a permanent extension of the weeknight

47. “AWS Senate Minutes,” March 3, 1959, and “AWS Senate 44. “AWS Senate Minutes,” February 24, 1959, 1958/59 folder, AWS Minutes,” April 21, 1959, 1958/59 folder; “AWS Board of Standards Records, UA, RG 67/12. Minutes,” September 24, 1959, 1959/60 folder; clipping, University 45. “AWS Seeks Rules Change,” University Daily Kansan , February Daily Kansan , n.d., 1958/59 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12, which 16, 1959. stated that the chief of the Library Reader Services would consider 46. Clipping, University Daily Kansan, n.d., 1958/59 folder, AWS longer hours permanently but that it was not easily done. Records, UA, RG 67/12. 48. Emily Taylor, interview by author, July 3, 1997, Lawrence, Kansas.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 15 Even by 1966, after senior women at KU had held keys to their own residences for six years, there was uproar when Taylor proposed doing away with closing hours for younger female students. Many students, parents, and fellow university administrators voiced their complaints to Chancellor Wescoe, including the advisor to Pi Beta Phi, members of which are pictured here in their campus residence. When Wescoe told Taylor that her plans were too controversial, she responded, “I think you have the wrong dean of women so I’ll put in my resignation.” Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. and announcing that the dean of women was there with Taylor why they regularly broke the rules, the fact that refreshments, and inviting everyone down to the lobby. Taylor’s office oversaw discipline left little question as “Half of everyone was gone,” said Ritter, remembering to how women manipulated regulations. Disciplinary that the sign-out sheets recorded them in the residence. case after disciplinary case regarding women breaking Ritter said this finally clarified for her that a number of the rules involved sexual activity. Ritter remembered women avoided the rules when it suited them. Taylor that Taylor often said that the women hid “behind the contended that it would be safer for women if they did curfew so you don’t have to make safe decisions for not hide their whereabouts. For instance, Taylor said yourself.” 50 Taylor’s former assistant Donna Shavlik that a couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning at a recalled the issue similarly: “She [Taylor] pushed the “lover’s lane.” In this case, sorority members noticed the seniors [to have keys]. They didn’t want them. . . . I student missing, but no one knew where she was. 49 always hate this extreme language, but I guess it really Taylor recognized that although KU women ignored is true, [there was] such oppression of women that they the rules in many cases, they preferred to retain the had bought into it. So women students who did not set regulations so that they did not have to take full their own hours used it [curfew] for excuses [to return ownership of their personal decisions. Accustomed to to the dorm or sorority while] on dates and it kept the rules providing a convenient way to manipulate them from having to make decisions themselves.” 51 As men and dating, the women did not want to directly Shavlik noted, women used the rules as an excuse to confront men with their desire to go home from a date or to avoid sexual activity. The students preferred 50. Ritter interview. As noted earlier, Taylor destroyed her files to blame the rules as the reason they wanted out of at KU. However, Dean of Men Don Alderson kept extensive files on disciplinary actions that involved men that illustrated such the situation. Although few women voluntarily told instances. 51. Donna Shavlik, interview by author, September 20, 1997, 49. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003. Lawrence, Kansas.

16 KANSAS H ISTORY extricate themselves from situations with men that they and before the house closed for the night. Locking the did not want to face directly. Conversely, women who keys made it clear that the keys were not always available. determined to forgo the normative restrictions broke the Second, the name of the senior, the person accompanying rules purposely. In either case, the rules allowed women the senior, and her expected time of return continued to to avoid accountability for their own behavior and the be recorded in a revised version of the “sign-out” sheets reality of developing their own preferences and making standard at all university women’s housing. Keeping their own choices. such a record showed that seniors were still expected to By the fall of 1960, the AWS Board of Standards asked be going to appropriate and disclosed locations. Third, each residence group to recommend senior privilege seniors counted the keys by 8:00 a.m. daily and no one options it would like considered for the seniors living in younger than a senior could enter the house with a key. their facility. This request explicitly called for each group Any “irregularity” resulted in the loss of senior privileges to consider keys as a possibility. Of the sixteen living group for the noncompliant woman and possibly for the entire responses, only six—just 37 percent—supported some house. If a woman lost a key, the residence members type of key program. Another three groups preferred one changed the locks on the same day and all seniors shared key for occasional use but indicated only limited support in the cost of replacing the lock and keys. Along with for even this idea, with one residence noting that their answering arguments about safety, these precautions senior women had very few problems with the current also illustrated that keys would be closely supervised system. The remaining seven rejected keys altogether and so that younger women could not access them. 53 Despite asked for an arrangement for later hours with someone the rules, the key program resulted in senior women maintaining “door duty” in order to let seniors in at receiving complete freedom to return to their residences night. In fact, the Sigma Kappa sorority responded that, at whatever hour they preferred before 8:00 a.m. the next “They [members] also felt the idea of keys for seniors morning, so long as they left before closing hours began was a little too lenient and a bit dangerous, as well as for the underclassmen. Consistently emphasizing that the costly if keys were lost and locks had to be changed.” 52 program was for seniors and run by them, Taylor placed With over 60 percent of the housing groups against keys, behavioral standards squarely in the hands of KU’s the responses clearly illustrate that the students did not women whether they wanted that autonomy or not. 54 instigate a change at KU to provide women more freedom and accountability for their behavior. Without Taylor’s aylor’s approach to women’s student introduction of the concept to the AWS leadership group, it governance called into question national norms is likely the parietals would have continued, unquestioned regarding women’s student life. Between 1956 and accepted by students. and 1960, the Journal of the National Association of Despite the women’s reservations, AWS approved the DeansT of Women published no articles dealing speciﬁcally key program as “experimental” and called for evaluation with the subjects of closing hours, rules and regulations, of the use of keys at the end of one semester. The plan or judiciary boards. Although the topic formally arose at required written parental permission to participate and least once at a National Association of Deans of Women did not actually provide each senior student with a key Convention, parietals were not visible in the scholarly for her possession at all times. Instead, in yet another discussions of student individual responsibility, likely example of the women’s resistance, the AWS created a because they were considered a normative necessity. 55 knot of rules governing key checkout. Female student At regional and national IAWS conferences, Taylor leaders developed very complicated rules to regulate called to limit parietals on the grounds that they the use of the keys under the auspices of safety. Clearly, protecting the reputations of women and their living groups drove the hesitation over free use of keys. 53. “Seniors Hours in Effect Soon,” University Daily Kansan , October First, the women determined that seniors would lock 14, 1960; “AWS Senate Minutes,” October 4, 1960, July–November 1961 keys in a box kept by the house director during the day folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. 54. “Keys May Be Distributed Monday,” University Daily Kansan, and that keys would be checked out only after 5:00 p.m. September 27, 1961. 55. In 1955 a National Association of Deans of Women survey of members ranked housing problems as the top issue of concern. Conversely, it ranked student government and student leaders near the 52. Recommendations received by AWS for senior privilege plan, bottom of concerns with women’s education issues last. Eisenmann, July–November 1961 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. Higher Education for Women in Postwar America , 135.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 17 interfered with women’s studying opportunities. She existed, however. Taylor remembered sorority advisors, also suggested that the focus on conduct kept women usually off-campus alumnae, as particularly upset: from intellectual conversation and more substantial leadership opportunities. I remember one woman [advisor] who Ritter, who attended the 1958 and 1959 national IAWS invited me to go out to lunch and she said conferences with Taylor, recalled that IAWS meeting that she wanted to know if I could explain attendees often found Taylor’s suggestions shocking. to her why I thought that [the key program] Ritter said she realized that KU was “way ahead” of was progress. And I said I think this is the norm at these meetings. One KU undergraduate progress because it requires people to grow noted that, “There is probably fear in some schools that up. It requires people to make their own students would misuse any such power given them. decisions as to when it’s time for them to Kansas is known as a liberal school, and one finds at any be out and when it’s time for them to be in convention that many problems of other schools have [the sorority house], the same as anything long been solved at KU.” 56 Taylor repeatedly reminded else they do whether they are studying or IAWS and her own AWS group that parietals—a eating or sleeping or what. Those decisions manifestation of proscribed gender roles—stood in the shouldn’t be made by someone else. 59 way of progress for women. In the records of a 1960 AWS retreat, the secretary summarized Taylor’s comments Thus, Taylor believed educated women should be by noting, “Our society is being changed by the large “grown up” and possess the decision-making skills to numbers of women who work outside the home. . . . We act autonomously and determine their own path rather want to get women to think about important intellectual than to operate solely by convention or by the dictates things instead of just closing hours.” 57 Clearly, Dean of authority. Taylor thought parietals prohibited the more progressive In initiating the senior privileges discussion in 1958 approach she wished to pursue regarding the status of and implementing them in fall of 1960, Taylor preceded women in the United States. the national conversation on roles for educated women. It Information regarding the reception of the senior key was not until 1963 that Betty Friedan published Feminine program is sparse. When asked about the response of Mystique suggesting that white, middle-class, educated the KU administration to her plan, Taylor replied, “I women found domesticity unfulfilling. Further, equal didn’t ask their opinions. . . . They didn’t say anything. employment guarantees did not arrive until 1964 with the Well, if they did, it’s nothing I remember. They [the Civil Rights Act. Three months before President John F. administration] certainly didn’t oppose it.” The archival Kennedy established the President’s Commission on the files support Taylor’s contention. There is nothing Status of Women in December 1961, Taylor dispersed keys to indicate concern in the chancellor’s, the dean of to seniors at KU. By January 1962 Taylor moved forward students’, or the dean of men’s files. In fact, aside from by suggesting elimination of closing hours for all women a final report on the senior privilege plan in Murphy’s except freshmen (thereby issuing them keys as well). This files, it would have been impossible to know that either was two years before the president’s commission reported the convention or the issuance of keys occurred from his its results and four and a half years before the National records. As for parents of seniors, AWS Senate minutes Organization of Women formed in 1966. 60 note at various points in the process that none had The closer Taylor moved toward keys for all women, rejected the privilege for their own daughters. 58 Criticism the more disapproval she faced. AWS Senate leaders

59. Emily Taylor, interview by author, July 1, 1997, Lawrence, 56. “AWS Senate Minutes,” November 27, 1960, November 1960– Kansas. June 1961 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12; Ritter interview. 60. By 1965 a student-led civil rights protest emerged at KU over 57. “AWS Senate Retreat Minutes,” April 26, 1960, Taylor’s home, off-campus housing discrimination, preferential treatment of white 1959/60 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. education graduates for employment as teachers in the Kansas City 58. Taylor interview, July 5, 1997; “AWS Senate Minutes,” October 25, metropolitan area, and fraternity and sorority membership. Taylor 1960, July–October 1960 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. The only chaired the campus committee that reviewed those complaints and evidence of a negative public response was a note in the AWS Senate recommended campus changes to deal with the racial discrimination. minutes stating that an article, “Equal Rights Set for KU’s Women,” in For further discussion see Lisa E. Wolf-Wendel et al., Reﬂecting Back, the Lawrence Daily Journal-World , October 6, 1960, was “erroneous and Looking Forward: Civil Rights and Student Affairs ([Washington, D.C.]: unfavorable.” “AWS Senate Minutes,” October 11, 1960, July–October National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, Inc., 2004), 1960 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG 67/12. 295–308.

18 KANSAS H ISTORY overwhelmingly rejected her 1962 call to provide keys to underclassmen on the grounds that parents would not approve, that it was “idealistic,” and that closing hours kept “KU as a respected leader in the Big 8 and the Midwest.” 61 Taylor eventually overcame student objections against eliminating curfews for younger women, though not before Murphy left KU to become chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles. In March 1966, the AWS Rules Convention voted to give keys to all female students from second-semester sophomores to seniors and to eliminate the closing hours and sign-outs for these women altogether. 62 The result would be the autonomy Taylor had worked to accomplish. This news was reported in a national climate that had recently “discovered” the campus organizational movements of the New Left. In the early winter months of 1965, the popular media had begun covering the Students for a Democratic Society with the Free Speech Movement protest at the University of California, Berkeley. By the spring of 1965, Newsweek , Time , U.S. News & World Report , as well as the Nation and Saturday Evening Post , had covered the Berkeley protest, which catapulted the topic of student governance structures into the national conversation. 63 Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe fielded many of the complaints leveled against Taylor and her plans to provide female students at KU with keys Thus, the AWS vote in favor of abolishing closing hours to their residences. Not one of the letters kept in Wescoe’s files at the KU for younger KU women made news across Kansas. The archives reflects a positive sentiment. Over and over, however, Wescoe Wichita Eagle , Lawrence Daily Journal-World , Kansas City Star , responded that the decision regarding keys and closing hours would not and Topeka Daily Capital all carried the story. In Topeka, a be “capricious” and that his action would reflect “reasonableness for all.” When Taylor threatened to resign after Wescoe suggested she was trying front-page article detailed the entire plan, which needed to change too much too soon, the chancellor capitulated and by 1969 all approval from the new chancellor, W. Clarke Wescoe. women’s closing rules were dissolved. Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Statewide media caught the attention of parents and Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. Kansas citizens who wrote Wescoe. Not one of the many letters in Wescoe’s files at the KU archives reflects a positive These letters reveal that many saw Taylor behind sentiment. Instead, the correspondents condemned the the changes and linked them to national concerns. For proposal and encouraged Wescoe to stop it. 64 instance, Mrs. Scott Ashton wrote:

in a more critical vein, may I go on record as being against all the changes proposed by 61. “AWS Minutes,” joint meeting of the AWS House and Senate, January 9, 1962, November 1961–June 1962 folder, AWS Records, UA, RG AWS concerning closing hours. Scott [her 67/12. husband] says to include him in this too. We 62. See Bailey, Sex in the Heartland , 86–104, for a complete discussion feel that the whole trend is a terrible mistake, of the rules revisions in 1966. Bailey examined the changes in parietals at KU, arguing that the sexual revolution had roots within student personnel as has been pretty well proven wherever this counseling and its support for personal responsibility. Bailey noted that idiocy has been allowed. The ﬁrst mistake Taylor must have been supportive of the women’s changes in order to assure their success. However, she suggested that the students “co-opted” at K.U., in my opinion, was the senior keys. the administration’s philosophy regarding creation of responsible Cold From the beginning the girls seem to have War adults to advocate for their own rule changes. 65 63. Gitlin, The Whole World Is Watching , 26–27. had unusually poor advice. 64. Judy Farrell, “Studied at KU Hour Reforms,” Topeka Sunday Capital- Journal , March 20, 1966. Letters to the chancellor are primarily collected in Student Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing Hours) 1965/66, Box 11, Chancellor’s Ofﬁce, W. Clarke Wescoe, University Archives, RG 65. Mrs. Scott Ashton, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to Wescoe, April 2.12.5, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence 28, 1966, Student Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing (hereafter cited as “Wescoe Papers, UA, RG 2/12/5”). Hours), Wescoe Papers, UA, RG 2/12/5.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 19 Direct critiques of Taylor’s advising were not always so is concerned they don’t get enough rest politely stated, and many illustrated frustration with now to do justice to their packed schedules Taylor’s unconventional ideas. For instance, another so we don’t see how it would be possible mother bluntly stated in her letter to Wescoe: for them to do their best work under the circumstances proposed. 68 Come now, Dr. Wescoe, you surely don’t think that I am naïve enough to think that The subtext of letters like the ones above illustrated the little darlings thought up this whole concern over unsupervised dating time and opportunity new world all by themselves. I loved your for sexual relations. Amid comments regarding “‘rebels’ phrasing “does not of necessity represent influencing policy” more than one parent complained the views of the Dean.” You see, I feel sure that this dissolution of parietals would lead to illegitimate that little suggestions have been dropped births and the need for a campus nursery. One letter begins, at those sweet little fudge or dessert parties “Dear Dr. Wescoe, I am enclosing two clippings from the at [Taylor’s] home that I have been hearing morning paper. Thought the AWS might be interested in about for years. Surely, the idiotic conception planning a nursery for their next project.” 69 In addition to of Senior Keys was hers, as no one is allowed parent and citizen protests, Taylor remembered a legislator to discuss dropping that idea. In fact, at complaining that she had used state resources to encourage a Panhel [ sic ] rush meeting last year, she “insurgents.” Over and over, Wescoe responded that the informed the Pi Phi representatives that she decision would not be “capricious” and that his action felt it was not the Mother’s club business to would reflect “reasonableness for all.” 70 He also regularly discuss Senior Keys. Ha! [A]nd now they cited the success of the senior keys and the lack of problems [female students] are allowed to vote on with those as evidence that the 1966 plan had merit. having no closing hours. Did Dean Emily anticipate they would vote against? Or is she n the late spring of 1966, Wescoe succumbed to the still using that juvenile homily, “Don’t you political pressure and called Taylor into his office trust your daughter?” 66 after a particularly difficult call from the Pi Beta Phi sorority advisor. He told Taylor expanding Letter after letter sent to Wescoe and other Ithe keys to more students and eliminating all closing administrators express sentiments like: “abolition of hours/signing out procedures at the same time was too closing hours . . . it’s like letting the tail wag the dog! Why controversial and indicated he would not support the not let the parents and/or taxpayers who foot the bill plan. She remembers responding, “I think you have the have a voice in this.” 67 In one case a citizen complained wrong dean of women so I’ll put in my resignation.” that the dissolution of regulations for women would Wescoe capitulated to Taylor’s threat of departure, and hurt men by distracting them from their studies: that same evening he cancelled a dinner in Kansas City to invite Taylor to dine at his home in order to work out By nature, girls are usually more aggressive arrangements for accepting the policy changes that put a than boys and are prone to monopolize the boy’s time. We have heard male students at KU speak out in disapproval of the proposed 68. Mr. and Mrs. Melford Monsees, Leawood, Kansas, to Mrs. John relaxation of closing hours as they will now Hughes, Lawrence, Kansas, Chairman Pi Phi Advisory Board with carbon copy to Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe, April 13, 1966, Student have no legitimate excuse to return the girls Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing Hours), Wescoe Papers, to their houses and get back to their own for UA, RG 2/12/5. 69. Jackie Tietze to Wescoe, March 14, 1966; Mr. and Mrs. Eugene study and duties. Generally, the boys carry a Powers, Wichita, Kansas, to Provost James R. Surface, March 16, 1966, heavier academic load. As far as their health Student Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing Hours), Wescoe Papers, UA, RG 2/12/5. 70. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003; Wescoe to Mr. Roy A. Edwards, Mrs. Harold S. Warwick, Mrs. Ramon Schumacher, Jr., Mr. 66. Jackie Tietze, Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to Wescoe, April 12, and Mrs. Robert Goetze, Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Burgardt, Mrs. John H. 1966, Student Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing Hours), Tietze, Mrs. Thomas Van Cleave, Mrs. John D. Crouch, Mr. and Mrs. Wescoe Papers, UA, RG 2/12/5. Eugene Powers, and Mrs. Gordon E. Atha, April 12, 1966, Student 67. Mrs. Perry Fleagle, Wichita, Kansas, to Provost James Surface, Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing Hours), Wescoe Papers, March 15, 1966, Student Correspondence (Change in Women’s Closing UA, RG 2/12/5. Additional letters from Wescoe in response to other Hours), Wescoe Papers, UA, RG 2/12/5. citizens contain very similar statements.

