History of Kansas

Important dates in Kansas's history

July–August 1541 Coronado explores Kansas April 30, 1803 Louisiana Purchase Treaty signed May 30, 1854 Kansas Territory organized July 29, 1859 Constitution adopted by convention January 29, 1861 Kansas becomes 34th state August 21, 1863 Quantrill's Raid on Lawrence Spring 1879 Exodusters February 19, 1881 First state to Constitutionally prohibit alcohol 1890s Populist Revolt July 1951 Great Flood of 1951 May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka More...

The U.S. state of Kansas, located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains, was the home of nomadic Native American tribes who hunted the vast herds of bison (often called "buffalo"). In around 1450 AD, the Wichita People founded the great city of Etzanoa. The city of Etzanoa was abandoned in around 1700 AD. The region was explored by Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. Most of Kansas became permanently part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. When the area was opened to settlement by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 it became a battlefield that helped cause the American Civil War. Settlers from North and South came in order to vote slavery down or up. The free state element prevailed.

After the war, Kansas was home to

.

Prehistory

The Paleo-Indians and Archaic peoples

Around 7000 BC, paleolithic descendants of Asian immigrants into North America reached Kansas. Once in Kansas, the indigenous ancestors never abandoned Kansas. They were later augmented by other indigenous peoples migrating from other parts of the continent. These bands of newcomers encountered mammoths, camels, ground sloths, and horses. The sophisticated big-game hunters did not keep a balance, resulting in the "Pleistocene overkill", the rapid and systematic destruction of nearly all the species of large ice-age mammals in North America by 8000 BC. The hunters who pursued the mammoths may have represented the first of north Great Plains cycles of boom and bust, relentlessly exploiting the resource until it has been depleted or destroyed.^[2]

After the disappearance of big-game hunters, some archaic groups survived by becoming generalists rather than specialists, foraging in seasonal movements across the plains. The groups did not abandon hunting altogether, but also consumed wild plant foods and small game. Their tools became more varied, with grinding and chopping implements becoming more common, a sign that seeds, fruits, and greens constituted a greater proportion of their diet. Also, pottery-making societies emerged.

Introduction of agriculture

For most of the Archaic period, people did not transform their natural environment in any fundamental way. The groups outside the region, particularly in Mesoamerica, introduced major innovations, such as maize cultivation. Other groups in North America independently developed maize cultivation as well. Some archaic groups transferred from food gatherers to food producers around 3,000 years ago. They also possessed many of the cultural features that accompany semi-sedentary agricultural life: storage facilities, more permanent dwellings, larger settlements, and cemeteries or burial grounds. El Cuartelejo was the northernmost Indian pueblo. This settlement is the only pueblo in Kansas from which archaeological evidence has been recovered.^[2]

Despite the early advent of farming, late Archaic groups still exercised little control over their natural environment. Wild food resources remained important components of their diet even after the invention of pottery and the development of irrigation. The introduction of agriculture never resulted in the complete abandonment of hunting and foraging, even in the largest of Archaic societies.

Etzanoa

Etzanoa is an ancient city founded by the Wichita people in about 1450. Etzanoa is located in present-day Arkansas City, Kansas, near the Arkansas River.^[3] In 1601, Juan de Oñate visited the city of Etzanoa. Oñate and the other explorers who accompanied him called the city "the Great Settlement". Etzanoa may have been home to about 20,000 people at the time Oñate and his expedition found and explored the city.^[4]

Early European exploration and local tribes

In 1541, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, the Spanish conquistador, visited Kansas, allegedly turning back near "Coronado Heights" in present-day Lindsborg. Near the Great Bend of the Arkansas River, in a place he called Quivira, he met the ancestors of the Wichita people. Near the Smoky Hill River, he met the Harahey, who were probably the ancestors of the Pawnee.^[5] This was the first time that the Plains Indians had seen horses. Later, they acquired horses from the Spanish, and rapidly radically altered their lifestyle and range.

