A Kansas Memory Podcast

Immigrant Guides

The documents used in the Immigrant Guides podcast are available on

• How and where to get a living : a sketch of "the garden of the West," dated 1876
  An Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe pamphlet that emphasizes the opportunities for farmers who emigrate to Kansas and settle on lands granted to the AT&SF Railway Co.
• The State of Kansas: a home for immigrants, by Samuel Johnson Crawford, dated 1865.
  This pamphlet, written by S. J. Crawford, who was governor of Kansas from 1865-1868, downplays the severity of Kansas weather and tries to persuade settlers to come to Kansas.
• Immigrants' guide to the most fertile lands of Kansas, published ca. 1880.
  A Union Pacific Railway Company brochure promoting the sale of lands granted to the railroad by the U. S. government.
• The Great northwest!, published in 1888.
  A later Union Pacific Railway Company pamphlet that describes towns and other amenities along the Kansas Pacific line where the railroad has lands available.