20 KANSAS H ISTORY resignation, perhaps a part of that “education” rested in showing him that dissolving the authority and structure of parietals would mean reexamining conventional understandings of the dean of women’s role as well. Within the context of holistic student personnel counseling, Taylor saw KU women’s narrow focus on parietals as a barrier that required removal before female students could reach their full potential. Taylor used student government to advance a feminist agenda that questioned gender roles and their manifestation as formal rules and regulations. As an administrator, she seeded the women’s movement at KU, despite resistance from students who had adopted the culture of in loco parentis and believed they needed to be supervised by others rather than making their own personal decisions. Taylor used student deference to her authority to implement a liberal feminist agenda by challenging female students to reconsider the When asked by one of her detractors to explain her commitment to regulations that governed their actions, constructed their providing female students with keys, Taylor replied that it required gender identities, and circumscribed their place on campus “people to grow up. It requires people to make their own decisions as to when it’s time for them to be out and when it’s time for them to and in society. At a state-funded institution like KU, Taylor be in, the same as anything else they do whether they are studying had to advance these changes in a manner that could be or eating or sleeping or what. Those decisions shouldn’t be made by accepted by Kansas citizens. To this end she began a series someone else.” Photo courtesy of the Lawrence Journal-World . of “experiments” and promoted their success as proof that the system of regulations could be eliminated. stop to her resignation. 71 In the end, sophomore women By 1966, Taylor’s activities at KU overlapped with remained under closing hours while junior and senior student protests at other campuses like Berkeley. Her women received key privileges. In addition, all women’s work set an example for other schools as the key plan closing rules were dissolved by 1969. caught attention on at least one other campus. 73 These Taylor believed that Wescoe did not want her to resign cultivated “experiments” were minor, incremental steps because he “was afraid of a real uprising” if she left. Taylor toward social change that show how feminist activism stated that, “I had a great many friends who would have took place in the consensus culture of the 1950s and early raised trouble.” Primarily, she felt her base of support 1960s on a college campus before the social disruptions rested in both male and female students. “I suppose I of the counter-culture and New Left erupted across the should have been concerned [about these changes], but nation. Taylor treaded slowly, proved her success, and I wasn’t. I didn’t even ask their [the dean of men’s and then enlarged the project to work toward her goal. It was a the chancellor’s] opinion. It seemed so reasonable to give liberal feminist strategy that worked in the heartland of the the keys. . . . We ended up the only school in the country United States. Taylor’s case illustrates that the usual history who had given keys to everyone ﬁrst.” 72 Clearly, as Taylor of higher education regarding campus protest may need incrementally challenged conventional gender roles, she to be recast to allow for more administrator involvement. faced increasing protests with each step. While she had At KU, Taylor fostered an environment amenable to the the unconditional support of Murphy, Taylor did not ﬁnd “second wave” of the women’s movement on the campus. the same support in Wescoe, and had to negotiate his Equally important, Taylor’s activism calls into question agreement with her agenda. Taylor commented privately the presumption that students initiated rebellion against more than once in a wry manner that she “educated” administrators and in loco parentis in all cases. Wescoe on women’s issues. With Taylor’s threat of

71. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003. Taylor would stay at KU until 1975 when she retired to take a post at the American Council 73. The campus paper at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on Education directing the Ofﬁce of Women in Higher Education. published an editorial that called for the dean of women on its campus 72. Taylor interview, December 13–14, 2003; Bailey, Sex in the to consider the same program for its students in “Dorm Keys for Senior Heartland , 100, 102. Women,” Massachusetts Collegian , October 31, 1960.

DEAN EMILY TAYLOR 21 Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 33 (Spring 2010): 22–41

22 KANSAS H ISTORY “H OLD THE LINE ”: The Defense of Jim Crow in Lawrence, Kansas, 1945–1961

by Brent M. S. Campney

t is time that racial discrimination was ended,” opined an editorial writer for the University Daily Kansan in 1952. “It is time we ended it here at the University of Kansas.” Not everyone, of course, shared this view. Edwin F. Abels, the conservative editor of the Lawrence Outlook , was among the most vocal and intransigent critics of the civil rights movement, believing that “our ‘Do-Gooders’ . . . are suffering from ‘a rampage of sentimentality.’” A formerI state legislator prominent in local, state, and national affairs, Abels was a perennial critic of efforts to foist social change upon a resistant population. “They want to correct all the wrongs of the world . . . by a simple method, such as passing a law,” he complained in 1948. Prejudice, he believed, could only be eroded gradually, “like the weathering of a block of granite where the change made through a century is almost imperceptible.” He was also skeptical about the gravity of racism locally, reminding his audience in 1960 that black professionals had in the recent past called Lawrence home. Their current absence, he suggested, revealed more about black sloth than white prejudice. “Progress depends on the individual and his qualiﬁcations,” he maintained. “There is [now] no Negro lawyer in Lawrence and no amount of social legislation will bring one. There is no law, prejudice or anything else preventing a Negro from becoming a lawyer.” In a later meditation he added that Lawrence did not have a black doctor either. Yet, he noted, “Both the law school and . . . the school of medicine are, and have been, open to all who care to enter.” 1

Brent M. S. Campney is assistant professor of history at the University of Texas-Pan American. He is currently preparing a manuscript on white supremacy and racist violence in Kansas between 1854 and 1920.

1. University Daily Kansan (University of Kansas, Lawrence), May 13, 1952; Lawrence Outlook , November 1, 1956; March 25, 1948; April 22, 1948; July 21, 1960; and January 12, 1961. On Edwin Abels, see Lawrence Daily Journal-World , April 22, 1985; Rusty L. Monhollon, “ This is America?”: The Sixties in Lawrence, Kansas (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 30–32.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 23 Abels reflected the views of white racial conservatives examining the white resistance that developed against the living in Lawrence and/or working at the University of movement in Lawrence between 1945 and 1961. Drawing Kansas (KU) in the years immediately following World on newspaper accounts and on the papers of university War II. Repeatedly, they found themselves at loggerheads officials and of citizen and student activists, it identifies the with civil rights activists who were conducting a spirited conservatives who led this resistance, the arguments and campaign to dismantle discrimination. Nonetheless, tactics that they employed in pursuit of their objectives, they undertook a vigorous defense of the status quo and and the consistency with which they pursued their cause enjoyed remarkable success in their efforts to “hold the throughout this relatively narrow window of time. 4 line,” even though they were compelled to retreat on some issues. In addition to Abels, prominent conservatives fter the Civil War, white Kansans created a included members of the “business oligarchy,” who not “free-state” narrative that cast their state— only owned the restaurants, theaters, and services targeted and themselves—as staunchly committed to by civil rights activists, but exercised as well considerable racial equality. Ignoring the fact that many political influence “since they control . . . all the city offices.” Aterritorial Kansas settlers opposed slavery to ensure an Less prominent conservatives—residents and students all-white state, they reframed the antislavery struggle alike—articulated their views through their actions or as a romantic campaign for human liberty. Those through letters to the various local newspapers and to KU in Lawrence, the territorial hotbed of abolitionism, administrators. 2 subscribed to this narrative with particular fervor. “The Historians have chronicled voluminously the civil rights ‘free-state’ narrative is an identity that the town always movement that emerged after World War II and ultimately has embraced,” concluded Monhollon. “The narrative and profoundly transformed American society. Some have exerted a powerful influence on the town that to its explored this movement within Kansas. Gretchen Cassel nineteenth- and twentieth-century residents exemplified Eick, for instance, found that black activists led a vigorous the triumph of good over evil, freedom over slavery, assault against discrimination in Wichita from the 1950s justice over inequity, and virtue over materialism.” 5 through the 1970s. Both Kristine M. McCusker and Rusty Notwithstanding this narrative, many white Lawren- L. Monhollon focused their studies on Lawrence. The cians never adhered to those high principles. In the former charted the growth of the civil rights movement aftermath of the Civil War, they imposed practices from the start of World War II through the early 1960s; the aimed at keeping blacks at the bottom of the social order. latter examined the struggle for and against black equality To enforce their dominance, they sometimes resorted during the 1960s. 3 This study fills a remaining gap by

4. Brent Stevenson Campney, “White Resistance in the Time of the Liberal Consensus: Lawrence, Kansas, 1945–1960” (master’s thesis, 2. Beth Bell to George [Houser] et al., August 13, 1947; Beth Bell to University of Kansas, 2001); Amber Reagan-Kendrick, “Ninety Years George Houser, July 28, 1947; Beth Bell to George Houser, September of Struggle and Success: African American History at the University of 21, 1947, Series 3, Executive Secretary’s File, ﬁle 55, the Papers of Kansas, 1870–1960,” (PhD diss., University of Kansas, 2004). On racial the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1941–1967, State Historical conservatism, see Dan T. Carter, The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, Society of Wisconsin Library; available on microﬁlm at Watson Library, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American University of Kansas, Lawrence, Reel 13 (hereafter cited as “CORE Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995); Thomas Papers”). J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar 3. Gretchen Cassel Eick, Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement Detroit (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Melvin J. in the Midwest, 1954–1972 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001); Thorne, American Conservative Thought Since World War II: The Core Ideas Monhollon, “This is America?” ; Rusty L. Monhollon, “Taking the (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). Plunge: Race, Rights, and the Politics of Desegregation in Lawrence, 5. Monhollon, “This is America?” , 11; see also Rusty Monhollon and Kansas, 1960,” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 20 (Autumn Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, “From Brown to Brown : A Century of Struggle 1997): 138–59; Bill Moyers, Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers for Equality in Kansas,” in Territorial Kansas Reader , ed. Virgil W. Dean His Country (New York: A Harper’s Magazine Press Book, 1971), 83– (Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 2005), 353–71; Robert Smith 122; Kristine M. McCusker, “‘The Forgotten Years’ of America’s Civil Bader, Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image Rights Movement: Wartime Protests at the University of Kansas, 1939– of Kansas (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), 29–30; Michael 1945,” Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 17 (Spring 1994): Lewis Goldberg, An Army of Women: Gender and Politics in Gilded Age 26–37; McCusker, “‘The Forgotten Years’ of America’s Civil Rights Kansas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 9–17; Brent Movement: The University of Kansas, 1939–1961” (master’s thesis, M. S. Campney, “‘This is Not Dixie’: The Imagined South, the Kansas University of Kansas, 1993). On the civil rights movement generally, Free State Narrative, and the Rhetoric of Racist Violence,” Southern see, for example, Terry Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties: Protest Spaces: An Interdisciplinary Journal about the Regions, Places, and Cultures and America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (New York: Oxford of the American South , September 6, 2007, http://southernspaces. University Press, 1996); Manning Marable, Race, Reform, and Rebellion: org/contents/2007/campney/1a.htm; Brent M. S. Campney, “W. B. The Second Reconstruction in America, 1945–1982 (New York: Macmillan, Townsend and the Struggle against Racist Violence in Leavenworth,” 1984); Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 31 (Winter 2008–2009): Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008). 260–73.

24 KANSAS H ISTORY terrors that will prevent the continual recurrence of such bloody affairs,” a newspaper concluded after “a young colored man” killed a white man during a dispute near town in November 1879. When officials arrested an alleged rapist in 1880, the Kansas Daily Tribune claimed to oppose mob violence in principle but clearly coveted a lynching, which might “forever relieve the land of one hell hound, and lend a hint to others that would be heeded.” 7 In 1882 whites put this theory into practice when a mob secured three black prisoners accused of murder. “They were marched to the bridge, and on the middle pier a halt was made. Prayers were short then,” reported the Lawrence Daily Journal . “Pete Vinegar, George Robertson and Isaac King were each swung over the bridge and their bodies left dangling over the muddy Kaw.” With this spectacular exhibition, whites struck terror into blacks, a large number of whom stayed away from a protest meeting called by black leaders in response to the lynchings. “Many a man who wanted to attend did not dare to,” reported the Lawrence Daily Journal ; “all sorts of rumors were afloat.” Purveyors of the free-state narrative faced great difficulty in reconciling this event. “Lawrence stands for Kansas, and the best in Kansas,” worried former-abolitionist and early settler, the Reverend Richard Cordley. “This deed will go abroad to our shame.” 8 Evidently, most whites disagreed. “The lynching of the last summer has only served to keep Edwin F. Abels, the conservative editor of the Lawrence Outlook up a spirit of mob law in our midst,” lamented the Lawrence and representative to the state legislature from 1937 until 1948, Daily Journal after crowds threatened to lynch yet another was among the most vocal and intransigent critics of the civil rights prisoner in 1883. “Whenever a crime is committed of movement. Abels was a perennial critic of efforts to foist social change any magnitude [by a black man] the cry among a certain upon a resistant population, and he used his newspaper to voice his opinion that prejudice could only be eroded gradually, “like the class of men is ‘Hang him!’” In that case, a businessman weathering of a block of granite where the change made through a provided a glimpse of white attitudes. Black criminality century is almost imperceptible.” had “caused a general feeling of indignation to prevail against the whole class. . . . Some day a regular war will to violence. Just months after the war ended, a mob follow some outrage committed by them.” 9 invaded the home of one of the town’s black residents Building on this legacy, whites introduced increasingly and, while one intruder held a cocked pistol to the rigid, if largely de facto, Jim Crow practices that excluded owner’s temple, the others plundered and demolished his or segregated blacks in restaurants, theaters, schools, home. 6 Whites grew more aggressive after the Exoduster movement, which brought thousands of southern blacks to Kansas in 1879 and swelled the black population of 7. Lawrence Standard , November 20, 1879; Kansas Daily Tribune , Lawrence from about 17 percent of the total in 1870 to quoted in Lawrence Daily Journal and Daily Kansas Tribune , August 25, 1880, evening edition. See also Spirit of (Lawrence) Kansas , November approximately 23 percent by the next census. Responding 19, 1879; Lawrence Standard , November 27, 1879; Lawrence Daily Journal , to this influx, whites threatened to lynch black prisoners November 18, 19, and 20, 1879; Lawrence Daily Journal , August 24 and 26, 1880; Brent M. S. Campney, “‘Light is Bursting upon the World’: in four separate incidents between 1879 and 1883. “The White Supremacy and Racist Violence against Blacks in Reconstruction death penalty . . . or lynch law, are believed to be the only Kansas,” Western Historical Quarterly , forthcoming (expected: vol. 41, Summer 2010). 8. Lawrence Daily Journal and Daily Kansas Tribune , June 10 and 13, 1882; Cordley to the editor, Lawrence Daily Journal , as printed in the 6. (Lawrence) Kansas Daily Tribune , July 21, 1865. The victim of this Daily Kansas Tribune , June 15, 1882. “dastardly outrage” was “a poor colored man named Geo. McGee, 9. Kansas City Times , reprinted in Western Recorder (Lawrence), living in Winthrop street.” August 10, 1883; Lawrence Daily Journal , August 7, 1883.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 25 After the Civil War, white Kansans created a free-state narrative that cast their state—and themselves—as staunchly committed to racial equality. Those in Lawrence, the territorial hotbed of abolitionism, subscribed to this narrative with particular fervor, fusing it with the story of the 1863 sacking of their town by William Clarke Quantrill. Survivors of the raid, photographed here at an April 1925 reunion outside Strong Hall at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, met to remember the deep legacy of the event sixty-two years after its occurrence.

housing, and employment. “Isn’t it a burning shame?,” Douglas County farmers armed with ropes hunted for asked the Historic Times , the city’s black paper, in a report two black youths accused of assault. “Had the people in on the expansion of these practices in the 1890s. “Right the neighborhood found the wretches they would have here in the city of Lawrence, ‘the Athens of the West,’ made short work of them,” reported the Lawrence Daily ‘neath the eaves of the great State University, and mid World . When officers finally captured the accused, they churches that preach ‘out of one blood God created prepared for a siege. “There was strong talk of lynching all nations,’” white men were permitted to “defile . . . but no mob appeared at the jail, although one was the good name of the fairest city in the West.” Over expected.” Again in 1909 law officers had to be vigilant in subsequent decades, whites consolidated Jim Crow. A the case of Underwood Taylor, accused of “an attempted longtime resident later remembered that “a lot of the assault on a five year old [white] girl. . . . Excitement in discrimination around here seems to have cropped up” Baldwin last evening reached fever heat over the crime,” in the years from “the early 1900s until about World War reported the Lawrence Daily Journal , and “it was found II.” 10 Although they did not invoke lynch law after 1882, necessary to hurry him [to the county jail in Lawrence] whites continued to threaten it. In 1898, for example, as soon as possible. The child’s father declared that he

10. Historic Times (Lawrence), September 26, 1891; University Daily of Kansas, 1850s–1960,” in Embattled Lawrence: Conﬂict and Community , Kansan , February 25, 1993; Clifford S. Grifﬁn, The University of Kansas: eds. Dennis Domer and Barbara Watkins (Lawrence: University A History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1974), 209–10, 626–27; of Kansas Continuing Education, 2001), 139–51; McCusker, “The William M. Tuttle, Jr., “Separate but Not Equal: African Americans and Forgotten Years,” 21–71; Campney “White Resistance,” 3–17; Reagan- the 100-year Struggle for Equality in Lawrence and at the University Kendrick, “Ninety Years of Struggle,” 24–84.