Kansa

lodge and dance is the oldest drawing known to be done in Kansas.

Following this transformation, the

also inhabited various areas around the northeast corner of Kansas.

Louisiana Purchase

Apart from brief explorations, neither France nor Spain had any settlement or military or other activity in Kansas. In 1763, following the Seven Years' War in which Great Britain defeated France, Spain acquired the French claims west of the Mississippi River. It returned this territory to France in 1803, keeping title to about 7,500 square miles (19,000 km²).

In the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States (US) acquired all of the French claims west of the Mississippi River; the area of Kansas was unorganized territory. In 1819 the United States confirmed Spanish rights to the 7,500 square miles (19,000 km²) as part of the Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain. That area became part of Mexico, which also ignored it. After the Mexican–American War and the US victory, the United States took over that part in 1848.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition left St. Louis on a mission to explore the Louisiana Purchase all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In 1804, Lewis and Clark camped for three days at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers in what is today Kansas City, Kansas (today commemorated at the Kaw Point Riverfront Park). They met French fur traders and mapped the area. In 1806, Zebulon Pike passed through Kansas and labeled it "the Great American Desert" on his maps. This view of Kansas would help form U.S. policy for the next 40 years, prompting the government to set it aside as land reserved for Native American resettlement.

From June 4, 1812, until August 10, 1821, the area that would become

Its slave-owning population would contrast with settlers from New England who would eventually arrive in the 1850s.

A section of the

.

1820s–1840s: Indian territory

Beginning in the 1820s, the area that would become Kansas was set aside as

The Missouri

Shawnee

) were the first Native Americans removed to the territory. By treaty made at St. Louis on November 7, 1825, the United States agreed to provide:

"the Shawanoe tribe of Indians within the State of Missouri, for themselves, and for those of the same nation now residing in Ohio who may hereafter immigrate to the west of the Mississippi, a tract of land equal to fifty miles [80 km] square, situated west of the State of Missouri, and within the purchase lately made from the Osage."^[11]

The Delaware came to Kansas from Ohio and other eastern areas by the treaty of September 24, 1829. The treaty described:

"the country in the fork of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, extending up the Kansas River to the Kansas (Indian's) line, and up the Missouri River to Camp Leavenworth, and thence by a line drawn westerly, leaving a space ten miles (16 km) wide, north of the Kansas boundary line, for an outlet."^[12]

After this point, the

By September 17, 1836, the confederacy of the

.

In 1842, after a treaty between the United States and the

Early 1850s and the territory organization

Despite the treaties establishing Native American ownership of parts of Kansas, by 1850 European Americans were illegally squatting on their land and clamoring for the entire area to be opened for settlement. Presaging events that were soon to come, several U.S. Army forts, including Fort Riley, were soon established deep in Indian Territory to guard travelers on the various Western trails.

Although the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were still negotiating with the United States for land in western Kansas (the current state of Colorado) – they signed a treaty on September 17, 1851^[20] – momentum was already building to settle the land.^[2]

Kansas–Nebraska Act

Congress began the process of creating Kansas Territory in 1852. That year, petitions were presented at the first session of the

.

Native American territory ceded

Meanwhile, by the summer of 1853, it was clear that eastern Kansas would soon be opened to American settlers.^{[citation needed]} The Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs negotiated new treaties that would assign new reservations with annual federal subsidies for the Indians. Nearly all the tribes in the eastern part of the Territory ceded the greater part of their lands prior to the passage of the Kansas territorial act in 1854, and were eventually moved south to the future state of Oklahoma.

In the three months immediately preceding the passage of the bill, treaties were quietly made at Washington with the

The final step in Americanizing the Indians was taking land from tribal control and assigning it to individual Indian households, to buy and sell as European Americans would. For example, in 1854, the

]

Kansas Territory

Upon the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act on May 30, 1854, the borders of Kansas Territory were set from the Missouri border to the summit of the Rocky Mountain range (now in central Colorado); the southern boundary was the 37th parallel north, the northern was the 40th parallel north. North of the 40th parallel was Nebraska Territory. When Congress set the southern border of the Kansas Territory as the 37th parallel, it was thought that the Osage southern border was also the 37th parallel. The Cherokees immediately complained, saying that it was not the true boundary and that the border of Kansas should be moved north to accommodate the actual border of the Cherokee land. This became known as the Cherokee Strip controversy.

