Topics in Kansas History:
Science & Technology
Kansans have been involved in a variety of scientific and technological
endeavors including inventing the microchip, discovering a planet, and
groundbreaking research in botany. Several Kansans have been honored
with Nobel Prizes, among other prestigious awards, for their work in
science and technology. Agricultural developments created in the state
became a boon for Kansas farmers and led to the growth of the agricultural
industry. Aviation pioneers took advantage of ideal flying conditions
to begin design and production of aircraft, placing Kansas at the forefront
in the industry. Technological developments helped to grow the oil and
gas refining industry in the state.
Kansans in Medicine
Mary A. "Mother" Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Ball was born in Knox County, Ohio, in 1817. She attended
Oberlin College and later received training as a nurse in a Cincinnati
hospital where she worked for several years. In 1847, she married Robert
Bickerdyke and nine years later, with their two small sons, the couple
moved to Galesburg, Illinois. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Mrs.
Bickerdyke volunteered her considerable medical skills and throughout
the war performed valuable service for the Union army. In 1867, Mrs.
Bickerdyke moved to Kansas, settled in Salina, and for many years was
involved in benevolent activity. "Mother," as she was affectionately
known, helped Kansas veterans, the victims of Indian raids, farmers
ruined by the grasshopper invasion of 1874, and many others.
In 1897, in recognition of her many years of humanitarian service,
the Woman's Relief Corp named its Ellsworth facility for wives and daughters
of Civil War veterans the Mother Bickerdyke Home and Hospital.
 John
Romulus Brinkley
Dr. J. R. Brinkley moved to Kansas in 1916 and eventually established
a medical practice in Milford. He was soon attracting national attention
with his "goat gland" transplant surgery, a procedure that
purported to restore masculine virility. For several years, the practice
was very successful financially and Brinkley built a clinic, as well
as a powerful radio transmitter. With his new broadcasting equipment,
Dr. Brinkley was able to reach a nationwide audience and he began diagnosing
the nation's illnesses over the airwaves. In 1923, he was linked to
a "diploma mill" and it was finally discovered that he had
no formal medical training. Despite these revelations, Dr. Brinkley
maintained a loyal following and he ran for governor of the state of
Kansas in 1930. After running and losing a second time in 1932, Brinkley
left Kansas and within a decade died in bankruptcy.
Samuel Crumbine was born in Emlenton, Pennsylvania, on September 17,
1862. He graduated from Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery and
established a practice in Dodge City during the late 1880s. Dr. Crumbine
was appointed to the State Board of Health in 1904 and became secretary
and executive officer of the board two years later. Although he faced
considerable opposition from those who opposed government regulation
of any kind, Crumbine soon initiated a vigorous public health campaign
in Kansas.
He began by attacking the use of "common" drinking cups and
soon had abolished their use on railroads and in public buildings. Within
a short time, Dr. Crumbine had become famous for his efforts to improve
hygiene. In addition to the common drinking cup, he exposed the dangers
of roller towels, houseflies, and spitting in public.
In 1911, during his tenure on the Board of Health, Dr. Crumbine also
became Dean of the University of Kansas Medical School. He left Kansas
in 1923 and moved to New York where he served as executive director
of the American Child Health Association. After retirement, Dr. Crumbine
resided on Long Island, New York, but returned to Kansas for speaking
engagements on several occasions before his death.
William Wellington Gavitt
A native of Delaware County, Ohio, William Gavitt moved to Topeka in
1868 where in a few short years he had amassed a fortune in banking,
real estate, and coal. With some of his profits, Gavitt invested in
the medical industry. By the 1890s, he had built a patent medicine company,
headquartered in Topeka, which sold "Gavitt's System Regulator."
According to one Topeka newspaper, this "great discovery"
would "absolutely cure all kidney, liver, stomach and blood diseases."
Gavitt was active in several local clubs, served as a member of the
Topeka board of education, and was a founder of the Kansas Bankers Association.
