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Title | Creator | Date Made Visible | None
Samuel Clarke Pomeroy, United States Senator from Kansas
Merritt & Van Wagner
Samuel Clarke Pomeroy, United States Senator from Kansas, seated in a horse drawn carriage in front of a residence, Washington D.C.
previewBennett C. Riley
This photograph shows a portrait of Bennett Riley that was probably commissioned by his family in the 1880s. Riley died June 9, 1853. The portrait has resided at the U.S. Cavalry Museum at Fort Riley, Kansas, since about 1903. Bennett Riley, after whom Fort Riley was named, had a long and prestigious career in the U. S. military. Born in Virginia in 1787, he entered the army in 1813. In 1829 he commanded the first military escort on the Santa Fe Trail. In that same year, he succeeded Colonel Henry Leavenworth as commander of Fort Leavenworth. In 1847 he became a brigadier general. He also served during the Mexican War and, in 1848, he served as the last territorial governor of California, where he helped create their state constitution.
previewDr. Brewster Higley
This is black and white photograph shows Dr. Brewster Higley, author of the song, "Home on the Range". It was officially recognized as the state song of Kansas on June 30, 1947.
previewGovernor Lyman Humphrey to John Hughes
Humphrey, Lyman Underwood, 1844-1915
In this letter Governor Lyman Humphrey of Topeka (Shawnee County) responds to John Hughes of Howard (Elk County) regarding a petition requesting a special session of the legislature to provide farmers relief from mortgages. The Farmer's Alliance and Labor's Union of America of Kansas produced and sponsored the petition. Mr. Hughes sent the first of such petitions to the Governor. The Alliance later cited the Governor's response to this petition in a circular it distributed with the petition forms. See Electors of Chautauqua County to Governor Lyman Humphrey, December 20, 1889-[n.d.], 1890.
previewSusanna Madora Salter, Mayor of Argonia
This is a portrait of Susanna Madora Salter, Mayor of Argonia, and first woman mayor in the United States. Born March 2, 1860, in Belmont County, Ohio, Susanna Madora Kinsey moved to a Kansas farm with her parents in 1872. Eight years later, while attending the Kansas State Agricultural College, she met and married Lewis Salter. The couple soon moved to Argonia where she cared for their young children and became an officer in the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Nominated on the Prohibition Party ticket by several Argonia men as a joke, Salter surprised the group and received two-thirds of the votes. She was elected in April 4, 1887, just weeks after Kansas women had gained the right to vote in city elections. The 27-year-old woman knew more about politics than her detractors realized. She was the daughter of the town's first mayor. Her father-in-law, Melville J. Salter, was a former Kansas lieutenant governor. Although she apparently performed her job well, Salter never sought another elected office. Within a few years, the Salters moved to Oklahoma where the nation's first woman mayor died in 1961 at the age of 101.
previewDunlap Academy and Mission School, Dunlap, Kansas
This photograph portrays the students and teachers of the African American school in Dunlap, Morris County, Kansas. Dunlap was located in eastern Morris County and was established in May 1878. The colony was founded by Benjamin Singleton and the Tennessee Real Estate and Homestead Association. This was the last colony Singleton founded in Kansas.
previewAndrew H. Reeder portrait
Hall, Cyrenius
Portrait of Andrew Horatio Reeder, 1807-1864, who was the first governor of Kansas Territory. In 1855, Reeder was removed from office by President Pierce and forced to leave Kansas when threatened with arrest for a charge of high treason issued by a pro-slavery grand jury. He escaped with the help of Thomas and Julia Stinson, who dressed him in women's clothing. In May 1856, Reeder disguised himself as a woodcutter (as depicted in this painting) and escaped via a steamboat on the Missouri River. Artist Cyrenius Hall painted this portrait in 1880.
previewRichard West to John P. St. John
Richard West, a resident of Barton Station, Alabama, wrote this letter to Kansas governor St. John requesting information about available land in Kansas. West was a farmer who described in some detail many of the concerns facing emigrants, including transportation and other expenses. In addition to his role as governor of Kansas, St. John also served on the Board of Directors of the Kansas Freedmen?s Relief Association.
previewThe Grangers' dream of cheap money
Puck
This political cartoon from the satirical Puck magazine illustrates the Republican perception of the People?s (Populist) Party belief in the coinage of silver and the redistribution of wealth to the masses. In the cartoon, Populist senator William Peffer uses a bellows to propel the windmill of the U.S. Treasury in order to pump out more ?greenbacks.? Outside the windmill, farmers are hungrily grabbing bags of money and carting them away in wagons. Billboards in the nearby town refer to the rapid inflation caused by the distribution of so much money.
previewTestimony of A. A. Harris, in report and testimony of the select committee to investigate the causes of the removal of the Negroes from the southern states to the northern states, in three parts
United States. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Negro Exodus
A. A. Harris, a white resident of Ft. Scott, Kansas, gave this brief testimony on March 29, 1880, before the Senate select committee investigating the causes of the Exodus. Harris described his contact with the black Exodusters in his area, including their difficulty finding employment. The committee also asked Harris to speak in some detail about the general treatment of African-Americans in Kansas, including any discrimination against them, particularly in the world of politics. This committee was composed of three Democratic senators and two Republican senators: Daniel W. Voorhees (Dem., Indiana), Zebulon B. Vance (Dem., North Carolina), George H. Pendleton (Dem., Ohio), William Windom (Rep., Minnesota), and Henry W. Blair (Rep., New Hampshire). Senators Blair and Vance asked the questions presented in this testimony.
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