An invitation to violence

The most controversial provision in the Kansas–Nebraska Act was the stipulation that settlers in Kansas Territory would vote on whether to allow slavery within its borders. This provision repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had prohibited slavery in any new states created north of latitude 36°30'. Predictably, violence resulted between the Northerners and Southerners who rushed to settle there in order to control the vote.

Within a few days after the passage of the Act, hundreds of

, if it should require half the citizens of Missouri, musket in hand, to emigrate there, and even to sacrifice their lives in accomplishing this end.

To counter this action, the

. Several Free-State men also came to Kansas Territory from Ohio, Iowa, Illinois and other Midwestern states.

Bleeding Kansas

Despite the proximity and opposite aims of the settlers, the lid was largely kept on the violence until the election of the Kansas Territorial legislature on March 30, 1855. On that date, Missourians who had streamed across the border (known as "

), and the first official legislature was overwhelmingly composed of pro-slavery delegates.

From 1855 to 1858, Kansas Territory experienced extensive violence and some open battles. This period, known as "Bleeding Kansas" or "the Border Wars", directly presaged the American Civil War. The major incidents of Bleeding Kansas include the Wakarusa War, the Sacking of Lawrence, the Pottawatomie massacre, the Battle of Black Jack, the Battle of Osawatomie, and the Marais des Cygnes massacre.

Wakarusa War

On December 1, 1855, a small army of Missourians, acting under the command of Douglas County, Kansas Sheriff Samuel J. Jones laid siege to the Free-State stronghold of Lawrence in what would later become known as "The Wakarusa War". A treaty of peace negotiation was announced amid much disorder and cries for the reading of the treaty shortly afterwards. It quelled the disorder and its provisions were generally accepted.

Sacking of Lawrence

On May 21, 1856, pro-slavery forces led by Sheriff Jones attacked Lawrence, burning the Free-State Hotel to the ground, destroying two printing presses, and robbing homes.

Pottawatomie massacre

The Pottawatomie massacre occurred during the night of May 24 to the morning of May 25, 1856. In what appears to be a reaction to the Sacking of Lawrence, John Brown and a band of abolitionists (some of them members of the Pottawatomie Rifles) killed five settlers, thought to be pro-slavery, north of Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas. Brown later said that he had not participated in the killings during the Pottawatomie massacre, but that he did approve of them. He went into hiding after the killings, and two of his sons, John Jr. and Jason, were arrested. During their confinement, they were allegedly mistreated, which left John Jr. mentally scarred. On June 2, Brown led a successful attack on a band of Missourians led by Captain Henry Pate in the Battle of Black Jack. Pate and his men had entered Kansas to capture Brown and others. That autumn, Brown went back into hiding and engaged in other guerrilla warfare activities.

Territorial constitutions

The violently feuding pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions tried to defeat the opposition by pushing through their own version of a state constitution, that would either endorse or condemn slavery. Congress had the final say.^[22]

Topeka Constitution

The Topeka Constitution was adopted on November 11, 1855, in Topeka by delegates elected from across the Kansas Territory. This Free State document was in response to the fraudulent takeover of the Territorial government by pro slavery forces seven months earlier. The Topeka Constitution's Bill of Rights proposed "There shall be no slavery in this state." It was ratified by the people of the Territory on December 15, 1855, and presented in Congress in March 1856. It passed in the U.S. House of Representatives but was prevented from a vote in the Senate by pro-slavery southern senators.

