Topics in Kansas History:
Reform Movements

By the turn-of-the-century, America was no longer a simple rural, agricultural country. The industrial revolution and urban growth had transformed the face of the nation and resulted in great economic, social, and cultural change. This change meant many benefits for the nation as a whole, but it also meant new problems, which had to be addressed for the first time. This time of change led to a number of reform movements including those in politics, prison, prohibition, and woman's suffrage. read more

Find resources on Reform Movements:

• Anthony, Susan B.
• Beecher Bibles
• Brown, John
• Brown v. Board of Education
• Butler, Pardee
• Davis, Christy, "The History of YMCA Structures in Kansas," Kansas Preservation, November/December 2001

Letters, documents, objects, and photographs

Antislavery

• Abolitionist's desk
• John Brown's "Parallels" desk
• John Brown's "Parallels" (text)
• John Brown's surveying compass
• Shackle from a freed slave
• Underground Railroad chair

Prohibition

• Carry A. Nation: The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher (an online exhibit)
• Carry Nation lecture poster (temperance)
• Carry Nation portrait by Albert Reid (temperance)
• Carry Nation's hammer (temperance)
• Carry Nation's purse (temperance)

Prisons & Law Enforcement

• Prison doll depicting Lansing inmate
• Prison escape attempt artifact: fake pistol
• Table made by prison inmate

Progressivism

• "Don't Spit on Sidewalk" brick (public health)
• "Legislative War" artifacts (Populist Party)
• The Spirit of Kansas painting by Mary Weston
• William Allen White's printing press

Suffrage

• American Woman and Her Political Peers painting (woman suffrage)

Other

• Confiscated slot machines (gambling)
• "Not Today Fred" sign (picketing)
• Sinners and Saints: Vice and Reform in Kansas (an online exhibit)

Bibliographies

• Abolition, Segregation and Civil Rights Bibliography
• Populism and Radical Politics Bibliography
• Women's Suffrage Bibliography
• Temperance and Prohibition Bibliography

Finding aids and guides to the collections

• Martha Farnsworth Diaries, 1882-1922
• Minnie Tamar Johnson & Virgil Hooker Grinstead Collection, 1878-[not before 1923]
• New England Emigrant Aid Company Papers

Kansas Heritage, our popular history magazine

• "The Cost of Conscience -Coming of the Night Riders-," Summer 2004
• "Flirting With Lady Luck: Gambling in Frontier Kansas," Spring 1998
• "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer Behind the Wall," Summer 2001
• "The Old Grey Mare, She Ain't Where She Used to Be," Summer 2000
• "Well Intentioned, Ill Advised," Spring 2002

Kansas History, our scholarly journal

• "I Am Only a Woman: Tiera Farrow's Defense of Clara Schweiger," Autumn 2002
• "'I Want Everyone to Know the Shame of the State': Henry J. Allen Confronts the Ku Klux Klan, 1921-1923," Summer 1996