Gertrude Ackerman Collection, 1856-1940

Manuscript Collection No. 169

• Introduction
• Biographical Sketch
• Scope and Contents
• Container List

Introduction

Miss Gertrude Ackerman, unofficial historian of the Republican Party of Kansas, assembled a collection of speeches and addresses which were presented at annual Kansas Day meetings, Kansas Day Club celebrations, the Young Men’s Republican Club of Kansas, Kansas Women’s Republican Club functions plus Kansas and National Republican Committee organizations. Miss Ackerman’s hope was that at some point in the future, these collected speeches and addresses would be published by the Kansas Republican Party. Included in the collection are six boxes of participant lists, speeches, addresses, and correspondence in which Miss Ackerman solicits copies of the presentations from the individual speaker or an appropriate heir. Supplementing the collection are documents for Kansas and National Republican Party Platforms and convention proceedings that date from 1856 to 1940, plus a variety of pamphlets and brochures. Newspaper clippings that document the political issues of the day are also included.

This collection was donated to the Kansas State Historical Society in1960 as a result of negotiations by Mr. Nyle H. Miller, Secretary of the Historical Society. There are no restrictions on the use of this manuscript collection.

Biographical Sketch

Gertrude Ackerman’s collection of papers revealed little biographical information regarding personal aspects of her life. Facts which were available were discovered among her collection of newspaper clippings. She was employed by the State of Kansas as Secretary of the Hotel and Restaurant Board. In 1954, she was re-elected to the Historian position of the Vice Presidents Club of the Kansas Day Club. In 1956, she was elected to also serve as Historian of the Past Vice Presidents Club of the Kansas Day Club. She was the 1954 President of the Pilot Club of Topeka, a classified civic and service organization. Miss Ackerman also served as an officer in the Kansas Women’s Republican Club from 1941-1943.

Conversation with Mr. Nyle H. Miller, now retired from the Historical Society, revealed that Gertrude Ackerman was a pleasant and industrious woman. The task of compiling the collection that bears her name was an extremely time consuming project and one that provided her with a great deal of personal frustration. Miss Ackerman dedicated many hours to the process of collecting copies or excerpts of these speeches and an assumption could be drawn that she had little, if any, concurrent assistance by the lack of correspondence from other individuals. Practically all of her correspondence to the various Kansas Day speakers or surviving heirs was written during the period of 1940-1941. These letters implored the reader for their cooperation toward the project, and contained an explanation that the speeches had not been actively preserved since 1902, when W. Y. Morgan published a book on the addresses covering the first decade of 1892-1902.

No other specific information was available either from State Republican Party Headquarters or other resources at the Library of the Historical Society. McDill “Huck” Boyd of Phillipsburg, Kansas, was contacted since his political career falls close within the frame of Miss Ackerman’s involvement in the collection. Mr. Boyd could not provide any additional supporting information.

Mr. Miller did share that Miss Ackerman experienced ill health throughout much of her later years. This, coupled with the party’s decision against providing the support required to have the speeches published, in all probability led to Miss Ackerman’s decision to not continue to pursue the project any longer.

Scope and Content

The Republican Party in Kansas was founded at Osawatomie on May 18, 1859. Throughout the years, the party has prevailed amidst numerous issues such as slavery, railroad expansion, legislative corruption, and the emergence of new third political parties. The Republicans also had to deal with prohibition, war, women’s suffrage, machine politics, and the advent of many progressive reform movements. Politicians all over the nation, as well as in Kansas, introduced popular causes and elaborated their stands on the issues by way of addresses and newspapers. The Ackerman Collection orators were usually Republican Party officials, gubernatorial candidates, state legislators or candidates for office, or influential business leaders. Occasionally, a Democrat or some prominent national political figure was invited to present his impression of an issue concerning the country. The compilation of these speeches became the basis for Miss Ackerman’s collection.

Original order was developed by the collector and was maintained in processing. Each year’s participant/speaker list is the initial item in a file. All of the correspondence that relates to the solicitation of a speech or address was filed following the speech/address documents and was placed together in one file folder. This filing procedure was utilized throughout the collection.

The time span of this collection covers the period of 1856 to 1940. The bulk of the materials are the Kansas Day Club Speeches/Addresses and the related correspondence from 1909 to 1940. Other record types include party informational pamphlets and brochures. Newspaper clippings ranged from those relevant to political activities to Miscellaneous Clippings, primarily poetry, probably cut out and kept because they were of some unknown significance to the collector. The Miscellaneous lists file involved items which could have been directly related to the collection, since the items were not titled. The same criteria also applies to the file units for Miscellaneous Dated and Undated material. Items in these files include a sheet of songs, riddles, and assorted church bulletins. A file unit was established which contains clippings regarding Miss Ackerman’s responsibilities within the divisions of the Republican Party and her civic involvements. The Miscellaneous Correspondence file contains business letters to colleagues and personal acquaintances.

The strength of this collection is primarily its potential research value. The speeches/addresses provide a researcher with the major political philosophies of the age. The topics reflect the Republican point of view and contain significant elements that are historical in nature to Kansans, Republicans, or those interested in the mood and climate of the region.

One major weakness which was evident in the processing of this collection was the newspaper clippings. Many of the clippings had no pattern which was obvious to this writer. Many of the clippings were simply cut out, with no identification or dates for documentation. Without this information a scholarly researcher is required to take the time to locate the source(s).

Included in the collection were two 8”x10” photographs. The photographs were transferred to the Photographs Division of the Kansas State Historical Society. This was done in order that they may be more appropriately cataloged and preserved.

Duplicate brochures, if more than two were available, were also removed from the body of the collection. These were transferred to the Library of the Historical Society for assessment and accession into their collections.

Kelly E. Burket
M.H.A.M.S. Program
April, 1985

Gertrude Ackerman Collection