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Title | Creator | Date Made Visible | None
Plowing, Russell County, Kansas
Halbe, L. W. (Leslie Winfield), 1893-1981
View of people working with six teams of horses which are pulling plows at F. Sprinkle's farm in Russell County, Kansas. Also visible are a man and young girl standing next to an an automobile, and two unharnessed horses.
previewThomas Nesbit Stinson and Edward Hoogland, tenant agreement
Stinson, Thomas N. (Thomas Nesbit), 1818-1882
Agreement in which Thomas N. Stinson agreed to rent twenty acres of land to Edward Hoogland in exchange for one-third of the crops produced on the land.
previewMessing Brothers Ranch
Steele, F. M. (Francis Marion), 1866-1936
A photograph of cowboys on their horses at Messing Brothers Ranch in Ashland, Kansas, in Clark County. In the foreground are bedrolls and blankets. A windmill and a herd of horses are visible in the background.
previewHeading wheat in Kiowa County, Kansas
Steele, F. M. (Francis Marion), 1866-1936
View of farmers heading wheat in Kiowa County, Kansas. Horse-drawn harvesting equipment, and a couple seated in a horse-drawn carriage, are also visible in the photograph.
previewC. D. Perry's irrigation ditch near Englewood, Kansas
Steele, F. M. (Francis Marion), 1866-1936
View of a couple standing along an irrigation ditch on the Clarence D. Perry farm near Englewood, Kansas.
previewHarvesting kafir corn and loading a header barge
Steele, F. M. (Francis Marion), 1866-1936
View of farmers harvesting kafir corn in Haskell County, Kansas. Robert Franklin (Frank) McCoy is in the foreground holding stalks of kafir corn. Visible in the background are two unidentified men with the horse-drawn harvester and header barge equipment.
previewDrouthy Kansas
Worrall, Henry
This painting by Henry Worrall, completed in 1878, challenges the assumption that Kansas was part of the "Great American Desert." Although there had, indeed, been a severe drought during 1860, Worrall believed that Kansas did not deserve this harsh reputation. In the foreground, his painting depicts the bountiful harvests of grain, watermelon, and potatoes, while the background includes rain showers and a rainbow stretching across the horizon. Although Worrall was a very productive artist, "Drouthy Kansas" quickly became his most famous work.
previewHarvesting wheat, Ellis County
Alex Schumacher and his brothers, Volga-German immigrants, use a steam powered threshing machine to harvest wheat near Munjor, Kansas.
previewThomas L. McKenney to James Barbour
McKenney, Thomas Loraine, 1785-1859
Thomas McKenney, the current Superintendent of Indian Affairs, wrote this letter to James Barbour, Secretary of War, explaining the perceived success of the government?s attempts to ?civilize? Indian tribes. As part of this process of ?civilization,? the government believed that it was necessary for native groups to become assimilated into white American society by adopting white agricultural methods, Christianity, and other elements of European American culture. Thomas McKenney was a passionate proponent of this system, and so he included a transcription of a letter written by a Cherokee man named David Brown who describes how his people had adopted Christianity, a republican form of government, and other elements of white culture. According to McKenney, as well as many other white Americans during this time period, the ?civilization? process had a positive effect on Native Americans. McKenney also advocated Indian removal, writing that ?should they retain their present location [within the United States] they will, in the course of a few years, be lost as a race.?
preview"The End, 1883"
Garretson, M.S.
This ink on paper drawing by Martin Garretson depicts the artist's conception of the changes in western Kansas as the open prairie was claimed for family farms. By 1883, the vast buffalo herds of the central plains had been hunted almost to the point of extinction. In the drawing, one man is shown loading bleached buffalo bones into an oxen-drawn wagon, while another man with a horse-drawn plow has begun plowing the cleared prairie for a farm crop. A young girl and boy are shown with piles of horns and horned skulls, and a woman is shown standing in the doorway of a small farmhouse in the background.
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