 Arthur
Emanuel Hertzler
Born in Iowa in April 1870, Arthur Hertzler moved to Kansas with his
parents when he was still a child. The family settled in Moundridge
where Hertzler developed an interest in medicine. He graduated from
Southwest Kansas College in Winfield, Kansas, and then attended Northwestern
University Medical School, in Illinois, where he received his M. D.
degree. After graduation, the young Dr. Hertzler returned to Kansas
and eventually established his practice at Halstead. Dr. Hertzler also
taught at the University Medical College in Kansas City, Missouri, and
later the University of Kansas School of Medicine. In 1902, he established
the Halstead Hospital and over the years wrote a popular best seller
entitled The Horse and Buggy Doctor (1938)
in which he gave a personal account of his experiences as a country
doctor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Dr. Hertzler retired
from the active practice of medicine in February 1946 and died the following
September.
Will, Edwin, C. F., Karl, and Flo Menninger
Dr. C. F. Menninger, a Topeka general practitioner, became interested
in mental illness in 1920 after his eldest son Karl completed a medical
degree at Harvard. Dr. C. F. and Dr. Karl received psychiatric training
and in 1925, when Dr. Will joined the family practice, the Menningers
added a psychiatric hospital to their Topeka clinic. Within a few years,
they had built an internationally known treatment and training center.
And for many years, Doctors Will and Karl Menninger made contributions
of national significance in the field of mental health.
Andrew Taylor Still
Born in Virginia and raised in Tennessee, A. T. Still followed his
father and older brother into the medical profession. He accompanied
his father to Missouri for missionary work among the Indians and in
1853 went with him to the Wakarusa Methodist Mission in Douglas County,
Kansas. There, Still tended to the mission farm and ministered to the
medical needs of the Indians. In 1856, he and his brother donated 480
acres of land for the establishment of Baker University and in 1857
he represented Douglas County in the territorial legislature. In 1874,
Dr. Still became an osteopath, thus abandoning the use of drugs and
surgery in his medical treatment. He moved to Kirksville, Missouri,
and founded the American School of Osteopathy, which he administered
until his death on December 12, 1917.
Lucy Hobbs Taylor
Born in New York on March 14, 1833, Lucy B. Hobbs grew up with a desire
to become a dentist. Because she was a woman, Hobbs was turned down
by many schools but was finally accepted into the office of Dr. Samuel
Wardle. Under his direction, Hobbs prepared for dentistry school but
again was rejected when she applied to the Ohio Dental College in March
1861. Not to be denied, Hobbs opened her own office in Cincinnati, Ohio,
practiced dentistry there until after the Civil War, and then moved
to northern Iowa.
Although her practice was financially successful, Lucy Hobbs wanted
a college degree and, with the support of her Iowa colleagues, finally
gained admittance to Ohio's dentistry school. She was allowed to enter
the senior class in November 1865 and, upon graduation the following
year, made history as the first American woman to receive a Doctor of
Dental Surgery degree.
After graduation, Dr. Hobbs opened a new practice in Chicago, where
she married James M. Taylor on April 24, 1867. Later that same year,
the Taylors moved to Lawrence, Kansas. Under his wife's direction, James
Taylor also learned dentistry, and together they built a large practice
in their new hometown. Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor continued the practice
of dentistry in Lawrence until her death in 1910.
Kansans in Science and Technology
One of the world's most important scientists, George Washington Carver,
spent his formative years in Kansas. Born the son of slaves around 1864,
Carver and his mother were purchased by a Missouri farm couple named
Carver. Opposed to slavery, the Carvers gave Mary her freedom and allowed
her to take their last name. While George was still a baby, his mother
was kidnapped by Confederate raiders and never seen again.
After living with the Carvers for many years, George came to Kansas
around the age of 13, attending school in Fort Scott while supporting
himself doing laundry at a local hotel. Three years later he moved on
to railroading and ranching jobs, living in several small southeastern
Kansas towns as well as New Mexico for a brief time. Interested in many
aspects of nature, Carver examined and sketched plants and animals in
all the places he lived, including the Kansas towns of Paola, Olathe,
and Spring Hill.