26 KANSAS H ISTORY would kill Taylor and other men in Baldwin were ready to serve him justice from the hands of fathers instead of waiting for it to be meted out by the law.” 11 As these incidents suggest, the police had begun to act proactively and successfully to suppress mob violence by the turn of the century. To some degree, however, they and their supporters in the justice system may also have assumed the role of the mob as the enforcers of white supremacy. In 1913, for instance, an officer engaged in a shootout with two blacks who were attempting to catch a free ride on a passenger train. One of the blacks—Jack Walker—was killed; the other—Walter Peterson—was apprehended with minor gunshot wounds. The latter had recently received an acquittal for killing a white man, a verdict that was evidently unpopular among whites. Consequently, officials labored to ensure that Peterson would not avoid the consequences of his alleged criminality a second time. Although it seemed likely that the officer had shot Walker, the Lawrence Daily Journal- World reported that “there is a strong suspicion . . . that Walker was [accidentally] killed by Peterson.” When physical evidence did not support this claim, authorities contemplated new charges that, in their absurdity, In the late nineteenth century, KU’s few black students participated in some interracial activities, including athletics. As racial lines hardened, indicated their obsession with ensuring the prisoner’s however, they lost many of these privileges. By the 1920s and 1930s, conviction. “It is quite probable that Walter Peterson . . . whites overtly marginalized blacks, refusing to use “tainted” facilities will face prosecution by the United States government,” and going out of their way to advertise their disdain. Summarizing the situation in 1928, Chancellor Ernest H. Lindley, pictured here, reported the Journal-World . “The train which the negroes observed: “the bald social fact is that the Negro is not getting his attempted to board was carrying government mails. As full rights in the University, nor in Lawrence, nor in Kansas, nor a result of the clash with the train crew the mail was anywhere else in this country, so far as I know.” delayed.” In a December 17 editorial, the paper left little doubt that whites harbored a grudge against Peterson, At KU, administrators and students encouraged recognized the officer’s role in the killing of Walker, and the development of overtly racist practices. In the late strongly supported the message of vengeance expressed nineteenth century, the school’s few black students by the shooting and by the response to it. “Juries do not participated in some interracial activities, including always do the public a service when they strain at an athletics, and enjoyed an integrated campus restaurant. effort to acquit,” it declared. “A policeman is said to have As racial lines hardened, however, they lost many of fired the shot [which killed the black man]. If he did it these privileges. As a harbinger of things to come, was in the line of his duty. A policeman who will not white students in 1902 seized a black cadaver from the shoot is not worth much to the public.” 12 dissection laboratory and hanged it on campus. Over the next two decades, whites marginalized blacks, refusing to use “tainted” facilities and going out of their 11. Lawrence Daily World , August 23, 1898; Lawrence Daily Journal , way to advertise their disdain. University of Kansas August 23, 1898; Lawrence Daily Journal , May 6, 1909. The 1909 Journal report suggests that the whites in Baldwin used questionable assault Chancellor Ernest H. Lindley offered an example of the charges against Taylor in an effort to deter black migration prompted by problem to the editor of the Crisis , W. E. B. Du Bois, in new employment opportunities there. “Taylor vows that he is innocent of the crime and that he had been merely playing with the child, but the December 1930. “Whenever colored girls use the rest constable says that he is guilty,” the newspaper reported. “Taylor is a rooms considerably,” he noted, “the white girls make no stranger in Baldwin having come there with a number of men to work at the waterworks plant, which is just being put in there.” protest but simply abandon these rooms to the colored 12. Lawrence Daily Journal-World , December 15, 16, and 17, 1913; see girls.” As the number of black students increased, the also Lawrence Daily Journal-World , August 11 and 12, November 12, and administrators felt compelled to impose a stricter December 17 and 18, 1913; Lawrence Daily Gazette , December 15, 1913; Topeka Daily Capital , August 11 and 13, and December 15, 1913. “color line.” In the 1910s and 1920s they segregated the

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 27 cafeteria; under the influence of legendary basketball “a conflict between the legal rights and the established coach Forrest “Phog” Allen they also began to exclude customs of the people of the state.” 16 blacks from many sports. 13 “The bald social fact is that On the KU campus at this same time black students the Negro is not getting his full rights in the University, continued to endure the stultifying effects of long nor in Lawrence, nor in Kansas, nor anywhere else in standing Jim Crow practices. “Blacks then could not this country, so far as I know,” acknowledged Chancellor participate in intercollegiate athletics (this was true until Lindley in 1928. In a passage published in 1934 by the the early 1950s), were segregated at the cafeteria in the liberal university publication, the Dove , a student again union, [and] were not allowed to take part in activities appealed to the free-state mythology, arguing that “all like the orchestra or glee club,” observed Monhollon. Nor in all it does not seem that the Negro is getting all that is could they mingle freely with their white counterparts. coming to him in the University of this state which was In 1945, for instance, Dean Donald M. Swarthout took one of the pioneers in the fight for his liberty.” 14 strong measures to curb interracial sexuality, targeting student McKensie Ferguson, accused of “too close and y World War II, white Lawrencians had frequent contacts with certain of the white students.” established a pernicious modus vivendi with The dean reported that “three young women were called the town’s black residents. They allowed blacks in and warned of a growing amount of talk” because of to attend largely integrated schools and to shop their association with Ferguson, whose conduct came inB most retail stores (although employees monitored under closer scrutiny after reports surfaced that he had them closely and forbade them from trying on clothes), been seen with female students in his Hoch Auditorium but they enforced segregation or exclusion in movie practice room. At least once that fall, Swarthout warned theaters, restaurants, bars, pools, and bowling alleys, Ferguson that if this happened again, he would be among other places. Local blacks knew where they could expelled. Within days, a watchman spotted a “colored and could not go; whites, however, did not shy away boy”—alleged to be Ferguson—in another compromising from drawing the color line explicitly for newcomers as position with “a young colored lady.” The following circumstances warranted. 15 “An event of note occurred day, a student reported that “Ferguson was in one of the in the summer of 1944, and again focused attention on practice rooms with a young woman or women in Frank that perennial trouble spot, the Lawrence theaters,” Strong Hall with a chair braced against the door from the observed one student several years later in her report on inside.” In that case, the beleaguered Ferguson admitted “The Young Women’s Christian Association in the Field that he had been talking with fellow students but of Race Relations at the University of Kansas.” “Two insisted that “the door was well open.” Not persuaded, Negro girls . . . and their dates one evening attempted Swarthout demanded that Ferguson withdraw from the to attend the Granada Theatre. They were immediately university. “This he has already done.” 17 repulsed in no uncertain terms and with a great deal of In the fall of 1945, white conservatives confronted the unpleasantness.” In enforcing these practices, whites first post-war challenge to the racial status quo when freely violated the state’s antidiscrimination laws. activists protested the police ejection of Corporal Wesley Reflecting on the nature of Jim Crow in Kansas in 1943, S. Sims, Jr., and his wife, Rosa, from a theater for refusing KU Chancellor Deane W. Malott mused that there was to sit in the “colored” section. Civil rights activists seized on the case because of its symbolic value. They hoped that this treatment of a decorated veteran who had received a

13. Ernest H. Lindley to W. E. B. Du Bois, December 11, 1930, Purple Heart might shame the majority into recognizing General Correspondence, A–W, 1930, folder “C,” Chancellor’s Ofﬁce, Ernest H. Lindley, University Archives, RG 2/9/1, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence (hereafter cited as 16. Deane W. Malott to Governor Andrew Schoeppel, March 19, “Lindley Papers, UA, RG 2/9/1”); Topeka Plaindealer , January 31, 1902; 1943, General Correspondence, 1941/42–1942–43, folder “Governor McCusker, “The Forgotten Years,” 6, 24, 28, 32–33. 1942/43,” Chancellor’s Ofﬁce, Deane W. Malott, University Archives, 14. “Negro Students Given Bad Break By Administration,” Dove RG 2.10.3, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, (University of Kansas, Lawrence), October 24, 1934, in University Lawrence (hereafter cited as “Malott Papers, UA”); Mary Wisner Archives, RG 69/6/1, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University Lees, “The Young Women’s Christian Association in the Field of Race of Kansas, Lawrence; Lindley to H. C. Herman, May 11, 1928, folder Relations at the University of Kansas,” [1948], 40, University Archives, “G–I,” Lindley Papers, UA, RG 2.9.1. D423, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, 15. Scott Schudy, “A History of Segregation: City no different Lawrence. from others in discrimination,” Lawrence Daily Journal-World , January 17. Monhollon, “This is America?” , 45–46; D. M. Swarthout to Carl 14, 2007, http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2007/jan/14/history_ F. Haynie, November 12, 1945, General Correspondence, E–J, 1945–46, segregation/. folder “F,” Malott Papers, UA, RG 2/10/1.

28 KANSAS H ISTORY the contradiction between the war against fascists abroad isn’t the KKK that retards desegregation, but good loyal and continuing racism against blacks at home. As Sims put American citizens like yourself, who are continuously it, “Just what was I fighting for?” In this case, conservatives seeking the line of least resistance—the comfortable deftly neutralized the threat to Jim Crow by rushing adjustment to a problem that is by its very nature “through a revocation of the city ordinance requiring a unadjustable [ sic ].” That same year, another student city license for theaters.” This move, an activist noted, articulated the popular views of many white residents: “was obviously to attempt protection for the theaters in “Few people believe in interracial marriage, few believe case of suit under the Civil Rights statute, since the law in dealing with a so-called racially ‘inferior’ group in states that there shall be no distinction made in ‘any business, few believe in socializing with an unacceptable place of entertainment or amusement for which a license race, few believe in worshipping in the same church and is required by any of the municipal authorities of this pew with a member of another race.” 20 state.’” While they won this round easily, conservatives Governed by prejudice, whites enforced their racist would soon face more daunting challenges because the practices despite the fact that the black population was Sims case proved to be a catalyst for civil rights activists both small numerically and shrinking proportionately. who worked earnestly, if intermittently, to topple Jim In 1940, only 1,352 blacks resided in town and they Crow over the next decade and a half. 18 accounted for only 9.4 percent of the total population. By 1960, they would increase in numbers by 305 but decline ost white Lawrencians, like most white to only 5.0 percent of the total due to the disproportionate northerners generally, adhered to the growth in the white population. At the university, black comfortable and overlapping fictions that students remained small in absolute numbers and never “racists” were uneducated “rednecks” reflected their proportion of the population generally. Mwho lived in the South and that the South was the only Even though “KU’s enrollment, like that of most state section of the country where white supremacy was an universities, shattered record after record” after the organizing principle. Given their own relative lack of war, black students would still only number around Jim Crow laws, they rarely recognized the brutal racial two hundred annually. During the 1948–1949 and 1949– inequalities in northern society or considered their 1950 school years respectively, when the GI bill was own role in perpetuating them. A student epitomized encouraging education for returning veterans, black this position in a 1958 editorial in which he lambasted students accounted for only 221 and 201 of the 7,209 and the “bigotry” of white students in Arkansas while 8,758 students, or 3.1 and 2.3 percent. 21 simultaneously applauding race relations in his own Throughout the brief period under investigation, community. “Here at KU we do not [need to] call ourselves conservatives repeatedly employed a limited number of integrated,” he cheered, because “we are simply free, as politically palatable arguments to justify the status quo. we should be.” Another student, however, took issue Only in rare cases, however, did they resort publicly with this rose-colored characterization. “In Arkansas, at to those based on the crudest sort of racism. When a least, they can claim a southern tradition of intolerance writer for the University Daily Kansan condemned what and tyranny,” he wrote. “In Lawrence we have our own he viewed as the immorality of Jim Crow in 1956, Abels version, home-grown and free-lance, just as vicious, and wrote him a letter, portions of which were soon published, just as stupid.” 19 Whether they chose to admit it or not, most white Lawrencians were “ill-disposed toward racial equality.” 20. University Daily Kansan , February 7 and January 12, 1956; Bell to Had they not been, Jim Crow would quite simply have Houser, September 21, 1947, CORE Papers. 21. Beth Bailey, Sex in the Heartland : Politics, Culture, and the Sexual withered and died. A KU student scolded his fellow Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), citizens on this score in 1956, reminding them that “it 83; Census of the United States: 1940, Volume II: Characteristics of the Population (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1943), 144; Census of Population: 1950, Volume II: Characteristics of the Population (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1952), 16–55; Census of Population: 1960, Volume I, Characteristics 18. Lawrence Daily Journal-World , November 1, 1945; Beth Bell, of the Population (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of the Census, 1961), 18–59. “Recent Activities of K.U. CORE,” [July 1947], CORE Papers. For more Archivist Letha Johnson at the University of Kansas indicated that the on this incident see Lees, “The YWCA in the Field of Race Relations,” university does not have firm records for black students for most of 43–44; Lawrence Daily Journal-World , November 27, 1945; McCusker, these years. However, she did provide those available for 1948–1949 “The Forgotten Years,” 72–73. and 1949–1950 in correspondence with the author, January 2 and 19. University Daily Kansan , September 22 and 26, 1958. January 13, 2009.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 29 A crowd gathers at the Granada Theater in September 1936 to take in a matinee. By World War II, the town’s white residents enforced segregation in movie theaters, restaurants, pools, and bowling alleys, among other places, making such venues in Lawrence racial trouble spots. Local blacks knew where they could and could not go; whites, however, did not shy away from drawing the color line explicitly for newcomers as circumstances warranted. At the Granada in the summer of 1944, for example, two black couples were barred from seeing a film and sent away “with a great deal of unpleasantness.” expressing his view that white supremacy was ordained reportedly blurted out his concern “that ‘the next thing by the highest of powers. “What do you mean?” he you know the niggers will be taking out the white asked, arguing that “God made both races—was he girls.’” In fact, as late as 1970, a gas station attendant immoral?” 22 Increasingly, however, local conservative freely used this sort of language in a discussion with a leaders were becoming much more circumspect about visitor to the city. “Hell, I don’t even know what a racist expressing such views in public forums. They seemed to is,” he told him nonchalantly. “I do a lot of business with understand the serious concerns articulated by national niggers.” 23 leaders over, first, the incongruity between the country’s In most cases, conservatives dressed their opposition opposition to fascism and communism abroad and its to black equality in more respectable garb. Conditioned tolerance of white supremacy at home and, second, by the free-state narrative, many flatly rejected any the potential impact of blatant racism on American assertion that black Kansans endured hardships, claims to leadership among the peoples of Africa, Asia, claiming, as an integrationist minister summarized, that and Latin America. Undoubtedly, whites continued to employ flagrantly racist rhetoric in their daily lives. In 23. Quoted in Moyers, Listening to America , 92; Bell to Houser, 1947 a businessman, railing against civil rights activists, August 13, 1947, CORE Papers. See also Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980), 126–28; Nick Bryant, The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the Struggle for Black Equality (New York: Basic Books, 22. University Daily Kansan , March 6, 1956. 2006), 219–22; Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty , 55–58.

30 KANSAS H ISTORY “there isn’t any racial discrimination at all and we have to that, to choose his or her own customers. Unlike the civil no problem to worry about.” 24 In a letter to the Journal- right, he asserted, the property right “is not a phoney [ sic ] World in 1960, a woman expressed incredulity over right dreamed up by mistaken persons who never back up recent demands for an end to Jim Crow. “It is a mystery their demands with a financial investment.” 27 Lawrence to me, after living in Lawrence most of my life, [that] Mayor John Weatherwax reiterated this position in 1958. all of a sudden there has developed a prejudice against “If a man wants to open a business and serve only white or Negroes.” Surveying his town the following year, a Negro customers, that is his privilege,” he told the Kansan . KU student saw little to contradict the city’s cherished “And to force him to serve both is to infringe upon free mythology. “If conditions are so bad here in Lawrence,” enterprise.” Adherents of this view cast business people he told the Kansan , “it is surprising to me that there have as unwitting hostages to majority rule. “Instead of serving been no large scale spontaneous demonstrations by the one individual,” the businessperson faced “the problem colored people . . . to secure their own rights.” 25 of serving a large number,” theorized a KU senior. “He Building on this conviction, conservatives charged must adopt policies which will satisfy his clientele. If that blacks were quite satisfied with prevailing social most of his patrons or society dictates that he must refuse relations and that white activists, driven by a “selfish, service to certain individuals, then he is powerless to childish, thirst for publicity,” were inventing problems do otherwise.” A waiter reported that her boss “doesn’t where they did not exist. “I have heard less about the care, one way or another” about maintaining Jim Crow; problem from members of the race than I have from he cared only about doing “what will be best for his a certain other group,” Abels, then a state senator, customers.” In placing the blame for Jim Crow on their grumbled in a 1947 letter. A student agreed, contending white customer base rather than on their own personal that black people—unlike the white activists who prejudice, business owners were clearly, if inadvertently, manipulated them—were sufficiently courteous to signaling again that blatantly racist rhetoric was losing its accept some restrictions out of deference to their white legitimacy. As the Kansan rightly noted, “we have never counterparts. “Colored people,” he insisted, “don’t want heard a restaurant owner admit he was prejudiced.” 28 to force themselves on anyone.” Conservatives adhered so deeply to this belief that they sometimes seemed to onservatives resented efforts to “force” them pity rather than loathe black activists, whom they viewed to interact with blacks, arguing that activists as the ignorant puppets of white intellectuals. During should “allow the adjustment to come a confrontation between activists and conservatives naturally.” One KU student, for example, in 1947, a businessman allegedly turned to the black proclaimedC his support for the aims of the civil rights protestors and advised them that the whites “had led workers but disavowed their aggressive methods. “By them into this mess and that they (Negroes) would be the brashness of your tactics you have alienated more the ones to suffer.” 26 In making threats of this sort against people than you have converted,” he warned. “This is black activists, conservatives pointedly undermined any unfortunate as it is traceable to your own stupidity.” 29 claim that white Lawrencians did not discriminate. The head of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce Business people and their supporters defended Jim similarly rebuked student activists in 1958 over a boycott Crow by asserting property rights over civil rights, against Jim Crow businesses. “We have worked on this arguing, as Abels put it, that “it is the owners [ sic ] ‘right’ to problem on a gradual basis and I think if we continue on operate the business as he or she sees fit” and, as a corollary that basis we can have some progress,” he warned, but “rushing this thing isn’t going to do any good.” Although race was inextricably intertwined with this concern, many conservatives earnestly opposed government 24. Rev. C. Fosburg Hughes to J. Oscar Lee, February 7, 1947, interference in their lives and the use of legal mandates Correspondence, 1947, box 1, Lawrence League for the Practice of Democracy, Kansas Collection, RH MS 48, Kenneth Spencer Research to alter social beliefs. Mayor Weatherwax, for one, Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence (hereafter cited as “LLPD papers”). 25. University Daily Kansan , January 18, 1961; Lawrence Daily Journal- 27. Lawrence Outlook , June 23, 1960. World , July 13, 1960. 28. University Daily Kansan , September 29, 1958; April 21, 1948; May 26. University Daily Kansan , April 30, 1948; Edwin F. Abels to C. 15, 1952; and September 26, 1958. Fosberg Hughes, January 29, 1947, LLPD Papers; Summer Session 29. “What About the Movies,” Eagle (University of Kansas), April 22, Kansan (University of Kansas, Lawrence), July 29, 1947; Bell to Houser, 1947, University Archives, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University August 13, 1947, CORE Papers. of Kansas, Lawrence; Summer Session Kansan , August 8, 1947.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 31 Reflecting widespread anti-intellectualism and a deeply entrenched “town-gown” conflict, conservatives opposed civil rights activism in part because they viewed it as a heavy-handed effort by university elites to impose their values on ordinary, virtuous, hard-working Lawrencians. “Now and then Kansas citizens read about some of the antics and projects by students at state schools and the nature of the events is such to make folks wonder if the youngsters deserve the opportunities the citizenry is helping to provide via taxes,” the Journal-World concluded in 1961. Because many faculty members and students hailed from outside of Kansas, they also saw this activism as an affront to state sovereignty by those who had no real stake in the long-term fate of the community. “At Kansas University, a goodly number of the ‘wild hare’ activities When expedient, conservatives applied pressure to university fostered by students are the products of the imagination of administrators to suppress student activists. In 1946, for example, a out-of-state students,” it claimed. “Time and again the top Lawrence attorney wrote Chancellor Deane W. Malott to express his scholars, the top leaders . . . are of Kansas origin,” proving anger upon learning that black and white women had begun living together in a housing unit. To demonstrate his protest, the lawyer that “there is considerable merit to being born and bred out refused to rent the two large apartments he owned next door to the ‘on the prairies’ and ‘in the sticks.’” Despite widespread offending housing unit. Malott, pictured here greeting KU students acceptance of this logic, most out-of-state students were during his first few days as chancellor in 1939, held firm and the lawyer kept his housing—enough for fifteen students—vacant for a probably indistinguishable from their in-state peers. As year before selling it. Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research a native Kansan retorted in the Journal-World , “many of Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. your ‘alleged working liberals’ and ‘student malcontents’ are Kansans.” 32 Conservatives often objected to what they viewed as “wished restaurants here would serve both Negro and special treatment for blacks, conveniently overlooking the white customers, but that the issue was not a step to be fact that they required this “special treatment” precisely taken by the city government.” 30 because whites discriminated against them. In 1956, for Many found “artificial forcing” to be particularly example, they railed against a proposal to build a city- objectionable because it elevated blacks to the level of run pool open to black children when there was already whites even though “they haven’t earned it.” Justin a private pool serving the white ones who accounted for W. Hill, one of the most prominent businessmen in most of the children in the city. In a letter to the Journal- Lawrence, articulated this position unmistakably—and World , “local patriot” Warren Zimmerman expressed his drew a clear distinction between “Negroes” and white outrage. “For the benefit of possibly 250 or 300, and that “people.” “I don’t think that passing laws will improve for three months only in a year, the city is being asked to the feelings of people toward Negroes. You don’t make vote practically a quarter million dollars in added taxes,” friends by forcing things on people.” He concluded he fumed, an amount of such consequence, in his view, that, “before the Negroes will be accepted by whites as that it would be better spent on a benefit for the majority, equals, they will have to raise their standards of living not a tiny minority. Besides, he argued, white families to the accepted level of the community.” In identifying were also compelled to do without luxuries because of this central concern among whites in Lawrence in the financial constraints but they did not make unreasonable 1960s, Monhollon writes that “the dichotomy was clear and “socialistic” demands on the government. “What and racially based: Whites deserved full participation as about them? They are just as deserving.” 33 American citizens, blacks did not; whites should decide when blacks deserve that equality.” 31 32. Lawrence Daily Journal-World , January 6 and 10, 1961. See also Lawrence Outlook , July 14, 1960; January 12, 1961. 30. University Daily Kansan , September 25 and 29, 1958. 33. Lawrence Outlook , May 5, 1960; Lawrence Daily Journal-World , 31. Summer Session Kansan , August 8, 1947; University Daily Kansan , November 1, 1956. For more on the 1956 pool issue, see Monhollon, April 30, 1948; January 20, 1961; Monhollon, “ This is America?” , 50, 43. “Taking the Plunge,” 143–44.