Lecompton Constitution

The Lecompton Constitution was adopted by a Convention convened by the official pro-slavery government on November 7, 1857. The constitution would have allowed slavery in Kansas as drafted, but the slavery provision was put to a vote. After a series of votes on the provision and the constitution were boycotted alternatively by pro-slavery settlers and Free-State settlers, the Lecompton Constitution was eventually presented to the U.S. Congress for approval. In the end, because it was never clear if the constitution represented the will of the people, it was rejected.

Leavenworth Constitution

While the Lecompton Constitution was being debated, a new Free-State legislature was elected and seated in Kansas Territory. The new legislature convened a new convention, which framed the Leavenworth Constitution. This constitution was the most radically progressive of the four proposed, outlawing slavery and providing a framework for women's rights. The constitution was adopted by the convention at Leavenworth on April 3, 1858, and by the people at an election held May 18, 1858 (all while the Lecompton Constitution was still under consideration).

President Buchanan sent the Lecompton Constitution to Congress for approval. The Senate approved the admission of Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution, despite the opposition of Senator Douglas, who believed that the Kansas referendum on the Constitution, by failing to offer the alternative of prohibiting slavery, was unfair. The measure was subsequently blocked in the House of Representatives, where northern congressmen refused to admit Kansas as a slave state. Senator

of South Carolina characterized this resolution as the expulsion of the state, asking, "If Kansas is driven out of the Union for being a slave state, can any Southern state remain within it with honor?"

Wyandotte Constitution

Following the failure of the Lecompton and Leavenworth charters, a fourth constitution was drafted; the

End of hostilities

By the time the Wyandotte Constitution was adopted in October 1859, it was clear that the pro-slavery forces had lost control of Kansas. With this dawning realization and the departure of John Brown from the state, Bleeding Kansas violence virtually ended. The new issue was John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, a national event, later that month.

Statehood

John James Ingalls

. He also proposed the state motto, "Ad astra per aspera", which means "to the stars through difficulty".

Kansas became the 34th state admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861.

The 1860s saw several important developments in the history of Kansas, including participation in the Civil War, the beginning of the cattle drives, the roots of Prohibition in Kansas (which would fully take hold in the 1880s), and the start of the

was elected to the Senate from the state of Kansas in 1861, and reelected in 1865.

Civil War

After years of small-scale civil war, Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state under the "Wyandotte Constitution" on January 29, 1861. Most people gave strong support for the Union cause. However, guerrilla warfare and raids from pro-slavery forces, many spilling over from Missouri, occurred during the Civil War.^[23]

At the start of the war in April 1861, the Kansas government had no well-organized militia, no arms, accoutrements or supplies, nothing with which to meet the demands, except the united will of officials and citizens. During the years 1859 to 1860, the military organizations had fallen into disuse or been entirely broken up. The first Kansas regiment was called on June 3, 1861, and the seventeenth, the last raised during the Civil War, July 28, 1864. The entire quota assigned to the Kansas was 16,654, and the number raised was 20,097, leaving a surplus of 3,443 to the credit of Kansas. Statistics indicated that losses of Kansas regiments in killed in battle and from disease are greater per thousand than those of any other State.^{[citation needed]}

Apart from small formal battles, there were 29 Confederate raids into Kansas during the war.

Lawrence Massacre

After Union Brigadier General Thomas Ewing Jr. ordered the imprisonment of women who had provided aid to Confederate guerrillas, tragically the jail's roof collapsed, killing five. These deaths enraged guerrillas in Missouri. On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led Quantrill's Raid into Lawrence, burned much of the city and killed over 150 unarmed men and boys. In addition to the jail collapse, Quantrill also rationalized the attack on this citadel of abolition would bring revenge for any wrongs, real or imagined that the Southerners had suffered at the hands of Jayhawkers.

Baxter Springs

The Battle of Baxter Springs, sometimes called the Baxter Springs Massacre, was a minor battle in the War, fought on October 6, 1863, near the modern-day town of Baxter Springs, Kansas. The Battle of Mine Creek, also known as the Battle of the Osage was a cavalry battle that occurred in Kansas during the war.