While living in Olathe, Carver became acquainted with ex-slaves Ben
and Lucy Seymour. He attended school, worked in a local barbershop,
and helped Lucy with her laundry business. Carver came to Minneapolis,
Kansas, with the Seymours when they moved there in the summer of 1880.
He was 16 years old.
Carver attended high school in Minneapolis and was accepted into Highland
Presbyterian College in northeastern Kansas. He was rejected upon his
arrival at the school when officials discovered he was black. Discouraged,
Carver then homesteaded in western Ness County near the town of Beeler.
He farmed there for a couple of years, observing and making sketches
of the local flora and fauna. Friends began to refer to him as the "Plant
Doctor."
By 1888 Carver's desires to attend an institution of higher learning
took him outside Kansas. He enrolled at Simpson College in Indianola,
Iowa and later transferred to the state agricultural college (Iowa State
University) at Ames. He became the first African American on the faculty
at the latter institution.
Carver was working in the botany department at Iowa State when Booker
T. Washington asked him to sign on at Tuskegee Institute. Carver moved
to Alabama in 1896 to lead the Black college's agriculture department.
For almost 50 years he remained at Tuskegee, teaching and pursuing his
scientific studies. His work included finding over 300 uses for the
peanut. Among Carver's many inventions were a way of turning soybeans
into plastic, wood shavings into synthetic marble, and cotton into paving
blocks. He also disseminated his extensive agricultural research to
farmers through conferences and demonstrations.
When he died on January 5, 1943, Carver was widely recognized for his
intelligence, humility, and inventiveness. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
called him one of the world's most significant scientists.
 Isaac
T. Goodnow
A native of Vermont, Goodnow attended school at the Wilbraham Academy
near Springfield, Massachusetts. He stayed on there after graduation,
first as an instructor in the primary and English departments, then
as professor of natural sciences. From 1848 to 1852 he taught natural
sciences at Providence Seminary in Rhode Island. Goodnow came to Kansas
in 1855, settling near Manhattan. There he helped in the establishment
of Bluemont College, a Methodist institution. In 1862 he was elected
state superintendent of public instruction, serving until 1866.
Perhaps Goodnow's greatest contribution to the educational climate
of Manhattan was his work in locating the Kansas Agricultural College
there. The building and grounds of Bluemont College were donated to
the state to serve as the foundation for the new institution, which
has developed into the present-day Kansas State University. Some 82,000
acres of land were given by the federal government to support the agricultural
college. Goodnow converted over half of this acreage into much needed
cash during his tenure as land agent for the college from 1867 to 1873.
William M. Jardine
Born in Idaho on January 16, 1879, William Marion Jardine graduated
from Utah State Agricultural College and attended graduate school at
the University of Illinois. Although Jardine had a strong interest in
practical farming, he was also attracted to opportunities in education.
He began teaching at his alma mater in Utah, where he soon became a
professor of agronomy. In 1910, Professor Jardine moved to Manhattan
where he had accepted the position of agronomist at the Kansas State
Agricultural College. Three years later, Jardine was made dean of the
Division of Agriculture and director of the Agriculture Experiment Station,
and in 1919 he became KSAC's seventh president.
President Jardine achieved an outstanding reputation for his work in
agricultural education that extended far beyond the borders of the state.
As a result, in 1925, President Calvin Coolidge appointed him secretary
of the United States Department of Agriculture, a position he held for
the next four years. Jardine also served the Hoover Administration as
United States minister to Egypt. After returning to Kansas in 1933,
Jardine became president of the Municipal University of Wichita. William
Jardine's very active career in education and government service ended
with his death on January 17, 1955.
Francis Huntington Snow
A native of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Francis Snow received a Ph.D.
from Williams College. In 1866, he accepted a chair of mathematics and
natural science at the state university in Lawrence. A student of botany,
zoology, entomology, and climatology, Professor Snow found the opportunities
for study in the West of the late 1800s attractive and rewarding. As
a result, during his more than 40 years at the University of Kansas,
he turned down numerous offers from more prestigious eastern schools.