32 KANSAS H ISTORY n a related concern, some believed that civil rights with condescension, he held out hope that the misguided reforms constituted a perverse form of reverse children who seized on it in blind juvenile rebellion discrimination, an attempt to “solve discrimination would eventually grow out of it. “College kids who claim by discriminating against a few of the discriminators.” to be very liberal,” he told readers, usually “get back on IReacting to a protest at a movie theater in 1947, one the right track after they get a job and a home.” Given that student affirmed his solidarity with the owner. “[He] has many civil rights activists were themselves committed been more than fair,” he told a reporter. “I think the only anticommunists, they chafed at this effort to discredit discrimination has been against the whites.” 34 Lawrence them. As one complained, “It is not an easy thing to be City Manager Harold E. Horn hit on this concern again called a Communist just because you can’t subscribe to in 1960, when he bristled at charges that city hall had an unprovable doctrine of white superiority.” 36 discriminated against a young woman who applied for Finally, many conservatives shared a visceral fear that a job, suggesting that blacks believed that they should integration would encourage interracial sexuality—that, receive employment ahead of more qualified whites if civil rights workers “insist on rubbing elbows, certain simply because they were black. “There is no reason why other conditions are going to enter into the picture.” In any person shouldn’t be considered for city jobs if they a letter to the KU chancellor, a citizen made this concern qualify,” he told the Kansan . “If she qualified she would central to his opposition to civil rights. “We have no have as much chance as anyone else. . . . This does not quarrel with the colored race,” he maintained, “but most mean that we will hire a person simply because he or she is assuredly there is no desire on our part to eat, sleep and colored.” Although the mantra of “reverse discrimination” mix with them socially.” 37 Three white men bristled with is generally associated with the mid-1960s and beyond, anger over the same issue as they watched black and white Lawrencians were clearly beginning to assemble its white protestors in 1960. “Ain’t that a white girl walking essential ingredients much earlier. 35 between them two colored guys?,” they reportedly asked In an international political environment rife with each other. Whites were so fearful of interracial sexuality suspicion, many assumed that civil rights activists that even white civil rights activists were not immune were part of a foreign Communist conspiracy. During to this concern. When a handsome black activist visited the anticommunist hysteria of the late 1940s, one local Lawrence in the late 1940s, a member of the integrationist businessman was certain that a “radical element” was Lawrence League for the Practice of Democracy worried at the root of what he viewed as the un-American efforts that certain KU students had welcomed him a little too of KU activists. In a letter, he warned Chancellor Malott enthusiastically: “What if one of those girls would fall in that, “where there is smoke there is usually some fire love with him?” 38 and there is quite a lot of smoke around.” A student at In his inimitable style, Abels fused these two explosive KU in the 1950s came to the conclusion that “certain fears—the Communist threat and interracial sexuality— teachers and students were confirmed communists and in, of all places, a 1948 report of a trip that he and other there were a lot of other ‘Isms’ he didn’t like.” Abels state leaders had taken to Washington, D.C., where they identified similar influences at work during a protest urged army engineers to approve a flood control plan for in the summer of 1960. “Practically none of our good the Kansas River. While en route, he and his counterparts Lawrence citizens are implicated,” he claimed. Instead, became embroiled in a debate with a “thin-faced chap who the protestors consisted of “Communists,” “bearded said he was a communist.” To underscore the intellectual men,” and “colored men who are strangers and others bankruptcy of his adversary, Abels claimed that the who appear to be foreigners.” Abels did not, however, Communist lost interest in politics when “a fashionably believe that all those who embraced leftist ideology were committed Communists. In a 1948 editorial that dripped 36. Otha Hatfield to Deane W. Malott, July 28, 1947, General Correspondence, 1947–48, folder “C.O.R.E.,” Malott Papers, UA, RG 2/10/1; Charles C. Spencer, Sr., to W. Clarke Wescoe, July 21, 1960, 34. “Admit A&M!,” Eagle , April 22, 1947; Summer Session Kansan , General Correspondence, 1960/61, folder “S,” Chancellor’s Office, July 25, 1947. W. Clarke Wescoe, University Archives, RG 2.12.1, Kenneth Spencer 35. University Daily Kansan , September 22, 1960. On the emergence of Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence; Lawrence Outlook , “reverse discrimination” ideology in the 1960s, see Stephen Steinberg, July 14, 1960; March 11, 1948; Summer Session Kansan , August 5, 1947. “The Liberal Retreat from Race during the Post-Civil Rights Era,” and 37. Hatfield to Malott, July 28, 1947, Malott Papers, UA, RG 2/10/1; David Roediger, “White Workers, New Democrats, and Affirmative Summer Session Kansan , July 29, 1947. Action,” in The House that Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain , ed. 38. University Daily Kansan , November 9, 1960; McCusker, “The Wahneema Lubiano (New York: Pantheon Books, 1997), 13–47, 48–65. Forgotten Years,” 79.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 33 dressed young Negress . . . breezed into the coach.” At that point, Communist became Lothario, engaging in the vilest conduct with a woman of self-evidently low character. “The Communist chap got very much interested; he forgot his debate in his enthusiasm to buy the gal a bottle of beer. During the drinking he got one arm around the woman, smoothed her stockings . . . and got most everybody in the car so thoroughly disgusted that they wanted to throw them both off the train.” 39 In this account of an exchange between common-sense businessmen and two social pariahs, Abels underscored what he saw as the depravity of both communism and interracial sex. Coincident with these arguments justifying the racial status quo, conservatives also employed a variety of tactics throughout this period to defend it. In most cases, they simply refused to submit to the demands of activists who, in many instances, wielded little leverage. Of the twelve prominent businessmen invited to a meeting with the Reverend C. Fosburg Hughes to discuss the formation of a committee on racial discrimination in 1947, only seven showed. Over the course of the meeting, these seven emphatically rejected the need for any such committee. “Two or three of the men who have very University of Kansas administrators were not altogether consistent as violently prejudiced attitudes finally said that they would they navigated their way through the racial tensions on their campus. be willing to be on the inside in order to more effectively Two years after Chancellor Malott refused the demands of one landlord in Lawrence to close down interracial student housing, administrators say ‘No’ to different proposals.” Though discouraged, revoked the status of a campus organization calling itself the Congress of Hughes admitted that “it amused me no end to discover Racial Equality (CORE) and known for organizing high-profile sit-ins. that seven busy men would talk for two and a half hours Meeting with the groups after this decision, KU Executive Secretary 40 Laurence Woodruff, pictured here, “admitted responding to business about something they didn’t think was a problem!” In pressures but mentioned that this was still a capitalistic system and another refusal to reform, this time in 1952, a cafe owner that unless the University took some action it might mean loss of K.U. batted down a toothless petition demanding integration appropriations and loss of jobs for administrators.” Photo courtesy of with an insouciance that underscored the strength of his the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. hand. “I talked to the other restaurant owners,” he told the petitioners, “and we decided it was ‘no dice.’” In other cases, businessmen simply recognized that they could were frequently successful in giving activists “the run- stall action indefinitely by dragging out negotiations around.” 41 because they knew that activists often agreed to cease When expedient, conservatives applied pressure to protests during talks. Even when they reached agreement university administrators to suppress student activists, on reforms, businessmen often engaged in backsliding. In warning that they would hold KU responsible for their 1950, a theater manager assured activists that he would activities. In 1946, J. Clifton Ramsey, an attorney, wrote relax discriminatory seating and then largely ignored his Chancellor Malott to express his anger upon learning commitment over the next three years. When challenged that black and white women had begun living together in 1953, he reported that “Negroes were seated outside of in a housing unit. “In order to show my protest against the rear south section . . . on occasions .” Clearly, businessmen this condition, I am absolutely refusing to rent the two

41. University Daily Kansan , May 13, 1952; “Racial Discrimination and the Commonwealth Theaters,” n.d.; and “Report on Racial 39. Lawrence Outlook , March 4, 1948. Segregation in Lawrence Theaters: The Patee Theatre,” June 16, 1950, 40. Hughes to Lee, February 7, 1947, LLPD papers. “Discrimination in Lawrence” folder, box 3, LLPD Papers.

34 KANSAS H ISTORY large apartments next door to this deplorable situation,” to give blacks access to separate and inferior facilities he advised. As one of the women occupying the as an unjustifiably expensive alternative to the current offending housing unit noted, Ramsey put the university practice of outright exclusion. Quite simply, Abels administrators in “a difficult position . . . for housing for objected to spending any tax-payer money for another students was extremely scarce then, and they regretted pool when the white-only “pool now being operated is losing facilities for fifteen girls.” In that case, however, going along nicely.” Enough voters agreed with him to KU officials held firm and Ramsey kept his house vacant succeed in defeating the bond issue. Abels led a similar for a year before selling it. 42 campaign against a proposal to build an integrated pool Conservative businessmen aggressively used this in 1956, and cheered when voters again gave the plan tactic to deal with a KU chapter of the Congress of Racial “an ‘extremely healthy’ spanking.” In 1961, he lobbied Equality (CORE), a national interracial civil rights the state legislature to withhold needed funds from KU organization that enraged many whites with high-profile after a sit-in against discrimination. “The men in the sit-ins in 1947 and 1948. While university administrators legislature are practical fellows,” he opined. “Just what resisted Ramsey’s demands in 1946, they submitted to will be the effect of the crusade of the student paper to those against CORE. After a theater sit-in, administrators get two taverns to sell beer to a few University students revoked its status as a campus organization. Following who happen to be colored is only a guess but it certainly this ruling, KU Executive Secretary Laurence Woodruff will not be helpful.” 45 met with group members. “As we were virtually sure he would do, he refused us the right to be considered an onsidering the ease with which they could ‘official’ group, which means in effect that we are out- thwart the efforts of civil rights activists lawed on the campus,” reported Beth Bell, a white in so many instances, conservatives rarely KU senior and the leader of CORE. When the activists felt compelled to forge formal coalitions. quarreled with him, Woodruff reportedly made a TheyC were not a counter “movement”—they simply startling confession. “He admitted responding to business responded pragmatically to each threat as it presented pressures but mentioned that this was still a capitalistic itself, sometimes on their own and sometimes in informal system and that unless the University took some action it alliance with a handful of like-minded peers. They did might mean loss of K.U. appropriations and loss of jobs for coalesce more formally in 1947, however, in response to administrators.” CORE subsequently issued a statement the theater sit-in launched by CORE. “The town,” Bell charging that KU was little more than “a tool for the observed, “has certainly been stirred by our activity.” propagation of businessmen’s whims and an institution The theater owner, Stanley Schwahn, a man active in existing for their benefit, not that of the students or the community and state affairs, proved to be a formidable people.” 43 Business people were equally enraged in 1960 adversary. First, he reminded CORE that the revocation when protesters picketed the city’s white-only pool. As of the license ordinance after the Sims incident two years Abels growled, “the University of Kansas lost a great deal before gave him wide latitude. “Since I am no longer of good will and support throughout the business section licensed,” he advised, “I retain the priviledge [ sic ] of and among the thinking people of the community.” 44 working out our own problems without interference of Reflecting and molding public opinion, Abels any laws.” Reflecting his organizational abilities and his mobilized whites against threats to the status quo. He standing among his peers, Schwahn then united business attacked a bond issue proposed in 1945 by Phog Allen to build a city-run swimming pool for whites and then 45. Lawrence Outlook , November 8, 1945; November 8, 1956; January to open the older one (originally open only to whites) 12, 1961. See also Lawrence Daily Journal-World , November 3 and 13, to blacks. Like Allen, the editor “definitely favored 1956. Interestingly, Allen is sometimes lauded for his role in dismantl- segregation”; yet he saw the athletic director’s proposal ing Jim Crow during the 1950s, when KU began actively recruiting black sports talent, including the dominating Wilt Chamberlain. A recent article in the Lawrence Daily Journal World , for example, lauds Allen, “KU’s legendary basketball coach from 1920 to 1956 who 42. J. Clifton Ramsey to Deane W. Malott, July 5, 1946, General famously insisted Massachusetts Street businesses serve the equally Correspondence, NROTC-R, 1946/47, folder “R,” Malott Papers, UA, legendary 7-foot-1 Wilt Chamberlain who played at KU from 1957 to RG 2/10/1; Lees, “The YWCA in the Field of Race Relations,” 44–45. 1958.” Schudy, “A History of Segregation.” Although Allen’s role in 43. Bell to Houser, September 21, 1947, CORE Papers (emphasis in undoing segregation practices in the 1950s is significant, it ought to be original); Beth Bell et al., to Chancellor Deane W. Malott, September balanced against his role in imposing these practices in the first place. 18, 1947, General Correspondence, 1947/1948, C.O.R.E. folder, Malott See also, Aram Goudsouzian, “‘Can Basketball Survive Chamberlain?’: Papers, UA, 2/10/1. The Kansas Years of Wilt the Stilt,” Kansas History: A Journal of the 44. Lawrence Outlook , July 14, 1960. Central Plains 28 (Autumn 2005): 150–73.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 35 opposed integration, they feared the repercussions associated with crossing them. J. D. King, a theater manager who consistently backtracked on his pledge to integrate, told civil rights workers that he was genuinely sensitive to their concerns but that “he definitely did not want to be put in the uncomfortable role of a ‘crusading’ Lawrence businessman.” He also expressed his conviction that any public announcement of his altered policies “would draw too much undesirable attention and criticism to himself.” King was probably prescient in his fears that he would be “corrected” by his peers. A white woman who initially agreed to rent an apartment to a black student in 1959 was “corrected” and consequently felt compelled to renege on the agreement. As KU Dean of Students Donald K. Alderson noted, the young man planned to occupy the apartment in the 1800 block of Louisiana Street in the spring of 1960 “until the landlady indicated that neighbors did not want a negro in one of her apartments.” 47 During protests in the summer of 1960, a very agitated Abels thundered his view that “this community has advanced far since the days when Negroes were hanged from the Kansas river bridge.” 48 However inflammatory, few could dispute his assertion: in the decade and a half after World War II, whites largely refrained from the kind of For decades some Lawrencians lobbied for a pool open to blacks, violence that had earlier maintained white supremacy. In though bond measures in the 1940s and 1950s demonstrated that a a case of limited violence in 1948, W. E. Murphy organized majority of citizens did not support the idea. Again in the summer a group of students, many of them KU football players, to of 1960, conservatives succeeded in crushing a civil rights campaign against discrimination at the Jayhawk Plunge, the city’s de facto disperse black and white CORE members engaged in a sit- public pool, a facility that was open to non-members through single in at his restaurant, warning activists that “they stayed at admission tickets—providing that the non-members were white. The their own risk.” Upon arrival, police authorized Murphy matter sparked protests like the one pictured here. Photo courtesy to use force. As they returned to their squad car, the mob of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. dragged male activists outside and hurled them to the pavement; suggesting that chivalry remained very much alive, it permitted female activists to leave on foot. When owners into an ephemeral group of their own, christening a CORE member called police to request the arrest of the it (with baffling redundancy) the Lawrence Citizens for assailants, the dispatcher left little doubt that protesters the Entertainment of the Citizens of Lawrence. Within could expect no protection: “My advice to you is to get days, business people throughout downtown posted your gang and clear out of there.” Whites undoubtedly signs reminding patrons that they “reserve the right to continued to use physical intimidation in incidents that 46 refuse service to persons of any race.” were simply outside the scrutiny of newspapers. In 1958, Unquestionably, some business people were sympathetic to the goals of the civil rights movement. However, because so many of their peers adamantly 47. “Racial Discrimination and the Commonwealth Theaters,” LLPD Papers; Kenneth Megill to Dean Donald K. Alderson, December 23, 1959, Woodruff and Alderson Correspondence, 1921– 1974, “Discrimination—D. K. Alderson, 1957–1965” folder, Dean of Men Files, University Archives, RG 52, Kenneth Spencer Research 46. Bell to Houser, August 13, 1947, CORE Papers; [Stanley Schwahn Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence. to Deane W. Malott, September 1947] and Petition to Schwahn [1947], 48. Lawrence Outlook , July 14, 1960; see also Lawrence Daily Journal- General Correspondence, 1947/1948, C.O.R.E. folder, Malott Papers, World , April 16, 1948; University Daily Kansan , April 16, 1948; Kansas UA, 2/10/1. For more on Schwahn and this incident, see Lawrence Daily City Times , April 16, 1948; Call (Kansas City), April 23, 1948; Lawrence Journal-World , July 18, 1949; McCusker, “The Forgotten Years,” 115–25. Outlook , April 22, 1948; McCusker, “The Forgotten Years,” 128–34.

