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Abraham Lincoln

An engraving of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the Civil War, saving the Union and ending slavery, only to be assassinated as the war was virtually over. Before becoming the first Republican elected to the Presidency, Lincoln was a lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, and a member of the United States House of Representatives.

Lutie A. Lytle

Portrait of Lutie Lytle, one of the nation's earliest African American female lawyers. Her family came to Topeka and lived at 1435 Monroe Street and Lutie and her brothers attended Topeka schools, including Topeka High School. Lytle graduated from Central Tennessee College and was admitted to the Criminal Court in Memphis, Tennessee, after passing an oral exam. She is reported to be the first African American woman to be licensed to practice in Tennessee, and third in the United States. After returning to Topeka, she became the first African American woman admitted to the Kansas bar. This portrait was copied from A New Negro for a New Century.

Eugene Fitch Ware

Portrait of Eugene Fitch Ware, "Ironquill", a noted Kansas newspaperman, lawyer and poet. He is well known for his poem "Dewey Was the Morning".

Mary Elizabeth Lease

Deane

Mary Elizabeth (Clyens) Lease is perhaps the best-known Kansas Populist. She was born in Pennsylvania on September 11, 1850 to Irish immigrants. At the age of twenty she moved to Osage Mission, Kansas, in order to teach school at St. Anne?s Academy. While there, she met and married Charles L. Lease, a local pharmacist. After several unsuccessful attempts at farming, Lease turned her attention to the plight of her fellow farmers, and by 1890, her passionate criticisms of railroads and big business made her a formidable force in the newly formed People's (Populist) Party. She became a well-known lecturer for the Populist cause, traveling throughout the West, Midwest, and South. Although this statement has in fact been misattributed to her, she is most known for her assertion that farmers must "raise less corn and more hell.? Her zeal and refusal to compromise eventually alienated her from mainstream Populists, and by 1896 she had turned her attention toward other reform causes, including prohibition and suffrage. She divorced Charles in 1902, spending the remainder of her life living with various children on the Atlantic coast. She passed away on October 29, 1933 in New York state.

Samuel Dexter Lecompte

Portrait of Samuel Dexter Lecompte, 1814-1888, who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Kansas Territory from 1854-1859. This particular photograph was copied from the 1868 Kansas Legislative panel.

Sherman, Ewing and McCook Attornies at Law to Mess Walker

Sherman, Ewing & McCook

A letter to Mess Walker, Williams & Miller, of Weston Missouri, regarding the payment of a debt that should be paid promptly to the firm of Sherman, Ewing & McCook, Attorneys at Law.

W.T. Sherman to Robert Campbell

Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891

A letter to Robert Campbell regarding the debt that Sherman, Ewing & McCook were trying to collect. As with similar correspondence, this letter conveys a sense of the legal and financial transactions that played a major part in the firm's business activities in the territory.

W.T. Sherman, Thomas Ewing, & McCook, to George B. Parker

Sherman, Ewing & McCook

Although unclear as to the exact nature of the litigation, this letter from the Leavenworth firm pertained to the taking of depositions in "the case against the steamboat Isabella". The Isabella was a side-wheeler which made regular runs to Sioux City during 1858, and in this case apparently came to the aid of the Kate Howard when ice forced her to "give up her trip".

Thomas Ewing, Jr., to Judge M. F. Moore

Letter Press Book of Thomas Ewing, Jr. He moved to Kansas Territory in 1856 and established a law practice in Leavenworth. It is from this town, Kansas Territory's largest city, where he also had many investments, that he wrote Judge M. F. Moore, Sioux City, Iowa, regarding Moore's investments and other opportunities in Leavenworth.

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.