Snow traveled throughout the West collecting thousands of species of
plants, animals, and insects, and eventually established a natural history
museum on the university campus. The museum, which came to be identified
with one of Professor Snow's most successful students, Lewis L. Dyche,
exhibited numerous varieties of American flora and fauna.
Snow was active in professional societies, served as state entomologist,
and was elected chancellor of the university in 1890. In addition to
these many responsibilities, Snow declared war on the pesky chinch bug,
a campaign that proved very beneficial to regional farmers. Snow resigned
the chancellery in 1901 because of ill health. Seven years later, at
the age of 68, he died at Delafield, Wisconsin.
Other Kansans in Science and Technology
Robert Ballard lived in Kansas only as a
very young boy. During his career as oceanographer, Ballard has led
many underwater expeditions including that of the Titanic. Ballard is
proud to claim his Kansas roots.
The Coleman Company of Wichita introduced
the propane-fueled lantern in 1972. The company was founded in 1900.
Albert Alexander Hyde of Wichita invented
Mentholatum in 1889.
Jack St. Clair
Kilby, who grew up in Great Bend, is an inventor who changed
the world. His invention of the microchip for Texas Instruments helped
to launch the development of the computer age.
Omar Kneclik of Coffeyville invented the
ICEE machine, the first frozen carbonated drink machine, in 1961.
Chip Lagerbom, a graduate of Lyons High School,
lived in a tent in the Trans Antarctic Mountains during the summer of
1990-1991, going as far south as anyone can go on earth. Lagerbom was
a field assistant on a research expedition that studied the geology
of glaciers.
Almon Strowger of El Dorado invented the
dial telephone in 1889.
Earl Sutherland, who was born in Burlingame,
won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1969 for his discovery
of the way hormones act. A scientist in physiology and medicine, Sutherland
also received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Sutherland
died in 1974.
Born in North Newton in 1908, Waldo R. Wedel
discovered archeology at a young age. He grew up to become one of the
most respected archeologists in America.
Kansans in Aviation/Astronomy
Walter H. Beech
Walter H. Beech, along with E.M. Laird, J.M. Moellendick, Lloyd Stearman,
and Clyde Cessna, is regarded as a founder of the aircraft industry
in Wichita. A native of Tennessee, Beech began flying in 1914. After
serving in the army air corps during World War I, he spent three years
barnstorming over the central states.
In 1921, Beech settled in Wichita to work for a local aircraft manufacturer.
Four years later, he founded his own company, Travel Air Manufacturing
Company. The Great Depression forced the closing of this company but
in 1932 he opened his new business, the Beech Aircraft Company. His
aircraft set standards considered unattainable by other "experts."
Walter Beech died in 1950 but his company continues to be a major producer
of aircraft for personal, business, and military use.
L. Philip Billard
In 1912, Philip Billard learned to fly from Topeka aviator and aircraft
builder, A.K. Longren. His flights around the capital city were frequently
mentioned in the Topeka papers. This attention was due partly to the
public's fascination with this new invention and to the fact that Philip
Billard was the son of Topeka mayor, J.B. Billard. His father was quoted
in the Topeka Daily Capital in 1912 as being
"opposed to his son purchasing the racing biplane, because of the
dangers of flying, but Phil wanted something that was faster than an
auto . . ."
His father's concerns about the dangers of flying were well founded.
Many pilots had accidents in these early aircraft. Tragically, in 1918,
Philip lost his life in a plane crash in France. While serving as a
test pilot and instructor during World War I, he was killed when his
plane disintegrated.
Clyde V. Cessna
Born in Iowa in 1879, Cessna came to Kansas the following year when
his family settled in Kingman County. His interest in flying supposedly
developed from attending a traveling "air circus" in Enid,
Oklahoma, in 1910. He immediately abandoned his job as an automobile
salesman and went to work for an aircraft company in New York. In 1911,
Cessna quit to build his own plane. It crashed on an early flight but
he was not discouraged.