36 KANSAS H ISTORY for instance, a student planted a fake bomb in a KU office that employed a black secretary and several students from India, Iran, and Pakistan—“all dark-skinned people.” Although the chancellor framed the incident as a “college prank,” he privately confessed his doubt that “we shall ever convince these people” that the prank “was not intended to reflect on the color of their skin.” 49 By the mid-1950s, civil rights activists had achieved some success in driving Jim Crow into retreat throughout Lawrence and at the university. They had forced theater owners and barbers to desegregate and had almost entirely eradicated overt discrimination at KU, except in the fraternity and sorority systems. By this point, conservatives were no longer capable of holding back the wave of social change washing across the nation. “In the years following World War II, economic growth, combined with federal actions . . . undermined the authority of local . . . elites,” found historian Beth Bailey. “Lawrence, like cities and towns throughout the nation, became much less isolated,” as it became integrated ever more tightly into a national culture that was moving away from earlier social norms. Undoubtedly, conservatives also recognized that if they did not relax Jim Crow, Kansas might become linked in the national imagination with the South, the stifling racism of which was routinely under assault in the northern press. They seem to have recognized this clearly after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, During the fight over admittance to the Jayhawk Plunge, Lawrence City Kansas , case, which put the state in the national spotlight. Attorney Charles Stough, pictured here, produced a new pool licensing ordinance. Although his ordinance was intended to forestall integration, Assailing the intransigence of white leaders in the South, he couched it within the framework of the free-state narrative and, in the Journal-World correctly predicted that “the change the process, provided one more testament to the extraordinary resilience in Lawrence,” where there was no compulsory school of that mythology. In a feat of remarkable intellectual dexterity, he portrayed the further delay of integrated swimming in Lawrence—a segregation, “will be brought about in a friendly and delay that persisted until the late 1960s—as further confirmation that peaceful atmosphere.” A KU student was equally eager to Kansas was a land of racial equality and justice. distinguish his state from Alabama when anti-integration riots erupted there in 1956, writing that, “We should be thankful that the people in this area are well ahead of the to a 1954 study, thirty-three of thirty-eight restaurants narrow thinking of a few in the South.” 50 reported that they continued to deny service to blacks or Despite their losses on several fronts, conservatives to enforce segregation. Of the remaining five, three were were able to “hold the line” on many others. According black-owned. In a survey four years later, just ten of forty restaurants served mixed groups and only “a few will serve Negroes alone.” Asked to report how many 49. Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy to Marion W. Vaughn, October 24, 1958, General Correspondence, N–Z, 1958–59, folder eateries discriminated in 1958, an official conceded that “V,” Chancellor’s Office, Franklin D. Murphy, University Archives, “the number is high.” Perhaps, suggested an activist RG 2.11.1, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence; [Congressional] Committee on Racial Equality, “Report of sarcastically, restaurateurs might appreciate “another Direct Action Against Racial Discrimination at a Café Near the Campus century or two to prepare public opinion.” Tavern of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, April 15, 1948,” General Correspondence, 1947/1948, C.O.R.E. folder, Malott Papers, UA, keepers successfully utilized a loophole in the law 2/10/1; “A Protest of No Avail,” Kansas City Times , April 16, 1948. to discriminate legally against blacks. “There is a state 50. Bailey, Sex in the Heartland , 38–39; Lawrence Daily Journal- law that forces restaurant owners to serve persons of World , May 19, 1954; University Daily Kansan , February 9, 1956. For an editorial attacking the southern response to the Supreme Court ruling, see Lawrence Daily Journal-World , May 25, 1954.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 37 all races,” reported the Journal-World after the 1961 sit- free-state narrative and, in the process, provided one in, but “it appears this law does not apply to taverns. more testament to the extraordinary resilience of that To be a ‘restaurant,’ an establishment must prepare mythology. In a feat of remarkable intellectual dexterity, food on the premises, and this is not done at Louise’s he portrayed the further delay of integrated swimming Bar.” Although many business people did submit to a in Lawrence—a delay that persisted until the late 1959 public accommodations law, others continued to 1960s—as further confirmation that Kansas was a land discriminate in housing and employment. “I contacted of racial equality and justice. “The State of Kansas,” he one of our leading real-estate agencies about a particular proclaimed in the grandiloquent preamble, “and more house that was for sale,” a black resident reported in particularly the city of Lawrence, was the backdrop for 1961. “He would not give me any consideration. His freedom from the day the first settlers arrived in this explanation was that this particular real-estate property locality . . . and gave impetus to the cause of freedom had been taken from his list, yet his sign is still up at throughout . . . the world.” 53 this writing.” Near the end of the study period, one student correctly assessed the situation in the state at lthough civil rights activists seriously the time with the observation that, in “the free state of challenged Jim Crow in Lawrence between Kansas, segregation is more than something read about 1945 and 1961, they were never able to in dispatches from the deep South.” 51 sustain their efforts over time. They relied In the summer of 1960, conservatives also succeeded in Ainstead on intermittent assaults, working vigorously for crushing a civil rights campaign against discrimination short periods, only to retire from the field for months at the Jayhawk Plunge, the city’s de facto public pool, a or even longer. Nevertheless, racial conservatives facility that was open to non-members through single clearly experienced these ephemeral challenges as a admission tickets—providing that the non-members consequential and bewildering tempest of social change. were white. In a repetition of the Sims affair fifteen years In broader historical perspective, however, it is evident before, city authorities repealed an ordinance requiring that the conservatives were actually confronting only the licensing of pools, thereby exempting the Plunge the initial fitful gusts of a storm that would transform from compliance with the 1959 public accommodations the city and the nation during the 1960s. As activists act. Explaining the repeal of the ordinance, officials launched a more sustained and aggressive civil rights promised to write a “good” new law, which “will campaign during that decade, conservatives persisted stand the test of time.” Not surprisingly, however, they in their efforts to deny or delay change, using many stalled in producing the new ordinance, precipitating of the same arguments that they had employed over a civil rights protest at the pool. Soon, the owner sold previous decades. In 1965, Justin Hill echoed his earlier the Plunge and its new owners vowed to run the pool views, condemning those blacks “demanding housing as a strictly enforced private club, exempting it from in suburbs developed by whites, jobs in companies the public accommodations act. In this way, they once developed by whites, the right to eat in restaurants again crushed the protest and made the need for a new and go in stores owned and developed by whites.” licensing ordinance “rather superfluous.” 52 The “coloreds,” he maintained, “should earn the right As promised by Lawrence officials, however, City to these things.” Other white business owners also Attorney Charles Stough produced a new ordinance. employed many of the same tactics, which they had Although he had worked assiduously on the repeal of used with considerable success since 1945. “A Lawrence the original pool licensing ordinance in order to forestall apartment building owner defended his refusal to rent integration, Stough rather incongruously positioned his to black students in 1965” by asking the activists “if they newly proposed regulation within the framework of the ‘were prepared to reimburse him for the loss of income’ that would result from the ‘exodus of white students’ unwilling to live near blacks.” 54 51. University Daily Kansan , September 26 and 25, 1958; Lawrence Daily Journal-World , January 13 and 16, 1961; University Daily Kansan , September 26, 1958; see also Campney, “White Resistance,” 20–30; Reagan-Kendrick, “Ninety Years of Struggle,” 161–99. 52. Lawrence Daily Journal-World , July 6 and 13, 1960. For accounts 53. Lawrence Daily Journal-World , July 13, 1960. Lawrence voters of the protest against the Jayhawk Plunge, see Monhollon, “Taking finally approved bonds to build a municipal swimming pool in 1967. the Plunge”; Monhollon, “This is America?” , 46–48, 85–92; Campney, See Monhollon, “This is America?” , 85–86. “White Resistance,” 142–49. 54. Monhollon, “This is America?” , 43, 51.

38 KANSAS H ISTORY On July 16, 1970, a white Lawrence policeman confronted a nineteen-year-old black man, Rick “Tiger” Dowdell, in a dark alley. The confrontation left Dowdell dead. Whether or not William Garrett killed Dowdell in self-defense, as determined by the coroner’s inquest, the shooting set off several nights of racial violence and resulted in a citywide curfew and the summoning of the National Guard. Dowdell’s death became a rallying point for those demanding racial equality, as evidenced by the poster held during this December 1970 rally. Photo courtesy of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence.

Confronted with a more vigorous and sustained threat intimidation—and wholeheartedly endorsed it. “I in the 1960s, some whites revealed that they could, when don’t think many people feel much remorse over that pressed, still rally behind racial vengeance, challenging shooting,” a white man conceded. “A man I work with Abel’s assertion that the community had “advanced . . . said they should have got all the other Dowdells far since the days when Negroes were hanged.” In an when they got Tiger.” Making a “gesture with his thumb incident reminiscent of the 1913 shooting of Walker raised and his ﬁrst ﬁnger pointed” like a pistol, another and Peterson, William Garrett, a white policeman, man quipped: “It ain’t too late to start killin’ niggers.” shot and killed a nineteen-year-old black man, Rick Few supported the mob violence of the past but one man “Tiger” Dowdell, in a confrontation in a dark alley on worried that some whites might exploit the crisis. “I’d July 16, 1970. Whether or not Garrett killed Dowdell in say there’s going to be trouble,” he confessed. “We’ve self-defense, as determined by the coroner’s inquest, got some rednecks here. Not as many as there used to many whites interpreted the event as an act of racial be, but enough. How large a group this is, I don’t know.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 39 I don’t really want to know. But they do exist.” In 1960, killed Dowdell in 1970, had difficulty reconciling the Abels could assert with some justification that whites event with what he perceived as the bucolic essence of the had repudiated violent racism. From the vantage point town. “The man who invited me, [newspaper publisher] of 1970, however, it seems possible to conclude that Dolph C. Simons, Jr., said that Lawrence is a pleasant white Lawrencians did not resort to serious violence place to live and to visit—‘A university town in the heart in the 1940s and 1950s primarily because they did not of Middle America should give you a chance to catch perceive blacks as an immediate or severe threat as did your breath,’ he had suggested—and I half expected to their counterparts during the twenty years after the Civil enjoy a brief respite from my work before heading west. War and in the decade of the 1960s. 55 . . . With the early sun behind my back and the twin While most whites undoubtedly opposed this more prairies of sky and grassland racing westward ahead aggressive approach, they did betray by their comments of me, there was no warning of what was to come.” 57 in the aftermath of the shooting some alarming insights Scholars have been no less susceptible to the influence of into the depths of racism still evident in Lawrence. this imagined place. In a recent study of purposely all- “People are angry—and not just the Wallaceites and the white sundown towns, James W. Loewen illustrated the hardhats,” one man declared. “There’s something in the degree to which this idyllic Midwest image continues air that stings.” A schoolteacher provided an equally to influence scholarly perception: “Over and over I tell troubling perspective. After “the only black student in historians and social scientists about my research, and the room” had voiced his anger over discrimination, they assume I’m studying the Deep South,” he reported. this teacher nonchalantly detailed how he and the white “Even when I correct them, the correction often fails students had silenced the youth. “I decided to do the to register. I tell a sociologist friend that I’ve just spent best I could and I asked for a general discussion on months researching sundown towns in the Midwest. what he had said. . . . It was a vigorous discussion. He Ten minutes later he has forgotten and again assumes I finally ran out of answers. . . . He just couldn’t defend have been traveling through the South.” 58 his position.” Even as the city teetered on the edge of a riot, the teacher adhered to the narrative of the free-state elatively recently historians have begun to by dismissing the severity of prejudice in Lawrence. challenge these strongly held perceptions “I don’t really think he believed what he has been fed. and to redirect the historiography of the civil We weren’t trying to break him down but he came as rights struggle from a narrowly southern close that day as he’s ever come to admitting he doesn’t Remphasis to one more national in scope. Scholars like really believe this stuff about racism.” It is difficult to Thomas J. Sugrue, Arnold R. Hirsch, and Matthew C. determine whether the teacher meant his final statement Whitaker have charted the diverse efforts of business as a genuine expression of concern or as a vaguely felt leaders, politicians, and ordinary citizens to defend or desire: “I worried about him. . . . He’s a kid of average challenge white privilege in large industrial cities, such intelligence. But he’s hotheaded and susceptible and he as Detroit and Chicago, during the post-World War II era. could wind up dead in some alley like Dowdell.” 56 Furthermore, they have called for a broader investigation Reinforcing the free-state story so treasured in of the northern struggle over civil rights outside these Lawrence was an overarching and equally influential principal urban centers. In this regard, Sugrue has midwestern narrative, which depicted the rural observed that “struggles for civil rights also shaped small heartland as a place of pastoral virtue, antithetical to the towns and suburbs—part of the northern story that has kind of racist violence commonly associated with the been almost completely overlooked.” This study reflects American South. For example, journalist, author, and the shift in the historiography of the civil rights struggle former presidential speechwriter Bill Moyers, who just happened to be in Lawrence on the night that Garrett

57. Ibid ., 83. 58. James W. Loewen, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of 55. Moyers, Listening to America , 112, 97; Monhollon, “This is American Racism (New York: New Press, 2005), 198. For more on this America?” , 165–68. midwestern narrative, see Campney, “This is Not Dixie,” http:// 56. Moyers, Listening to America , 120, 112–13. southernspaces.org/contents/2007/campney/1a.htm#edn5.

40 KANSAS H ISTORY with its focus on a northern city and advances it by an like Lawrence—notwithstanding its self-inoculating examination of a mid-sized, midwestern college town free-state and midwestern narratives—as thoroughly as during the immediate post-war period. 59 it did any of those other American places more popularly Interestingly, Sugrue’s study also confirms to some associated with it. “Lawrence, Kansas, is a microcosm,” degree Moyers’s Lawrence reflections about the night Moyers reflected. “Lawrence, Kansas, is the epitome of Dowdell was killed. Confronted with the dichotomy a troubled, spirited, inspired, frightened, complacent, between the pastoral imagery of the heartland and industrious, selfish, magnanimous, spiteful, bewitching the jarring reality of racial unrest, he was ultimately country. Lawrence, Kansas, is a little world.” 60 compelled to conclude that racism was neither a southern pathology nor a northern urban one; it afflicted places

59. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty , xxvii–xxviii; Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis ; Arnold R. Hirsch, “Massive Resistance in the Urban North: Trumbull Park, Chicago, 1953–1966,” Journal of American History 82 (September 1995): 522–50; Matthew C. Whitaker, Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005). 60. Moyers, Listening to America , 83.

THE D EFENSE OF J IM C ROW 41 Figure 1: Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1865: Principal Meridian: Compiled From Original Field Notes.

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 33 (Spring 2010): 42–53

42 KANSAS H ISTORY THE K ANSAS P OCKET M APS OF OTIS B. G UNN AND DAVID T. M ITCHELL : A Case of Nineteenth-Century Promotional Cartography

by Scott R. McEathron

here is . . .? A map is an important tool we use to answer this most basic of questions. Today maps are ubiquitous and interwoven into our everyday lives. We can create maps to meet our individual needs using interactive Web mapping sites and then send, receive, and view them on portable electronic devices. Many vehicles are now equipped with navigation systems that display digital maps to aid Wdrivers in ﬁnding their way. In nineteenth-century Kansas, maps were also present. Then as now maps were published for a variety of purposes and used by readers in a great many ways, including for administrative, educational, economic, travel, and military purposes. The aim of this article is to examine a series of Kansas maps published between 1861 and 1866 by two men from different backgrounds who came to Kansas Territory amidst the political turmoil of Bleeding Kansas. Attention will be paid to the backgrounds of the mapmakers, Otis Berthoude Gunn and David T. Mitchell, their cartographic and surveying skills, and the maps they produced before their partnership began in 1861, including the maps of Kansas they independently published in 1859. The techniques used to create the original Gunn and Mitchell map and its subsequent editions will also be considered. The several editions of this map continue to be important in the study of Kansas and U.S. history for a number of reasons: they document the rapid growth of early Colorado and Kansas; they illustrate the chaotic land policy of the U.S. government at the time and comment upon the government’s relationship

Scott R. McEathron is the map librarian at the T. R. Smith Map Collection, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. He received a master’s degree in geography and a master’s degree of library and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 43 to Native Americans; and the maps also illustrate the or text. 4 Like Gunn’s map, Mitchell’s 1859 map was also rise of monochromatic lithography, a printing technique intended to be sold to both immigrant land settlers and found throughout late-nineteenth-century publications. gold seekers. In the end it was the rush for land, not gold, On a purely practical level, as well, the maps were no that was the most important factor in understanding the doubt successful tools, since the authors continued to demand for and evolution of Gunn and Mitchell’s series update them through several editions. 1 of maps. The Gunn and Mitchell maps have not been studied in any great detail. They are not included, for example, in orn in Mason County, Kentucky, April 8, 1832, Michael Heaston’s preliminary survey of Kansas pocket David T. Mitchell was educated and entered the maps (often designated as sectional maps). Neither legal profession in that state. From information are the Gunn and Mitchell maps mentioned in Walter on Mitchell’s map we see that by 1859 he had W. Ristow’s American Map and Mapmakers: Commercial settledB in the town of Lecompton, Douglas County, Cartography in the Nineteenth Century , which only Kansas Territory, where he promoted himself as a “U.S. summarizes the early years of American monochromatic surveyor and land agent.” The census of 1860 indicates lithographic map printing by focusing on the largest that Mitchell, then twenty-nine, was working as a and most prolific publishing houses and the New York lawyer, and had an estimated $8,000 of real estate. 5 In lithographic shops. 2 1861 Kansas became a state, and in the fall of that year The map Gunn produced in 1859, in addition to its Mitchell was elected to represent Douglas County in the accompanying field guide, has been more closely studied second Kansas state legislature. He was married May by historians interested in the role such materials played 12, 1862, to Amanda Garrett, and by 1866 Mitchell and in the Kansas (now Colorado) “Pikes Peak” Gold Rush. 3 his family had moved to Lawrence where he worked However, studying such maps and guides solely as as a lawyer and served one term as county attorney. In artifacts of the gold rush episode, and thereby removing 1870 he was among a group that incorporated the daily them from their broader historical context, provides newspaper, the Democratic Standard , which he sold in only a limited understanding of their role in history. 1875. In 1880 he moved with his family to a farm in Perry, Participants in the gold rush were not the only users of where he resided until his death in 1897. 6 maps and guides like Gunn’s. In fact, the emphases of After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in both Gunn’s and Mitchell’s 1859 maps, as well as the May 1854, before the land in these new territories maps they produced together, are on the lands of Kansas could be sold to settlers, surveys were required to east of the Sixth Principle Meridian; the maps showing delineate boundaries in accordance with the methods the routes to the gold mines are always ancillary. established by the U.S. Public Land Survey. According Focusing almost exclusively on the “guidebooks,” to the November 8, 1855, Report of the Surveyor General of historians such as Calvin W. Gower, Leroy R. Hafen, and Kansas and Nebraska Territories , Mitchell was among the William Wyckoff do not include the 1859 map of Kansas numerous surveyors contracted to conduct subdividing Territory by David T. Mitchell (figure 2) in their works, since it was issued without an accompanying field guide 4. Hafen, Pike’s Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks of 1859 ; Gower, “Aids to Prospective Prospectors”; Wyckoff, “Mapping the ‘New El Dorado’: Pikes Peak promotional Cartography, 1859–1861,” 32–45; David T. Mitchell, Mitchell’s Sectional Map of Kansas: Showing the U.S. Survey up to 1859: Compiled from the Field Notes in the Surveyor Generals Office , map (Lecompton, K.T.: Mitchell, 1859; printed Cincinnati, Ohio: 1. Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map Middleton, Strobridge & Co.). Available online at http://hdl.loc. of Kansas: and the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1861: gov/loc.gmd/g4200.ct001346. Compiled From Original Field Notes , map (Lecompton, K.T.: Gunn & 5. U.S. Census, 1860, Schedule 1, Kansas, Douglas County, Mitchell, 1861; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. Schuchman’s). Lecompton, Series M653, Roll 349, p. 171. Available online at www. 2. Michael D. Heaston, “The Kansas Pocket Map, the Cartographers heritagequestonline. Mitchell, Mitchell’s Sectional Map of Kansas . Orphan,” Yale University Library Gazette 54 (April 1980): 168–82; Walter 6. W. C. Simons, “Lawrence Newspapers in Territorial Days,” W. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in Kansas Historical Collections, 1926–1928 17 (1928): 335; Iona Spencer, the Nineteenth Century (Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, “A Pioneer Lecompton Family: David Thomas and Amanda Melvina 1985), 281–301. Mitchell,” Bald Eagle 20 (Spring 1994): 5–6; Alice Clare Wright, “David 3. Notably, LeRoy R. Hafen, ed., Pike’s Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks Thomas Mitchell (1832–1897),” Douglas County, Kansas, Family of 1859 (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1941); Calvin W. Histories 1991–1992 (Lawrence: Douglas County Genealogical Society, Gower, “Aids to Prospective Prospectors: Guidebooks and Letters 1994), 366–67; Democratic Standard (Lawrence, Kans.), September 29, From Kansas Territory, 1858–1860,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 43 November 17, 1870; “The Kansas Legislature in 1862,” Kansas Historical (Summer 1977): 67–77; William Wyckoff, “Mapping the ‘New El Collections, 1903–1904 3 (1904): 103; D. W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas, Dorado’: Pikes Peak promotional Cartography, 1859–1861,” Imago 1541–1885 (Topeka: Kansas Publishing House, 1886), 366. Mitchell was Mundi 40 (1988): 32–45. reelected in 1862.

