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Nellie Cline

Nellie Cline, a native of Larned, Pawnee County, served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 1921 to 1924. She is also credited with being the first female lawyer to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court.

Georgia Neese Clark Gray

This is a signed studio portrait of Georgia Neese Clark Gray, 1900-1995. Gray was National Committeewoman for the Democratic Party, 1936-1964. On June 9, 1949, President Harry S. Truman appointed her as the first woman to serve as the U. S. Treasurer. She served from 1949-1953. She was born in 1898 in Richland, Kansas, to Albert and Ellen Neese, Gray attended school in Topeka and graduated from Washburn College in 1921. During college, she developed an interest in acting and after graduation attended the Franklin Sargent School of Dramatic Art and spent nearly ten years acting with various stock companies. She married her manager, George M. Clark in 1929. They divorced in the mid-1940s. She started working at her father's Richland State Bank as an assistant cashier in 1935 and became president in 1937 following his death. She became active in the state Democratic Party and was elected National Committee Woman in Kansas in 1936, a position she held until 1964. She was an articulate and well-liked representative of the party and an early supporter of Harry Truman. It was this support that brought about her nomination as the first woman to be Treasurer of the United States. She served in that office from June 1949 until January 1953 when Truman left office.

Amelia Earhart

This photograph shows aviator Amelia Earhart on a parade float at a homecoming parade in Atchison, Kansas. A native of Atchison, Kansas, Earhart spoke at Memorial Hall to a crowd of 3,500 people during her visit. Earhart set a record flying solo across the Atlantic in her Lockheed Vega. She made the 14-hour, 56-minute flight from Newfoundland to Ireland in May 1932. Earlier, she had been the first woman to cross the Atlantic as a passenger in a plane.

Amelia Earhart

This is an informal photograph of Amelia Earhart, 1897-1937. She is seated between two women on a parade float in Atchison, Kansas. The two women may be Barbara and Lorraine Hellener, daughters of the City Manager, Earl Hellener. Also visible are the float's driver, spectators, and parked automobiles along the city street. A native of Atchison, Earhart spoke at Memorial Hall to a crowd of 3,500 people during her visit. The parade was June 7, 1935.

Vivian Vance

Vivian Vance, 1909-1979, was a well-known actress born Vivian Roberta Jones in Cherryvale in Montgomery County, Kansas. As a young child, Vance moved to Independence, Kansas where she found her love of acting under the tutelage of playwright William Inge. Her most famous role was as Ethel Mertz on the television show "I Love Lucy" with Lucille Ball.

Nancy Landon Kassebaum

A portrait of Nancy Landon Kassebaum, United States Senator from Kansas, 1978-1997, and the daughter of Kansas Governor Alfred Mossiman Landon.

Friends University Girls Soft Ball Team

Friends University girls soft ball team

Minnie Johnson Grinstead

This is a portrait of Mineola "Minnie" Tamar Johnson Grinstead, 1869-1925, who was the first woman elected to the Kansas House of Representatives. Grinstead served from 1919 to 1923 as the representative from Liberal in Seward County, Kansas.

Cyrus Kurtz Holliday to Mary Dillon Holliday

Holliday, Cyrus Kurtz, 1826-1900

Cyrus K. Holliday wrote from Lawrence, Kansas Territory to his wife, Mary Holliday, in Meadville, Pennsylvania. This letter was to be delivered by Mr. Ingrams, and Holliday expressed the possibilities of following shortly or of staying in Lawrence to make business arrangements and put up a building in the spring. He expressed his delight in the country of Kansas and the site of a new city (not named, but likely Topeka). A Pennsylvania company of emigrants, unprepared for the journey and now suffering, had settled in Lawrence and Council Grove.

Cyrus Kurtz Holliday to Mary Dillon Holliday

Holliday, Cyrus Kurtz, 1826-1900

Cyrus K. Holliday, the founder of Topeka, Kansas Territory, wrote from Lawrence, Kansas Territory to his wife, Mary Holliday, in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He told her of his planned trip up the Kansas River, his pleasure in the people of Kansas Territory, and a Thanksgiving dinner he attended. Unwilling to return to Pennsylvania, Holliday expressed desire that Mary come to Kansas Territory and described the construction of a friend's sod-covered "mansion," one such as Clarina I. H. Nichols, a lecturer and writer, inhabited.