During the winter of 1916-1917, Cessna moved his operations to Wichita
where he continued to improve his design skills. In 1925 he became a
partner of Stearman and Beech in the Travel Air Company. A disagreement
over whether to build monoplanes or biplanes ended the arrangement two
years later.
Cessna was determined to build a high-performance, single-wing plane.
He succeeded in this task in 1927 with the production of model AW. Cessna
retired in 1936 to return to farming. He died in 1954 at the age of
74. The company that still bears his name is today one of the leading
manufacturers of small aircraft in the world.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart, one of the nation's most famous women flyers, was born
in Atchison in 1897.
Earhart's love of flying began in her youth. When she became a pilot
in the early 1920s, society did not support women's entry into the field
of aviation. Earhart spent her life advocating the equality of female
and male pilots and proving it through her record-setting flights.
Earhart gained national prominence in 1928 by being the first woman
to cross the Atlantic.
Not content with only having been a passenger on that flight, Earhart
piloted herself across in 1932. She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic
alone. Over the next five years, Earhart set aviation records, wrote
books and articles, and taught at Purdue University. In 1937, while
attempting an historic around-the-world flight, she mysteriously disappeared
over the Pacific.
A. K. Longren's brief flight in his pusher-type biplane on September
2, 1911, marked the beginning of a new era in Kansas aviation history.
The "Topeka I" was the first Kansas aircraft to actually fly.
Born on a farm near Leonardville, Longren spent his life working in
the field of aviation. As a young man, he barnstormed throughout the
Midwest from 1911 to 1914. His numerous flights earned him the nickname
"Birdman."
In these early years, money was often an incentive for young aviators.
At one event, Longren was guaranteed $5,000 if he could get his plane
airborne. After waiting all day for the wind to die down, he finally
took off. His plane managed to get only a few feet off the ground before
crashing into a riverbank. Longren was reported to be uninjured, and
it is unknown whether he was able to collect his prize money.
Longren invested much of his income from barnstorming into his Topeka
factory. This was the first successful aircraft-manufacturing firm in
Kansas. Eventually forced to close his plant in 1926, Longren spent
the next 20 years as a consultant for other manufacturing companies.
Longren died in California at the age of 68. The only surviving example
of his work is a pusher-type biplane built in 1914. Fellow Topeka aviator,
Philip Billard, once owned it. The plane is now on permanent exhibit
at the Kansas Museum of History.
Glenn L. Martin
Born in Iowa in 1886, Glenn Martin spent his childhood in Liberal and
Salina. Even as a boy, Martin was fascinated with flying and experimented
with biplane-type kites on the windy Kansas prairie. In 1905 the Martin
family moved to California. It was there that Martin's first aircraft
was built and flown in 1909. Two years later he returned to Kansas for
a series of barnstorming flights. Martin went on to become a world famous
aircraft manufacturer.
 Other
Kansans in Aviation/Astronomy
David D. Blanton of Wichita invented the
autopilot in 1954.
Joe Engle,
a native of Chapman, commanded the space shuttle Columbia II in 1981,
the first aircraft ever to return to space. Engle commanded the Columbia
for the second time in his career in 1985. This time out the University
of Kansas graduate flew an eight-day mission.
Ron Evans served as a crewman on the second
lunar mission in 1969. Evans was born in St. Francis and had graduated
from Highland Park High School in Topeka.
William Purvis and Charles
Wilson of Goodland invented America's first patented helicopter
in 1909-1910.
Lloyd Stearman, a native of Wellsford and
graduate of Kansas State Agricultural College, worked with Walter Beech
and Clyde Cessna to form Travel Air Manufacturing in Wichita. The aviation
pioneer later built thousands of training planes for World War II. Stearman
died in 1975.
Clyde Tombaugh
grew up fascinated with the night sky from his home in Burdett. At the
age of 18, Tombaugh's amateur studies attracted Lowell University. His
work quickly led to the discovery of Planet X, which Tombaugh named
Pluto in 1932.
Back to Topics
in Kansas History: Science & Technology.
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Samuel
J. Crumbine
George
Washington Carver