44 KANSAS H ISTORY Figure 2: Mitchell’s Sectional Map of Kansas: Showing the U.S. Survey up to 1859: Compiled from the Field Notes in the Surveyor Generals Office , courtesy of the Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. of townships in Kansas Territory. 7 Subsequent reports Mitchell’s contemporary, Otis Berthoude Gunn, contain more detailed synopses of Mitchell’s work as a was born in October 1828 on a farm near Montague, surveyor. 8 This work paid him well, and must have given Massachusetts, and was educated at Montague and him an excellent knowledge of the lands he helped plot. Williston Seminary at East Hampton, Massachusetts. Furthermore, it taught him what he needed to know in Upon completing his education in 1846, he taught school order to complete his own map in 1859 (figure 2). for about two years near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He then worked his way up through the civil engineering ranks of various railroads: becoming a division engineer 7. U.S. Senate, Executive Documents, Report of the Surveyor General of the Wabash Railway in Indiana and later assistant of Kansas and Nebraska Territories, Nov. 8, 1855 , 34th Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., serial 810, 312. engineer of the Lockport and Niagara Falls Railway. He 8. For each of his contracts Mitchell was paid a rate of $5 per mile; was working in this capacity when he married Mary for his first two contracts he was paid a total of $1,434.63. U.S. House, Executive Documents, Annual Report of the Surveyor General of Kansas, Helen Crosby in 1853. In 1856 or 1857, the Gunn family Oct. 20, 1856 , 34th Cong., 3d. sess., serial 893, 538–39. Beginning moved west and initially settled in Wyandotte (now April 1, 1856, he executed a third contract to conduct subdividing 9 for which he was paid $1,375.37. U.S. House, Executive Documents, Kansas City), Kansas Territory. [Annual Report of the Surveyor General of] Kansas Territory, Oct. 21, 1857 , 35th Cong., 1st. sess., serial 942, 282. The last time he appears in the 9. “In Memoriam,” Kansas Historical Collections, 1903–1904 8 (1904): Surveyor General’s Report is for a contract dated November 25, 1857. 378–80; [Evelyn Gunn Fisher?], finding aid introduction, March 22, U.S. Senate, Executive Documents, [Annual Report of the Surveyor 1995, Frederick C. Gunn Papers, Western Historical Manuscript General of Kansas and Nebraska Territories], Oct. 1, 1858 , 35th Cong., 2nd Collection, University of Missouri, Kansas City. sess., serial 974, 293.

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 45 swelling the whole edition to thirty thousand.” 11 Gunn’s own map and field guide were then in the process of being printed, and in the fourth column of Eastin’s guide there is an advertisement for “Gunn’s New Map and Handbook of Kansas and the Gold Mines.” Gunn’s 1859 map and guidebook were well advertised in a variety of publications and sold for one dollar. He stated that “it was not the original design to publish a handbook in connection with the map, but increasing interest felt in Kansas in all parts of the union, by reason of the recent discoveries of gold at the base of the mountains, decided me to issue a few pages of descriptive and statistical matter, embodying a variety of useful information.” 12 Gunn was the first state senator elected to the Kansas legislature from Wyandotte County, holding office in 1861 and 1862. During the Civil War, he served on the staff of Governor Charles Robinson and also with the Fourth Kansas Volunteers. He went on to have a very distinguished career as a chief engineer and building superintendent with the Kansas Pacific, Union Pacific, Santa Fe, and Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads and other entities. In addition to the field guide and maps of Kansas, Gunn contributed articles and books on political and economic issues of the day. 13 Otis Berthoude Gunn, pictured around 1852, was born in October 1828 near Montague, Massachusetts. He became first a teacher and later a Both Mitchell’s and Gunn’s 1859 maps were derived civil engineer working with various railroads. He married Mary Helen from the surveys of the U.S. Public Land Survey then Crosby in 1853, and in 1856 or 1857 the Gunn family moved west and taking place in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. initially settled in Wyandotte, Kansas Territory. Gunn worked, among other things, as a cartographer while in Kansas, publishing a map of The U.S. Public Land Survey, also known as the Superior in 1858, his own map of the state in 1859, and a series of maps “rectangular survey” or the “township and range of Kansas with David T. Mitchell in 1861 through 1866. system,” stemmed from the Land Ordinance of 1785. 14 By 1855 a well-practiced procedure was in use for

No doubt Gunn was previously involved with producing maps and plans while working as civil 11. Missouri Republican , February 27, 1859, quoted in Hafen, Pike’s engineer. However, the first map that can be attributed Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks of 1859 , 234. 12. O. B. Gunn, New Map and Hand-book of Kansas & the Gold Mines , to him is an 1858 map of Superior, Kansas. Gunn, map and guidebook (Wyandott [ sic ] City, Kansas, 1859; printed along with Major Frederick Hale, was also employed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. Schuchman’s), iv. Available online at http:// www.territorialkansasonline.org/cgiwrap imlskto/index.php?SCREEN= by Lucian J. Eastin, editor of the Leavenworth Weekly show_document&document_id=101595&PageTitle=Book,%20 Herald , to produce its Map of the Gold Mines and Three Gunn. O. B. Gunn, Gunn’s New Map of Kansas and the Gold Mines Embracing all the Public Surveys up to the 6th Principal Meridian , map (Wyandott Prominent Routes Leading Thereto . On March 1, 1859, [sic ] City, Kansas, 1859; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. Schuchman’s). Eastin published Gunn and Hale’s map as a part of Available online at http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/collections/ his newspaper supplement Emigrants’ Guide to Pike’s maps/detailsframes.asp?userinput=gunn&searchdes=&submitform= Submit&var=1859-0005. 10 Peak . An early newspaper reported Eastin was already 13. “In Memoriam,” 378–79; Wilder, Annals of Kansas , 314; David E. “disposing of between fifteen and twenty thousand copies Ballard, “The First State Legislature,” Kansas Historical Collections, 1907– 1908 10 (1908): 239. For an example of Gunn’s other work, see Bullion of the Guide . . . he added [another] ten thousand . . . Versus Coin: a Full Verbatim Report of a Celebrated Discussion upon the Free and Unlimited Coinage of Silver (Kansas City: Hailman & Bowes, [1895]). 14. C. A. White, A History of the Rectangular Survey System (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 1983); 10. O. B. Gunn, Superior, Kansas , map (Wyandotte, K.T., 1858); [O. B. Andro Linklater, Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped Gunn and Frederick Hale], Map of the Gold Mines and Three Prominent the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy (New York: Routes Leading Thereto , map, in L. J. Eastin, Emigrants’ Guide to Pike’s Walker & Co., 2002). Peak (Leavenworth City, K.T.), March 1, 1859.

46 KANSAS H ISTORY establishing baselines and principle meridians, surveying range and township boundaries (in addition to standard parallels and guide meridians), and subdividing each township into sections. In Kansas and Nebraska, these procedures were initially guided by the Oregon Manual of 1851 and later by the 1855 Manual of Surveying Instructions . The exterior boundaries of neighboring Indian reservations were surveyed so they could be avoided “in the regular rectangular work.” 15 The Map Showing the Progress of the Public Surveys in the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska to Accompany Annual Report of the Surveyor General (figure 3) provides an overview of the progress of this work. It was compiled from surveyors’ manuscript notes and maps and represents part of the source material from which both Gunn and Mitchell compiled their 1859 maps. 16 Mitchell’s (figure 2) and Gunn’s (figure 4) 1859 maps are similar in appearance and content. Each emphasizes eastern Kansas—both in presentation of the territory and in the typography of the title statement. Each also claims to be compiled from the field notes in the Surveyor General's Office and has an ancillary map showing the Kansas routes to the gold mining regions. Each also shows the boundaries of Indian lands. They both contain about the same number of feature names. Interestingly, road networks vary between the maps and place names do not always match. For example, the village of Blackjack in southeastern Douglas County is called “Wheatland” on Mitchell’s map. Ottawa City in central Franklin County does not appear at all on Gunn’s map. Overall, the road network on Gunn’s map Figure 3: Map Showing the Progress of the Public Surveys in appears more detailed and accurate. However, Mitchell’s the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska to Accompany Annual ancillary map to and of the gold region is much more Report of the Surveyor General , 1858, courtesy of the T. R. Smith Map Collection, University of Kansas Libraries, Lawrence. detailed than Gunn’s. Stylistically, Gunn also includes pictorial representations of forested areas along stream and river valleys. William and George Schuchman. Both maps were printed Mitchell and Gunn used different lithographic houses during the period in which monochromatic lithography for the printing of their 1859 maps. Mitchell chose the was the prevalent printing process in commercial firm Middleton, Strobridge and Co. of Cincinnati and cartography. Middleton, Strobridge and Co. (later known Gunn employed Schuchman’s of Pittsburgh, operated by as Strobridge and Co.) had begun lithographic printing only a few years earlier, around 1855, when the company 15. White, A History of the Rectangular Survey System , 119; U.S. General added W. R. Wallace and his press and stones. William Land Office, Instructions to the Surveyor General of Oregon: Being a Manual for Field Operations (Washington, D.C.: Gideon & Co., 1851); U.S. General and George Schuchman were active from 1850 to 1866 Land Office, Instructions to the Surveyors General of Public Lands of the in Pittsburgh and did the printing for Gunn’s 1859 map United States: For Those Surveying Districts Established in and Since the Year as well as each of the Gunn and Mitchell maps through 1850, Containing also a Manual of Instructions to Regulate the Field Operations of Deputy Surveyors (Washington, D.C.: A. O. P. Nicholson, 1855). 1865 (figure 5). Little is known about many of the small 16. Ward B. Burnett, Map Showing the Progress of the Public Surveys printing houses that existed at this time. Schuchman’s in the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska to Accompany Annual Report of the Surveyor General , map (Nebraska City, N.T.: Surveyor General’s Office, does not even appear in Harry T. Peters’s voluminous 1858). Available online at http://www.lib.ku.edu/mapscoll/web/ work America on Stone , which chronicles American ksserial.shtml.

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 47 Figure 4: Gunn’s New Map of Kansas and the Gold Mines Embracing all the Public Surveys up to the 6th Principal Meridian , 1859, courtesy of the Wichita State University Libraries, Department of Special Collections, Kansas Map Collection. lithography from its beginnings to its replacement by first edition of which was published in January 1861 other printing methods. 17 Peters generally neglected (figure 6). The exact circumstances that brought these maps in his classification of lithographic material, as two individuals into collaboration are not known, but a do most histories of American lithography that have comparison of the 1859 maps with the 1861 map gives rise instead focused on portraits, landscapes, cartoons, and to some general observations. 19 First it is clear, based on chromolithography (especially Currier and Ives). Krebs the style, content, and the fact the same printer was used and Brother of Pittsburgh, founded by Otto and Adolph (though the place of publication changed from Wyandott Krebs in 1856, printed the 1866 edition of the Gunn and [sic ] City to Lecompton), that Gunn’s 1859 map was Mitchell map. 18 used as the basis for the 1861 map. Four new counties After publishing their own maps of Kansas in are shown west of the Sixth Principle Meridian, thus the 1859, Gunn and Mitchell must have seen advantages partial change in subtitle: “ embracing all the public survey in cooperating on the publication of a new map, the up to the 6th Principle Meridian ,” which conformed more closely to Mitchell's 1859 map, subtitled in part “ embracing

17. Jay T. Last, The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American all the public survey up to 1861 .” Another addition is the Lithography (Santa Ana, Calif.: Hillcrest Press, 2005), 152, 227. 18. Harry T. Peters, America on Stone (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1931), 54; Last, The Color Explosion , 201. The Krebs brothers ﬁrm was 19. Gunn and Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: and the active until 1901. Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1861 .

48 KANSAS H ISTORY Figure 5: Table of Gunn and Mitchell Maps of Kansas

Edition Author Title Scale Dimensions Place of Printer Notes Description (H x W in cm. Publication based on from neat lines) Holidings

1859 Mitchell, Mitchell’s Sectional 1:570,240 59 x 75 Lecompton, Cincinnati: Hand University D. T. Map of Kansas: Kansas Middleton, colored of Kansas Showing the U.S. Strobridge & Survey up to 1859: Co., lith. Complied from the Field Notes in the Surveyor Generals Ofﬁce

1859 Gunn, O. B. Gunn’s New Map of 1:600,000 65 x 72 Wyandott Pittsburgh: Issued Wichita Kansas and the Gold [sic ], K.T. Wm. with State Mines Embracing all Schuchman’s handbook; University the Public Surveys up Hand to the 6th Principal colored Meridian

1861 Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 67 x 67 Lecompton, K. Pittsburgh: Hand Kansas and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Wm. colored Historical D. T. And the Gold Mines: Schuchman’s Society Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1861: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

1862a Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 66 x 69 Lecompton, K. Pittsburgh: Hand David and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Wm. colored; Rumsey D. T. And the Gold Mines: Schuchman’s only one Collection Embracing all the pictorial Public Surveys up to vignette 1862: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

1862b Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 66 x 69 Lecompton, K. Pittsburgh: Hand Kansas and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Wm. colored; Historical D. T. And the Gold Mines: Schuchman’s three Society Embracing all the pictorial Public Surveys up to vignettes 1862: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

1864 Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 69 x 69 Lecompton, K. Pittsburgh: Hand Kansas and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Wm. colored Historical D. T. And the Gold Mines: Schuchman’s Society Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1864: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

1865 Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 67 x 69 Lecompton, K. Pittsburgh: Hand Kansas and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Wm. colored Historical D. T. And the Gold Mines: Schuchman’s Society Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1865: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

1866 Gunn, O. B. Gunn & Mitchell’s 1:595,000 67 x 67 Lawrence, Pittsburgh: Hand University and Mitchell, New Map of Kansas: Kan. Krebs & colored of Kansas D. T. And the Gold Mines: Bros. Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1866: Principal Meridian: Complied From Original Field Notes

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 49 Figure 6: Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1861: Compiled From Original Field Notes. inclusion of a table titled “Population of Kansas by publication listed on the map: “Lecompton, K.” instead Counties According to Census of 1860” in the upper of “Lecompton, K.T.” The 1862 edition, and subsequent left corner. Further, the locations of U.S. Land Offices in editions, also began to reflect the chaotic and inconsistent Kansas are given and a diagram of the numbering system nature of U.S. land policy. 20 The obvious trend is toward of the thirty-six sections of a township according to the an erosion of Indian land rights. On the 1862 map, we U.S. Public Land Survey is included. The authors did not see the results of the sale of the Delaware Reserve to the feel it necessary to update the ancillary map of the gold Leavenworth, Pawnee and Western Railroad. The map regions with Mitchell’s more detailed information. These reflects that by this time the Sac and Fox Reserve and additions, combined with the fact that the gold rush had Trust lands had also been surveyed. passed its peak, suggest that the primary audience for the map and guide were those seeking land in eastern 20. Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map Kansas. of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to The Gunn and Mitchell 1862 map (figure 7) reflects a 1862: Compiled From Original Field Notes , map (Lecompton, K.: Gunn & Mitchell, 1862; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. Schuchman’s). Available number of geopolitical developments. First, Kansas had online at http://www.davidrumsey.com/. An explanation of U.S. land entered the Union as the thirty-fourth state the preceding policy falls beyond the scope of this article. For a thorough discussion, see Paul W. Gates, Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts over Kansas Land Policy, year, on January 29, 1861. This is reflected in the place of 1854–1890 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1954).

50 KANSAS H ISTORY Figure 7: Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1862: Compiled From Original Field Notes.

There is evidence that two separate printings of the Agent. Lawrence, Kansas. Will attend to any business 1862 map were made: one has only a single pictorial before the Courts of Kansas, Locate Lands buy and sell vignette occurring in the left margin (exemplified Lands on commission and pay Tax for non-residents on by a map held in the David Rumsey Historical Map lands in any county in the State.” 21 The placement of the Collection). The second (figure 7), the Kansas Historical city of Ottawa in Franklin County is also different in Society example, has three vignettes occurring in the left this edition, and the Ottawa Indian Reserve is shown as margin and the area of Fort Riley is emphasized with surveyed. diagonal fill lines. Although the Colorado Territory had The 1865 edition of Gunn and Mitchell’s map seems been established on February 28, 1861, no update was to regress from the 1864 edition (figure 1). The subtitle made on either of the 1862 printings to the ancillary map adds the phrase “ principal meridian ,” and previous of Routes from the Missouri River to the Kansas Gold Mines . The next edition of the map was made in 1864 (figure 8). Amendments to this edition include changes 21. Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map in the locations of land offices and the addition of an of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to advertisement to the map in lieu of one of the vignettes. 1864: Compiled From Original Field Notes , map (Lecompton, K.: Gunn & It reads: “D. T. Mitchell, Attorney at Law and Land Mitchell, 1864; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. Schuchman’s).

