Autumn 1996 (Vol. 19, No. 3)

Jana M. Jaderborg and Sherri Garcia Martin, "From Country Doc to Pioneer Surgeon: Profile of A.C. Johnson, D.O."

The authors, both of whom are recent graduates of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, provide some analysis of the state of the medical profession in early-twentieth-century America while focusing on one small-town osteopath. Dr. Johnson (1892-1972), who had a long and distinguished career, began his medical practice in Lincoln, Kansas, in 1915.

Thomas Burnell Colbert, "'A Most Original Thinker': James C. Malin on History and Technology."

Professor Malin (1893-1979), who served for many years as associate editor of the Kansas Historical Quarterly, predecessor to Kansas History, was a long-time member of the University of Kansas' Department of History. He was a "prolific" and "controversial" scholar, writes Colbert, whose work in areas such as the historical role of technology "has been ignored, overlooked, and unused by other scholars."

Thomas D. Isern, "Folk Entomology in the Flint Hills of Kansas."

Challenging the idea that agricultural technology necessarily passed "from scientist to agent to farmer," Isern shows that in the Flint Hills region "considerable knowledge and practice derived from folk innovation and tradition." At least where insect pests were concerned, prior to the advent of DDT in 1945 county agent reports and other sources reveal much "interaction of extension and folk technology."

Glenn W. Fisher, "The Worst Tax in the Civilized World? Property Tax Reform and The Kansas Tax Commission."

This controversial method of taxation has long been a perennial issue. Here, Professor Fisher examines the early-twentieth-century, Progressive Era efforts to improve its administration, giving special attention to assessment issues.