Marais des Cygnes

On October 25, 1864, the Battle of Marais des Cygnes occurred in Linn County, Kansas. This Battle of Trading Post was between Major General Sterling Price and Union forces under Major General Alfred Pleasonton. Price, after fleeing south after a defeat at Kansas City, was pushed out by Union forces.

Indian Wars in Kansas

of 1861.

Kansas Pacific railroad

In 1863, the Union Pacific Eastern Division (renamed the

to the railroad along its mainline. The company began construction on its main line westward from Kansas City in September 1863.

Date	Major junctions
1863	Kansas City
1864	Lawrence
1866	Junction City
1867	Salina
1870	Denver

In the postwar era, many railroads were planned, but not all were actually built. The nationwide Panic of 1873 dried up funding. Land speculators and local boosters identified many potential towns, and those reached by the railroad had a chance, while the others became ghost towns. In Kansas, nearly 5000 towns were mapped out, but by 1970 only 617 were actually operating. In the mid-20th century, closeness to an interstate exchange determined whether town would flourish or struggle for business.^[28]

Cattle towns and Wild West

After the Civil War, the railroads did not reach the main cattle-ranching areas in Texas, so cowboys brought cattle to Kansas rail heads. Initially this was via the Santa Fe Trail. 1867, Joseph G. McCoy built stockyards in Abilene, Kansas and helped develop the Chisholm Trail, encouraging Texas cattlemen to undertake cattle drives to his stockyards from 1867 to 1887. The stockyards became the largest west of Kansas City. Once the cattle had been driven north, they were shipped eastward from the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway.^[29]

Kansas in the 1870s was home to many storied

left several people dead and wounded.

The Big Well at Greensburg, Kansas was built in the 1880s to provide water for the Santa Fe and Rock Island railroads. At 109 feet (33 m) deep and 32 feet (9.8 m) in diameter it is the world's largest hand-dug well.

Exodusters

In 1879, after the end of Reconstruction in the South, thousands of Freedmen moved from Southern states to Kansas. Known as the Exodusters, they were lured by the prospect of good, cheap land and better treatment. The all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas, which was founded in 1877, was an organized settlement that predates the Exodusters but is often associated with them.^[30]

Prohibition

On February 19, 1881, Kansas became the first state to amend its constitution to

Religion

The city of Topeka played a notable role in the history of American Christianity around the beginning of the 20th century. Charles Sheldon, a leader in the Social Gospel movement who first used the phrase What would Jesus do?, preached in Topeka. Topeka was also the home to the church of Charles Fox Parham, whom many historians associate with the beginning of the modern Pentecostalism movement.^[32]

Farming

Environment

Early settlers discovered that Kansas was not the "Great American Desert", but they also found that the very harsh climate—with tornadoes, blizzards, drought, hail, floods and grasshoppers—made for the high risk of a ruined crop. Many early settlers were financially ruined, and especially in the early 1890s, either protested through the Populist movement or went back east. In the 20th century, crop insurance, new conservation techniques, and large-scale federal aid have lowered the risk. Immigrants, especially Germans and their children, comprised the largest element of settlers after 1860; they were attracted by the good soil, low priced lands from the railroad companies, and (if they were American citizens) the chance to homestead 160 acres (0.65 km²) and receive title to the land at no cost from the federal government.

The problem of blowing dust came not because farmers grew too much wheat, but because the rainfall was too little to grow enough wheat to keep the topsoil from blowing away. In the 1930s techniques and technologies of soil conservation, most of which had been available but ignored before the Dust Bowl conditions began, were promoted by the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) of the US Department of Agriculture, so that, with cooperation from the weather, soil condition was much improved by 1940.^[33]

Farm life

On the Great Plains very few single men attempted to operate a farm or ranch; farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, feeding the hired hands, and, especially after the 1930s, handling the paperwork and financial details.^[34] During the early years of settlement in the late 19th century, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement was promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.^[35]

Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and farm life, in reality rural folk created a rich social life for themselves. They often sponsored activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees,^[36] Grange meeting, church activities, and school functions. The womenfolk organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families.^[37]

Manufacturing farm equipment

In 1947,

and farm equipment is still manufactured in the city.