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 51 Figure 8: Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: And the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1864: Compiled From Original Field Notes.

updates, such as the new locations of U.S. Land Offices border, have been surveyed and filled with township and and the revisions made in Franklin County in the 1864 range lines. Also, the revisions within Franklin County edition, are lost and revert back to the status of the 1862 that appeared on the 1864 edition, but were dropped edition. 22 from the 1865 edition, have been restored. 23 The primary change in the 1866 edition is the In summery, Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell modification of the place of publication from each created a map independently in 1859, then pooled “Lecompton” to “Lawrence, Kan.” The printer has also their efforts to create a map first published in 1861. changed to Krebs and Bros. In addition, all remaining Several editions of this map were printed using the Indian reservations, except for the Otoe Reserve in north monochromatic lithographic process and the maps were central Kansas, which straddles the Kansas-Nebraska then hand colored. All six editions of Gunn and Mitchell’s map include an ancillary map of Routes from the Missouri

22. Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map of Kansas: and the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1865: Principal Meridian: Compiled From Original Field Notes , map 23. Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell, Gunn & Mitchell’s New Map (Lecompton, K.: Gunn & Mitchell, 1865; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Wm. of Kansas: and the Gold Mines: Embracing all the Public Surveys up to 1866: Schuchman’s). Available online at http://specialcollections.wichita. Principal Meridian: Compiled From Original Field Notes , map (Lawrence, edu/collections/maps/detailsframes.asp?offset=10&var=1865-0003. Kan.: Gunn & Mitchell, 1865; printed Pittsburgh, Penn.: Krebs & Bros.).

52 KANSAS H ISTORY River to the Kansas Gold Mines . However, this ancillary map of decreasing importance to the authors for the 1861 map was never updated and was secondary in importance to and subsequent editions. Based on the advertisements the primary map covering the eastern half of Kansas. and emphasis on the lands that were becoming available The authors revised and reissued the map until the year for purchase in eastern Kansas, the primary purpose 1866, long after the peak of the Colorado Gold Rush and of the map appears to be promotional. The number of the establishment of the Colorado Territory on February editions also suggests that the authors found this map 28, 1861. These facts suggest that, although gold seekers worthy of republishing. Today these maps provide us were an important market for the 1859 maps, they were with another window into Kansas’s past.

KANSAS P OCKET M APS 53 Kanas Historical Society Presidential Address 2009

ROY E DWARD F RENCH: Pioneer Oil Man, Philanthropist, and Dog Breeder

by James K. Logan

ometimes the most important and most interesting Kansans are not well known outside of their local area or a speciﬁc interest group. Such a person is R. E. French, of Gridley, Kansas—a pioneer oilman, philanthropist, and dog breeder, who continued to participate in those activities every day until a week before his death at age 106. Roy Edward French was born October 18, 1897, on a farm in Doniphan County, Kansas. He was seven years oldS when his father died of tuberculosis. In those days before any public relief, his mother kept the family together by doing housework, washing, and ironing for others. As the oldest of four children Roy helped by trapping in season and hunting—many rabbits, he said. 1 At the semester break, when he was in the sixth grade, Roy dropped out of school to take a job for a salary of $13 per month plus lunch with a local truck farmer. After three years of this Roy happened by a crew drilling an oil well, and they asked him to pump water for them. Three days later one of the tool dressers on the job quit and Roy was asked to take that man’s place. Thus, at age fourteen French became an oil man, working twelve-hour shifts—midnight to noon or noon to midnight—with “yellow dog” cast iron wicked pots ﬁlled with kerosene for illumination after dark. 2 Approximately a year later Roy became a driller. He worked at that until early 1926 when he was hired by the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway (controlled by W. T. Kemper of Kansas City’s Commerce Trust Bank) to take a drilling crew to Topolobampo, Mexico, to explore for oil. There, with a Mexican crew and rudimentary equipment, he drilled a well to a 2,800-foot depth, but it was a dry hole. His employer then decided to abandon further exploration attempts in Mexico and transferred Roy to Wichita for a couple of months before sending him to McCamey, Texas, where he drilled four successful wells for his employer on the railroad right-of-way near the giant Yates Field in Pecos County.

James K. Logan , retired judge of the Tenth Circuit United States Court of Appeals and a former dean of the University of Kansas Law School, was president of the Kansas Historical Society in 2008–2009 and was attorney for R. E. French during the later stages of Mr. French’s life. Some content in this article is based on his personal knowledge and conversations with his client.

1. R. E. French to Kansas Oil Museum, March 20, 2002, Kansas Oil Museum, El Dorado, Kansas. 2. French to Kansas Oil Museum, March 20, 2002; pamphlet honoring R. E. French’s 100th Birthday, containing text provided by Roy French, R. E. French Family Educational Foundation, Gridley, Kansas; John Schlageck, “Investing in the Next Generation,” Kansas Living 13 (Fall 2002): 11.

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 33 (Spring 2010): 54–57

54 KANSAS H ISTORY Oil man, philanthropist, and dog breeder R. E. French beside one of his bee hives. Photo by John Schlageck courtesy of Kansas Farm Bureau.

After a few months Roy was transferred to Chandler, Oklahoma, as a district superintendent over oil operations for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which had purchased his employer. Three years later the general manager to whom Roy reported was replaced by another who, upon finding that Roy had less than a sixth-grade education, demoted him to gang pusher. 3 This was a major turning point in Roy’s life. While keeping for a time his job as gang pusher, Roy bought his first oil lease after noticing a “for sale” ad in a newspaper. The lease was in Coffey County, Kansas, and had three wells making ten barrels a day—salable at about $1 per barrel. To finance the purchase he had to mortgage his automobile, his insurance policy, and sign a note for the balance. Soon thereafter he borrowed more and purchased another small lease making two barrels a day. Two or three years later he purchased two much larger leases, again with borrowed funds. After those acquisitions he quit his gang pusher

3. French to Kansas Oil Museum, March 20, 2002; pamphlet honoring R. E. French’s 100th Birthday; Schlageck, “Investing in the Next Generation,” 11–12.

ROY E DWARD F RENCH 55 job and moved back to Kansas. From this beginning he built an empire of stripper and low-production wells, which at its peak had twenty-eight employees, all the wells being in three Kansas counties: Coffey, Woodson, and Greenwood. 4 R. E. French stated that his years working in the oil fields for the railroad gave him all the training he needed to operate and run his own oil business. But he was always engaged in self-education. He taught himself geometry, trigonometry, and calculus that helped him succeed in the oil business. As an employer he inspired loyalty in his employees: his secretary, Sarah Grimm, worked for French for forty-one years before his death and now serves as a trustee of his educational foundation. Robert Winterscheid, his business partner for more than fifty years, is quoted as saying, “he’s fair and a good man. Treats everyone with respect. Done a lot of good for the community. People like him and he has a tremendous memory. He knows his business and when he goes after something, he knows how to get it.” 5 R. E. French’s self-made career from an impoverished childhood to an oil business that made him rich is a great success story, but other things make him worthy of our attention. French met and married Blanche Mundy, another Kansan, in 1919. They had three children: Charlotte, Bernice, and Doris, each of whom married, had children, and have lived most of their lives in Kansas. Roy and Blanche lived in Woodson County for seventeen years before buying a farm in 1951 south of Gridley, in Coffey County, where they built a home and connecting office and lived out their lives. Blanche died in 1976. 6

became acquainted with R. E. French when I was asked to help with tax and probate matters arising upon Blanche’s death. Roy disclaimed the interest he could have taken in Blanche’s share of the oil business properties and allowed it to pass to their three daughters. He also made periodic gifts, including shares of his oil business, to these daughters. IUltimately Mr. French amassed approximately 1,930 acres of land in Coffey and Woodson Counties. He was a conservationist who systematically pursued improvements by reseeding, planting windbreaks, correcting erosion problems, maintaining a balanced habitat for wildlife, and engaging in aggressive pond building (eventually nine ponds, all of which he stocked with a variety of fish he fed daily—seven and one half tons of fish food one season). He worked with the wildlife authorities, including helping to establish Canadian geese populations in Southeast Kansas. He loved to fish and permitted many others to fish his ponds. During the sugar shortage in World War II he developed a beekeeping hobby that he pursued throughout the rest of his life. He robbed the hives each year and gave away significant amounts of honey. In his very old age, almost to the date of his death at age 106, he would sit on a bench very close to a hive or hives, enjoying observing the bees—even after his eyesight and hearing were nearly gone. He was a woodworker also, and used the wood from walnut trees on his properties to make a large table for his home and many objects, which he gave away to friends. 7 All of the above is worthy of mention, but R. E. French’s principal claims as one worthy of inclusion among a panel of great Kansans are his work as a breeder and trainer of English Springer Spaniels and his establishment of the R. E. French Family Educational Foundation. In 1950 Mr. French became interested in English Springer Spaniels, a noted breed of field dogs. He later started his wholly owned Denalisunflo Kennels to breed, raise, and train these dogs, and he devoted much time, energy, and money to this hobby. He became nationally famous for his work with dogs. His dogs won literally hundreds of ribbons and trophies. Three of them became United States National Field Champions: Kansan in 1962, Bandita in 1988, and Ring in 1992. One became Canadian National Field Champion: Tisa in 1995. In 1987 the Kansas legislature honored him for bringing “significant recognition” to the state as a nationally known dog breeder. R. E. French was inducted into the Spaniel Field Trial Hall of Fame in Grand Junction, Tennessee, in 2002. 8 Mr. French loved the animals and walked all of them nearly every day, and in his very old age credited his time with them

4. Zelda Varner, “Education Important to R. E. French Family,” Coffey County Today, June 15, 1992; Susan Hess, “Self-Educated Oilman Helps Others Learn,” Emporia Gazette , August 10 and 11, 1991, weekend edition. 5. Schlageck, “Investing in the Next Generation,” 12. 6. Sarah Grimm, interview with author, October 13, 2009, R. E. French Family Educational Foundation. 7. Bernice French Williamson, “Some Information for Mark Petterson,” undated memorandum prepared by the daughter of R. E. French; Hess, “Self-Educated Oilman Helps Others Learn.” 8. Schlageck, “Investing in the Next Generation”; Grimm interview.

56 KANSAS H ISTORY as giving him a reason for living. He had a favorite dog with him at almost all times he was out of doors. He had an exercise program he followed religiously. The most lasting contribution R. E. French made to the benefit of his native state and those raised within it, is his establishment of the R. E. French Family Educational Foundation. He formed this entity as a private educational and charitable foundation in 1981. It came about because of his interest in education and his wish to do something to benefit the young people in the three counties where he conducted his oil business. He started the foundation with $200,000 of high-interest United States Treasury Bonds. The first year the foundation awarded college scholarships to a student from one high school in each of the three counties. He continued to add significant amounts to the foundation throughout the rest of his life, and to expand the number of scholarships awarded. 9 Years after its creation the charitable and educational uses to which the foundation contributed were broadened, and the foundation has provided through the years not only a great many college scholarships, but also donated to schools for computers and air conditioning and funded community events and services. Mr. French made major gifts to Emporia State University to help it establish a four- year degree in nursing. In turn that university made him an honorary alumnus. In 1950 French became interested in English Springer Spaniels, a R. E. French died on November 10, 2003, after a one- noted breed of field dogs. He later started a kennel to breed, raise, week illness, at age 106 years and 23 days. He left surviving and train these dogs, and he devoted much time, energy, and money to this hobby. He became nationally famous for his work with dogs, a second wife, Thurnelda Williams French, a widow he three of which became U.S. National Field Champions. In his very old married in 1983, some seven years after Blanche died. One age French credited his time with his dogs as giving him a reason for daughter, Bernice, predeceased him. He had provided for living. He had a favorite dog with him at almost all times he was out of doors. Photo by John Schlageck courtesy of Kansas Farm Bureau. his descendants through earlier gifts and interests in the oil business. So after taking care of his widow, making other charitable gifts, and giving relatively small amounts to his surviving children and grandchildren, he gave the great bulk of his estate, nearly $10 million, to his R. E. French Family Educational Foundation. 10 Three trustees currently manage the foundation: French’s long-time accountant Max Snodgrass, his long-time secretary Sarah Grimm, and one of his grandsons, Gregory Arnold. It operates from a recently constructed building in Gridley, Kansas, where the trustees carry out the educational and charitable purposes of the Foundation. At latest count, 250 graduates of Kansas high schools are currently receiving university scholarships, renewable every semester they maintain a 3.0 (B) grade point average in their studies. In addition, in the past year the foundation has made technology grants to area schools and a cultural grant to the Coffey County Historical Museum. By all counts R. E. French was a remarkable man and a memorable Kansan. The gift of an educational foundation— made by a man who dropped out of school in the middle of the sixth grade to work because of his family’s poverty— will significantly benefit Kansas students and Kansas institutions for the indefinite future.

9. French to Kansas Oil Museum, March 20, 2002; Grimm interview. 10. Grimm interview.

ROY E DWARD F RENCH 57 REVIEWS

“I Do Not Apologize for the Length of This Letter”: The Mari Sandoz Letters on Native American Rights, 1940–1965 edited by Kimberli A. Lee xviii + 197 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2009, cloth $45.00.

Nebraska novelist and historian Mari Sandoz has always had a strong following in the plains region. Her many books, fiction and nonfiction, tell the story of the plains from prehistory into the twentieth century. Old Jules , the biography of her father, remains a classic and intimate portrait of a plains family in the formative settlement period. The native peoples of the region are sensitively portrayed in Crazy Horse , Strange Man of the Ogalalas , Cheyenne Autumn , and other works. The Buffalo Hunters , The Cattlemen , and The Beaver Men were books she viewed as part of a Great Plains series, and the novels Slogum House , Capital City , and Son of a Gamblin’ Man likewise provide perspective on the plains experience. Sandoz suffered a difficult childhood under a tyrannical father and an indifferent stepmother; however, school fostered a love of reading that led her eventually to enroll at the University of Nebraska in 1923. After training in historical research and writing, she began the life of an impoverished but aspiring writer before achieving success with Old Jules , which was rejected by numerous of termination and relocation designed to move Native Americans publishers before its acceptance by Atlantic Press. Eventually from reservations to cities. Sandoz reacted strongly to those policies. Sandoz moved to New York, but she returned to the plains It is in this section that certain letters include the comment, “I do not periodically to research her stories. apologize for the length of this letter,” directed at President Truman, Kimberli Lee, who teaches writing, rhetoric, and American western congressmen, and other politicos. Some of these letters contain culture at Michigan State University, has compiled some of Mari the same wording with the exception of a few changes to address a Sandoz’s letters related to Native American rights in the period particular individual. These letters also reveal Sandoz’s reaction to the 1940 to 1965. As a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska, terrible conditions on reservations, particularly on the Tongue River Lee was a research assistant for the special collections and archives Reservation of the Northern Cheyenne, which she observed while at the Don L. Love Memorial Library, where the Mari Sandoz researching Cheyenne Autumn . Collection is located. She was specifically engaged in completing In sections three and four, Sandoz’s letters seek to correct the Sandoz microfilm preservation project. In exploring Sandoz’s misperceptions of Native Americans and promote young Native correspondence, Lee discovered many letters related to her American writers and artists. The most interesting letters relate to “personal advocacy and political activism on behalf of Native Sandoz’s criticism of the Warner Brothers movie Cheyenne Autumn , Americans.” A more extensive collection of letters edited by supposedly based on her book, but, as she wrote the scriptwriter, Sandoz biographer Helen Winter Stauffer was published by the “I had no voice in the preparation of this script.” She felt the University of Nebraska Press in 1992. movie libeled “two great men of the Northern Cheyennes”: Dull In this volume, Lee provides a general introduction addressing Knife and Little Wolf. methodology and editorial concerns and then summarizes Lee’s edited letters of Sandoz provide an interesting overview Sandoz’s early life, her years in Lincoln, her evolution as a of the author’s life and work along with related letters. However, writer up to the move to New York, and her subsequent career the fact that only one section pertains to the theme identified and increasing activism in support of Native American interests. in the subtitle leads this reviewer to question whether a more The letters are divided into four sections that begin with short fruitful approach would have been a book-length study focused introductions providing the context for the letters. exclusively on Sandoz’s views and activities related to the defense The first section contains letters pertaining to Sandoz’s concern for of Native rights. Finally, placing the editorial notes related to the historical accuracy and her “unorthodox” style of writing history. She letters at the end of the book was irritating to the reviewer. was steeped in the storytelling tradition of the plains and included fictional elements in her “nonfiction.” Lee introduced the letters in the Reviewed by Ramon S. Powers , former executive director, Kansas second section with a discussion of the government’s 1950s policies Historical Society, Topeka.

58 KANSAS H ISTORY Dodge City: The Early Years, 1872–1886 by William B. Shillingberg 432 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Norman, Okla.: Arthur H. Clark Company, Western Lands and Waters Series, 2009, cloth $49.95.

Prairie Dog Dave, Slippery Jack, Apache Sam, Bully Brooks, Dog Kelley, Dirty Faced Ed, Skunk Curley: these are just a few of the characters who crowd William Shillingberg’s zesty history of Dodge City’s heyday. Better-known figures, such as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, also get their due. Chapter titles add further insight into the author’s focus and approach, including “Murders and Mayhem” and “1878: Another Year of Chaos.” Shillingberg successfully rebuts many of the tall tales and Hollywood myths associated with this famous cowtown. However, his litany of gunfights, tainted elections and political intrigue, and Indian attacks (real and faked) clearly show the historical roots of Dodge City’s reputation as a premier frontier sin city. As one newspaper editor noted in 1885, “Hypocrisy does not exist here. Our wickedness is open to the glare of the sun” (p. 376). This extensively researched book incorporates an impressive range of primary sources, including government archives, private papers, and some fifty newspapers, bolstered by a solid foundation of secondary scholarship. Shillingberg is not a professionally trained historian, but his lifelong career in probate research honed his skills at digging out sources and putting them into a compelling narrative. He also authored Tombstone, A.T.: A History of Early Mining, Milling, and Mayhem . Moving chronologically through the first fifteen eventful years of Dodge City growth, the author zooms in on annual electoral intrigue; economic activities such as cattle shipping, freighting buffalo hides and other goods, and retail; and gunfights that punctuated the entire period. He does a good job of framing Dodge City’s development in terms of larger events across Kansas, the West, and the nation, such as the Panic of 1873. Readers also get a spirited retelling of the Battle of Adobe Walls, as well as and brothels, while profitably serving the needs of visiting Texas close attention to quarantines against Texas cattle, farming, and drovers. Cattle and horse thieves, often staging their attacks to temperance that altered the town’s character. appear the work of Indians, plagued the area. Along with compelling snapshots of town figures and Shillingberg’s prodigious research and attention to detail activities, readers get delightful insights into many elements of illuminate every page. I have never seen more people per page in frontier life. In 1884 boosters staged a bullfight, complete with any book outside the Bible and its begats. Despite this avalanche Mexican matadors, that drew excited crowds. In 1877 townspeople, of individuals, the author maintains a clear set of themes and a decked out in “garb retrieved as trophies from the Adobe Walls sense of the gradual changes overtaking the town. For balance, battlefield” (p. 178), attacked and terrified unsuspecting easterners. readers may want to read the more sedate treatments of Dodge “Illegal prizefights among local toughs” amused crowds (p. 178), City by Bob Haywood. I cannot imagine any reader of western and opium dens sprang up as well. history not enjoying the exploits of Dodge City notables and not- Despite ordinances against carrying firearms, a “barbarous so-notables as told by Shillingberg. custom” according to the Dodge City Times (p. 321), death and injury by gunshot remained commonplace. Entrepreneurs Reviewed by Richard W. Slatta , professor of history, North Carolina ignored or circumvented laws that forbade saloons, dance halls, State University, Raleigh.

