Kansas History

This list is a compilation of general books on the history of Kansas. All of these books are available to researchers in the Research Room of the Kansas State Historical Society. The hours of the Research Room can be viewed on our web site. Library books in our collections do not circulate outside of the Research Room and, therefore, would not be available through interlibrary loan request to researchers. For more information on these and other books in our collections, please see our ask a research question page.

Anderson, George L., Terry H. Harmon, and Virgil W. Dean. History of Kansas. Lawrence: Division of Continuing Education, The University of Kansas, 1987. Study guide with thematic essays and bibliography, for Kansas history course.

Anderson, George L., Terry H. Harmon and Virgil W. Dean, editors. History of Kansas: Selected Readings. Lawrence: Division of Continuing Education, The University of Kansas, 1987. A variety of readings, including scholarly articles and contempary accounts.

Andreas, Alfred Thayer [with William G. Cutler]. The History of the State of Kansas. Two Volumes. Chicago, A. T. Andreas, 1883. Reprinted in 1976 with an index of names from the fifteen thousand sketches found in the original volumes. Important for early county and community histories.

Averill, Thomas Fox, editor. What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990. Essays and poems, all but one previously published, examine "the psyche, the personality, and the character of the state."

Bader, Robert Smith. Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988.

Blackburn, Forrest R., et al. Kansas and the West: Bicentennial Essays in Honor of Nyle H. Miller. Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1976.

Bright, John D., ed. Kansas: The First Century. 4 vols. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1956. Volumes I & II of this work contain essays on a wide variety of topics contributed by a variety of scholars. Volumes III & IV contain "Family and Personal" history.

Connelley, William E. A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans. 5 vols. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1918. Volumes three, four, and five contain biographical sketches.

Davis, Kenneth S. Kansas: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976. The Kansas volume in the bicentennial series. Republished in 1984 as Kansas: A History.

Dick, Everett. The Sod-House Frontier, 1854-1890: A Social History of the Northern Plains from the Creation of Kansas & Nebraska to the Admission of the Dakotas. New York: Appelton Century, 1937.

Howes, Charles C. This Place Called Kansas. Norman: University of Oklahom Press, 1952. Reprinted 1984. Features stories of Kansas as written by "Cec" Howes, long-time Kansas City Star correspondent and father of Charles.

Napier, Rita, editor. A History of the Peoples of Kansas. Lawrence, Ks.: University of Kansas, Continuing Education, 1985. Scholarly essays of ethnic and minority group experience in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Richmond, Robert W. Kansas: Land of Contrast. Third edition. Arlington Heights, Il.: Forum Press, 1988. Earlier editions published in 1974 and 1980.

Shortridge, James R. Peopling the Plains: Who Settled Where in Frontier Kansas. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995. With a large number of maps and census data, the author provides an exceptional cultural geography detailing the origins and thus the ethnic diversity of 19th and early 20th century settlers.

Socolofsky, Homer E. Kansas Governors. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.

Socolofsky, Homer E., and Huber Self. Historical Atlas of Kansas. Second edition. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

Socolofsky, Homer E., and Virgil W. Dean. Kansas History: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Includes 4565 separate entries, a chronology, and indexes.

Stuewe, Paul K., ed. Kansas Revisited: Historical Images and Perspectives. Lawrence: University of Kansas, Division of Continuing Education, 1990. Collection of articles focusing on Kansa culture and character; chapters 7 & 8 cover modern era.

Zornow, William Frank. Kansas: A History of the Jayhawk State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.