Rudell photo collection
Around 1907, Bonner Springs, Kansas, seemed poised to be the next great health resort, rivaling the likes of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Or so some thought. City promoters were busy organizing the Bonner...
View ArticleKansas Suffrage Reveille
The Kansas Equal Suffrage Association (KESA) helped win voting rights for women in Kansas municipal elections in 1887 and an equal suffrage amendment to the state constitution in 1912, making Kansas...
View ArticleSmith Automobile Company
One day in October of 1908, Dr. L. Anton Smith was discussing matters automotive with his friends at the Denver Auto Club in Denver, Colorado. They were debating whether an ascent of Pike’s Peak was...
View ArticleSlackerism
When a flag appeared near the home of Phil Crab of Ada, Kansas, in 1918, it wasn’t in celebration. The flag read SLACKER and meant to shame Mr. Crab into a donation to support the war, a request he...
View ArticleBenjamin Singleton's scrapbook
The mass migration of African Americans from southern states to Kansas at the end of Reconstruction (1877) is commonly known as the Exoduster movement. To many migrants, promoter and organizer...
View ArticlePeffer's scrapbook
In May of 1912, the famed ex-Populist senator from Kansas, William Peffer, lay on a couch in Christ’s Hospital, Topeka, Kansas, dictating to a stenographer. With only a short time to live (he would...
View ArticleLongren aviation photographs
On September 2, 1911, A. K. Longren successfully flew an airplane in a field southeast of Topeka, Kansas. Longren built the aircraft himself in Topeka making him the first person to manufacture...
View ArticleWelcome
Welcome to the Kansas Memory Blog. We'll use the blog to discuss the documents, photographs, and artifacts included on Kansas Memory and the many additional features the site offers. Posts will appear...
View ArticleThe B-B-Blizzard
The B-B-Blizzard, a single-issue newspaper out of Kinsley, Kansas, was a collaborative effort of stranded train passengers caught in a blizzard in January 1886. Editor F. Weber Benton, with the help...
View ArticleTopeka is a People Place film
When a talking Mynah bird escapes from a local pet shop in Topeka, Kansas, an otherwise beautiful day in Midway USA goes topsy-turvy as a young truant defies his school and his parents to search for...
View ArticleCivil War newspapers
You can now search (for free) a few Civil War-era Kansas newspapers online at the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov. The Kansas Historical Society digitized...
View ArticleHE WAS ONCE A SLAVE
Benjamin "Pap" Singleton was an escaped slave who returned to Tennessee after emancipation and helped promote the migration of African Americans from the south to Kansas after the Civil War. Because...
View ArticleBlack Blizzards
During the 1930s, Frank Conard and other trick photographers poignantly captured the surreal character of the natural disasters then plaguing the southern Great Plains through a series of humorous,...
View ArticleKansas Equal Suffrage Association
Take this off-year Election Day to revisit the history of the women's suffrage movement in Kansas. Suffrage in Kansas had many important supporters, including Stella Stubbs, the wife of Kansas...
View ArticleKansas Tornado Footage
Three silent films showing footage of the June 8, 1966 tornado in Topeka, Kansas, and its aftermath are now available on Kansas Memory. The storm cut a swath of ruin through the capital city,...
View ArticleMosley Donation
If you are interested in the Civil War, you will want to look at a pristine tintype of Sergeant John P. Mosley. He was a member of Company D, 13th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry and later...
View ArticleCapital punishment, 1870-1907
At noon on August 9, 1870, at the county jail yard in Leavenworth, the State of Kansas hanged convicted murderer William Dickson in a public execution before a large audience, including many children....
View ArticleNew printing feature
Our new printing option delivers a pdf document that formats the item and description for easy printing. Now you can print multi-page items, like this rare Populist pamphlet, in its entirety with only...
View ArticleWilliam Clark discovery
Occasionally in the media we all hear reports of someone discovering a lost copy of a founding document at a flea market, an unknown manuscript of a famous author at an estate sale, or a priceless...
View ArticleKansas Woodstock?
When 10,000 or more youth converged on a farmer’s field in southeast Kansas in 1970, they came to enjoy live rock music and protest the ongoing war in Vietnam. The three-day event near Pittsburg,...
View Article