REVIEWS 59 Punitive War: Confederate Guerillas and Union Reprisals by Clay Mountcastle xii + 202 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009, cloth $29.95.

For those of us who live in America’s heartland, far from one of the “cannonball circuit” national parks commemorating a Civil War battle, it is often problematic for us to find a book that delineates the importance of the war in the western theatre and how that area had an impact on the overall outcome of the Civil War. This volume fills that niche. Mountcastle, senior officer for the Research and Publications Division of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, offered a fascinating look at guerrilla warfare in the Civil War. His first chapter tenders an overview of the utilization of guerrilla tactics beginning with the American Revolution, the Second Seminole War (1835–1842), and the Mexican War. The tactics, never highly favored by West Point trained soldiers during the antebellum years, became all too familiar during the Civil War. Ambushes, hit-and-run, and the burning of towns and private homes were no longer isolated western tactics used by border ruffians in Kansas and Missouri, but were adopted as key strategies by Union officers including Sherman and Sheridan and approved of by Ulysses S. Grant. The key focus of this book is the punitive nature of the Union’s war tactics. In Missouri, the “proving ground for punishment” (p. 21), John Pope and Henry Halleck experienced the likes of Quantrill’s raiders and responded with anti-guerilla measures such as tax assessments on Confederate sympathizers. As these officers, and others, moved to the eastern theatre of the war, their methods became more punitive and evolved into the scorched- earth fighting we associate with Sherman’s march through Georgia and Sheridan’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Union troops were enraged by Confederate guerrilla attacks upon civilians but soon adopted the same policy and became more ruthless, more punitive. Mountcastle utilized numerous primary sources, especially soldiers’ diaries, where they recorded their feelings, or lack readers with less background might be inspired to expand their thereof, after taking part in punitive actions against southern study of Civil War secondary literature. civilians or suspected Confederate operatives. The author also Although not lengthy, this book is thought provoking and sure cited numerous Civil War historians including James McPherson to kindle the reader’s interest. It is a welcomed addition to the and Mark Neely and explained why he did or did not agree with shelf of volumes on the Civil War. their research and conclusions. Readers familiar with Civil War literature and with a rich background in the war’s bibliography Reviewed by Patricia Ann Owens , history teacher, Wabash Valley will find the author’s statements and conclusions absorbing; those College, Mt. Carmel, Illinois.

60 KANSAS H ISTORY The American Military Frontiers: The United States Army in the West, 1783–1900 by Robert Wooster xvi + 361 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009, cloth $39.95.

Historians accept as commonplace the importance of the federal government in the history of the American West. Politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., decided which lands were to be settled and by whom (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for instance, made sure that few Chinese would take up homesteads; five years later, the Dawes Act encouraged American Indians to claim individual ownership of lands within their tribes’ reservations). Yet the implementation and enforcement of policy in the West was left to a relative handful of federal employees. During most of the 113-year period under discussion in the present volume, most of them were soldiers. With few civilian officials present along the advancing edge of federal authority, the army followed instructions from Washington to keep order, not only by waging the well-known “Indian Wars,” but by interposing itself between factions of one race or another, as it did in territorial Kansas and again in 1883 at present-day Okmulgee, Oklahoma; and during periods of labor unrest, whether the anti-Chinese riots at Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1885 or the nationwide railroad strikes of 1877 and 1894. Soldiers and civilian contractors also built roads like the one that ran from Minnesota to Louisiana and connected Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott along the “permanent Indian frontier” of the 1830s. From time to time, they offered disaster relief to nearby civilians, as they did in Nebraska when grasshoppers devoured both subsistence and cash crops in 1874. Often, civilian settlements and nearby military posts existed in symbiosis: San Antonio and the quartermaster depot that became Fort Sam Houston provide one example. Earlier works by Edward M. Coffman, Francis P. Prucha, Michael Tate, and Robert M. Utley have told this story. Now Robert Wooster, a professor of history at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, attempts a synthesis of previous scholarship. As the author of four previous books about the army in the West—a Kansans wanted low freight rates for themselves, not for the volume about federal Indian policy, a biography, a fort history, army; in fact, at the time of the bond issue, neighboring civilians and a study of garrison life at Texas posts—Wooster is eminently wanted the fort closed, and its reservation opened to settlement. suited to the job. That lower freight rates applied to military shipments too, and led For the most part he succeeds, and the final chapter, in which to Fort Riley’s survival into the twenty-first century, was purely he points out that the army’s role in the West did not stop in 1890, accidental. (Disclosure: Wooster cites a book by this reviewer as is a much-needed corrective to popular ideas of “the Indian Wars.” his source for the incident.) In all, though, The American Military Nevertheless, in places the need to compress all that knowledge Frontiers is a good survey of its subject, one that both professional within two covers leads the author into imprecise language. To and amateur students of the American West will want to read. write, “At Fort Riley . . . voters in nearby communities approved a series of bond issues to make the post into the hub of a regional Reviewed by William A. Dobak, historian, U.S. Army Center of railroad network,” misrepresents the voters’ intentions (p. 270). Military History, Washington, D.C.

REVIEWS 61 Pittsburg State University: A Photographic History of the First 100 Years by Randy Roberts and Shannon Phillips x + 206 pages, illustrations, references, index. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009, cloth $24.95.

A photographic history of a university depicts visually the highlights of the life of an institution. This excellent book does this exactly for the first one hundred years of Pittsburg State University (PSU). Although many initially questioned the need for the school, PSU grew its enrollment to over seven thousand during its first hundred years. A legislator who opposed the new school in 1903 stated, “I am against the bill because it provides for a needless expenditure of good Kansas money. And what for?” (p. 2). The school’s administrators, students, highly trained faculty members, and successful alumni and friends have answered that question, and this book reflects those answers. The carefully selected photographs in this volume illustrate those who led the university, brought distinction over the years with careful planning, and met the public. This book also includes those who toiled in the classrooms, laboratories, and studios and the students who learned from outstanding faculty over the years. Faces are put on all those who made PSU the great university that it is today. The university physical plant development is carefully documented from the early days in the Central School building to the marble stairs that were saved when Russ Hall was renovated to the ultra modern Richard D. Tyler Research Center. Sports are traced as a part of the story of the physical plant, through photographs of (amongst other sites) Carnie Smith Stadium and William Aaron Brandenburg Field, where some of the great years of championship PSU football were played. Polymer Research Center, has greatly expanded polymer research. This volume’s photographs also document extensively student Caterpillar and Martin Tractor Company made gifts of heavy activities and social life. These activities range from the first college equipment to use in the Kansas Technology Center. Students housing, the Student Boarding Club, the various manual training during the school’s first hundred years voted funds to support classes, the Quonset huts where the Navy V-10 cadets lived and construction projects, including the recently completed Health which later were used for married student housing, many social Center. events, and newer residence halls. A frequent problem of photographic histories is the lack of Readers will recognize many of the great professionals adequate text that permits the reader to follow the story of the employed at PSU. Historians will be familiar with the longtime institution. This book has enough separate narrative to carry tenure of President Brandenburg from 1913 until 1940. They will the reader through a century of outstanding progress at PSU. note Dr. Alvin Proctor, historian, teacher, and longtime graduate Fortunately informative text also accompanies each photograph, dean; Dr. Robert Ratzlaff, historian, outstanding teacher, and not only explaining the photograph but also placing it in context longtime academic vice president; and historians Dr. James Schick and providing a greater understanding of the period. and Dr. Dudley Cornish as well as many others in the sciences, The rich history of Pittsburg State University is well illustrated arts, technology, and additional academic areas who toiled to and carefully written in this book. The University Press of make PSU a nationally recognized university. Readers will also Kansas continues it outstanding publication history with this know so many of the graduates of the university. For instance, photographic account. The book will be of special interest to Gene Bicknell, H. Lee Scott, and other successful businessmen alumni, who will reminisce through its pages. All those interested are noted. The special achievement of Debra Dene Barnes, Miss in higher education in Kansas and the contributions of universities America in 1968, brought much attention to PSU while she was to society and the economy should also find this book on their an undergraduate music major. reading list. The book is recommended without reservation. Alumni and corporations have contributed much to the university through gifts and these are also documented in Reviewed by James L. Forsythe , emeritus professor of history, Fort the collection. The Tyler Research Center, home of the Kansas Hays State University, Hayes, Kansas.

62 KANSAS H ISTORY BOOK NOTES

The Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854 . Edited by John R. Wunder and The Committee to Save the World . By Robert Day. (Woodston, Kans.: Joann M. Ross. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008, xiv Western Books, 2009, xviii + 174 pages, paper $16.95.) + 220 pages, paper $30.00.) This collection of Kansas author Robert Day’s first-person, In an effort to put the Nebraska back into the “ Nebraska -Kansas nonfiction essays, originally published in periodicals including Act” and to commemorate the sesquicentennial in the northern the Washington Post Magazine , Smithsonian Magazine , and Kansas part of the territory, several public programs were conducted in Magazine , is diverse. It includes entries on such Kansas fare as Lincoln during the fall of 2004. These presentations comprise the temperance leader Carry Nation and poet William Stafford, as well chapters of this fine and interesting little volume that deserves the as more personal remembrances of Day’s childhood and a lament attention of students of Civil War era history on both sides of the over his book The Last Cattle Drive , “now famous in Hollywood as state line and elsewhere. The impressive cast of seven contributors the most filmable novel not made into a movie ever written” (p. in addition to the volume’s editors includes Mark E. Neeley, 75). The color prints of paintings by Kathryn Jankus Day found Jr., “The Kansas-Nebraska Act in American Culture”; James A. throughout add to the book. Rawley, “Stephen A. Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act”; the late Phillip S. Paludan, “Lincoln’s Firebell”; and Nicole Etcheson, A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880–1941 . “Where Popular Sovereignty Worked: Nebraska Territory and the By Suzanne Barta Julin. (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Kansas-Nebraska Act.” Society Press, 2009, xiv + 221 pages, cloth $25.95.) Although the Black Hills is now firmly established as one A Window on Flint Hills Folklife: The Mardin Ranch Diaries, 1862– of the nation’s prime tourist destinations, before the gold rush 1863 . Edited by Jim Hoy. (Emporia, Kans.: Center for Great Plains of 1875 –1876 the area was an isolated forest, held sacred by the Studies, Emporia State University, 2009, viii + 104 pages, paper Lakota Sioux and protected “forever” from white settlement $10.00.) by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. This new volume details Originally published in Kansas History: A Journal of the Central the area’s development from 1880 until the start of World War Plains in two parts (Autumn 1991 and Winter 1991–1992), A Window II, during which time local, regional, and national political and on Flint Hills Folklife features the diaries and other writings of policy decisions created out of the Black Hills “a vacation mecca Elizabeth and Elisha Mardin, whose ranch was located in Chase for motoring Americans of modest means” (p. 5). Julin’s account County about six miles northeast of Cottonwood Falls. Elisha is well written by an author who has clear affection for the place Mardin’s “log of daily activities, along with that kept . . . by his and the book is wonderfully punctuated throughout with more wife, Elizabeth,” observes Professor Jim Hoy, “serves as a window than seventy black and white photographs. into both agricultural and social customs during the formative years of pioneer life in the tallgrass prairie” (p. 7). Addie of the Flint Hills: A Prairie Child During the Depression . By Adaline Sorace as told to Deobrah Sorace Prutzman. (Jersey City, The Munsee Indians: A History . By Robert S. Grumet. (Norman: N.J.: KTAV Publishing House, 2009, 212 pages, cloth $25.00.) University of Oklahoma Press, 2009, xxxii + 446 pages, cloth In this memoir Adaline Sorace, born in 1915, describes through $45.00.) her daughter Deborah Sorace Prutzman incidents and daily chores Though the legend that Indians traded Manhattan to the Dutch of her childhood that help readers living in a less rugged age in 1626 is well known, less so are the Native people involved in the understand the physical labor of life in a time before electricity and sale. This first complete history of the Munsee tribe, whose ancestral gasoline powered engines. Sorace reminiscences about relatives, homeland was located between the lower Hudson and upper several of whom were pioneers in Chase County and the Flint Hills, Delaware river valleys, attempts to tell their story. Of special interest and recounts her family tree, which includes Roglers and Beedles. to readers of Kansas History will be those Munsee who emigrated The family also lived in oilfields in Oklahoma and the mines of west and joined the Delaware on their Kansas reservation, settling in Utah. A broader historical context is included as are a number of Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Another group maintained a family charts and photographs. Though changes in topic, time reservation on the Marais des Cygnes in Franklin County until 1900, frame, and location are sometimes abrupt, this book is a pleasant when they agreed to a final settlement with the American government read and Addie’s enthusiasm for life is a constant message. and became U.S. citizens. Black Settlers on the Kaw Indian Reservation . By Jim Sharp. (Manhattan, Barbed Wire: The Fence That Changed the West . By Joanne S. Liu. Kans.: Ag Press, 2008, viii + 131 pages, paper $14.95.) (Missoula, Mont.: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2009, x + A native of rural Morris County and a veteran of World War 142 pages, paper $14.00.) II, Jim Sharp first became interested in black settlement in Kansas “Good fences make good neighbors,” according to Robert after recalling, years later, a six-man football game between his Frost, though as this volume demonstrates fences can just as White City High School team and the boys from Dunlap. How did easily make enemies. After the Homestead Act of 1862, settlers the latter’s 1942 squad happen to contain an African American parceled off and fenced in what was previously free range for player? To answer that question, the author commenced a cattlemen. The history of one of the weapons used to keep herds research project that culminated in the publication of Black Settlers off newly laid farm fields—barbed wire—is told here, from its on the Kaw Indian Reservation , which concentrates on the African invention, manufacture, and patenting to the fence-cutting wars American experience in and around Dunlap during the late that rounded out the end of the open range and turned cattlemen nineteenth century, when men such as “Pap” Singleton promoted into ranchers. black migration to Kansas and several hundred settled on the old Kaw Reserve in Morris County.

BOOK N OTES 63 KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC.

OFFICERS George Breidenthal, Jr., Kansas City Dru J. Sampson, Lawrence, President J. Eric Engstrom, Wichita E. Dean Carlson, Topeka, President Elect Annie Kuether, Topeka Paul M. Buchanan, Wichita, Vice President Barbara Morris, Hugoton James K. Logan, Olathe, Immediate Past President John Pinegar, Topeka Deborah C. Barker, Ottawa, Secretary Hal Ross, Wichita James Maag, Topeka, Treasurer Derek Schmidt, Independence Paul K. Stuewe, Lawrence EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Mary E. Turkington, Topeka Jack Alexander, Topeka Shari L. Wilson, Kansas City Angela O. Bates, Bogue

THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY was organized by Kansas newspaper The mission of the Kansas Historical Society is to identify, collect, editors and publishers in 1875 and soon became the ofﬁcial trustee for the preserve, interpret, and disseminate materials and information pertaining state’s historical collections. Since that time the Society has operated both to Kansas history in order to assist the public in understanding and ap- as a non-proﬁt membership organization (KSHS, Inc.) and a state agency preciating their Kansas heritage and how it relates to their lives. This is (KSHS). A one-hundred-two-member board of directors, through its ex- accomplished through educational and cultural programs, the provision ecutive committee (three of whom are appointed by the governor), governs of research services, and the protection of historic properties. The Society the KSHS, Inc. The Kansas Historical Society is part of the executive branch headquarters are in Topeka, and it operates sixteen historic sites through- of state government. out the state.

MEMBERSHIP

Kansas History is distributed to members of the Kansas State Histori- Individuals wishing to provide donations or bequests to the Society cal Society, Inc. All persons are cordially invited to join the Society. Annual should contact Vicky Henley, executive director, Kansas State Historical membership dues are: individual $40, household/family $50, 1875 Found- Society, Inc., 785-272-8681, ext. 201, or [email protected]. KSHS, Inc. is a ers Club $100, Kansas Pioneer Society $1,000. Call 785-272-8681, ext. 209. 501(c)3 not-for-proﬁt organization, and donations are deductible in accor - Corporate membership information is available upon request. Issues of dance with IRS code section 170. Kansas History are $7.00 each (double issues $12.00) available from the Kan- sas State Historical Society, Inc., 6425 SW 6th Avenue, Topeka, KS 66615- 1099; 785-272-8681, ext. 454.

EDITORIAL POLICIES

Kansas History is published quarterly by the Kansas State Historical So- Kansas History follows the Chicago Manual of Style , published by the Uni- ciety, Inc., and contains scholarly articles, edited documents, and other ma- versity of Chicago Press (15 th ed., rev., 2003). A style sheet, which includes a de- terials that contribute to an understanding of the history and cultural heri- tailed explanation of the editorial policy, is available upon request or at www. tage of Kansas and the Central Plains. Political, social, intellectual, cultural, kshs.org/publicat/history/style.htm. Articles appearing in Kansas History are economic, and institutional histories are welcome, as are biographical and available online from EBSCO Publishing and on microfilm from University historiographical interpretations and studies of archeology, the built envi- Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Selected articles are published on the So - ronment, and material culture. Articles emphasizing visual documentation, ciety’s web page at http://www.kshs.org/publicat/history/online.htm. exceptional reminiscences, and autobiographical writings also are consid- The Edgar Langsdorf Award for Excellence in Writing, which includes ered for publication. Genealogical studies generally are not accepted. a plaque and an honorarium of two hundred dollars, is awarded each year Manuscripts are evaluated anonymously by appropriate scholars who for the best article published by Kansas History. determine the suitability for publication based on the manuscript’s original- The editor welcomes letters responding to any of the articles published ity, quality of research, significance, and presentation, among other factors. in this journal. With the correspondent’s permission, those that contribute Previously published articles or manuscripts that are being considered for substantively to the scholarly dialogue by offering new insights or historical publication elsewhere will not be considered. The editors reserve the right information may be published. All comments or editorial queries should be to make changes in accepted articles and will consult with authors regard- addressed to Virgil W. Dean, editor, Kansas History: A Journal of the Central ing such. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact or Plains, 6425 SW 6th Avenue, Topeka, KS 66615-1099; 785-272-8681, ext. 274; opinion made by contributors. e-mail: [email protected].

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations are from the collections of Archives Division, Photograph Section, for costs and ordering information the Kansas Historical Society. Reproductions of images from the Soci- (www.kshs.org/research/collections/documents/photos/index.htm, or ety’s collections are available for purchase. Please contact the Library/ phone 785-272-8681, ext. 321). '*// ,!+,(!* ,( !/

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“A fine collection. Dean has assembled an all-star lineup and the [subjects] chosen for inclusion make up a broad range of interesting and significant characters who reflect a sense of the diversity of Kansas culture and the sweep of the state’s history.”—Annals of Iowa 422 pages, 26 photographs, Paper $19.95 Roadside Kansas A Traveler’s Guide to Its Geology and Landmarks Second Edition, Revised and Updated ฀฀฀฀฀฀฀ ฀฀฀฀ “A book that has great heart and obviously is a work of love. . . . My family and I took the book for a road test and were delighted with the new things we learned about Kansas and Kansans.”—Wichita Eagle “Of use to every traveler on Kansas highways and a joy to the armchair traveler.” —Journal of the West ฀฀฀฀฀฀฀฀฀฀

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