1890s

In 1896 William Allen White, editor of the Emporia Gazette attracted national attention with a scathing attack on William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists titled "What's the Matter With Kansas?"^[39] White sharply ridiculed Populist leaders for letting Kansas slip into economic stagnation and not keeping up economically with neighboring states because their anti-business policies frightened away economic capital from the state. The Republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the editorial in support of William McKinley during the 1896 United States presidential election. While McKinley carried the small towns and cities of the state, Bryan swept the wheat farms and won the electoral vote, even as McKinley won the national vote.

20th century

Progressive era

Kansas was a center of the progressive movement, with enthusiastic support from the middle classes. Much of the leadership was provided by Republican newspaper editors, such as William Allen White of the Emporia Gazette, Joseph L. Bristow of Salina, and Edward Hoch, of the Marion Record. Religion and gender played a role. Methodists and crusaders from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) demanded the end of the liquor business. WCTU activists also became supporters of woman suffrage.^[40] White called for a direct primary because Republicans attended the Democratic caucus in order to nominate the weakest candidate; Democrats did the same and thus the weakest men get nominated and elected. A direct primary would let the Republicans voters select the best candidate for their party and likewise the Democrats.^[41] White never ran for office but Bristow was elected senator in 1908 and Hoch governor in 1904 and 1906. Hoch denounced the conservative wing of his party:^[42]

it grows out of unwise leadership; of unfair standards of republicanism; of factional intolerance; of the multiplicity of useless offices; of extravagance in public expenditures; of enormous increase in burdens of taxation.

According to Craig Miner, the main issues of progressive era Kansas (in chronological order), were the flood of 1903, conservation, the battle to control Standard Oil in 1905, regulation of railroads and trusts, capital punishment, women's rights, public health, urban reform, the Progressive Party campaign of 1912, and isolationism in foreign policy. In addition there was a long debate on the state purchase of school textbooks. The state wrote, printed and sold its school books until 1937. Supervision was lax and the textbooks were poorly done—filled with typos, grammatical errors, garbled passages and poor artwork. However, the state did save some money.^[43]

According to Gene Clanton, Populism and progressivism in Kansas had similarities but different bases of support. Both opposed corruption and trusts. Populism emerged earlier and came out of the farm community. It was radically egalitarian in favor of the disadvantaged classes; it was weak in the towns and cities except in labor unions. Progressivism, on the other hand, was a later movement. It emerged after the 1890s from the urban business and professional communities. Most of its activists had opposed populism. It was elitist, and emphasized education and expertise. Its goals were to enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and enlarge the opportunities for upward social mobility. However, some former Populists changed their emphasis after 1900 and supported progressive reforms.^[44]

The new city manager system was designed by progressives to increase efficiency and reduce partisanship and avoid the bribery of elected local officials. It was promoted in the press, led by Henry J. Allen of the Wichita Beacon, and pushed through by Governor Arthur Capper. By the 1980s 52 Kansas cities used the system.^[45]

1910s

In 1915, the El Dorado Oil Field, around the city of El Dorado, was the first oil field that was found using science/geologic mapping, and part of the Mid-Continent oil province. By 1918, the El Dorado Oil Field was the largest single field producer in the US, and was responsible for 12.8% of national oil production and 9% of the world production. It was deemed by some as "the oil field that won World War I".^[46][47][48]

In World War I, 80,000 Kansans enlisted in the military after April, 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany. They were attached mostly to the 35th, the 42nd, the 89th, and the 92nd infantry divisions. The state's large German element had favored neutrality and were under close watch. Often they were forced to buy war bonds or stop speaking German in public. German churches largely switched to English at this time.^[49] The intense nationalism of the war years undermined progressivism and led to conservative business dominance in the 1920s. However, the efficiency dimension persisted.^[50]

1920s

While urban Kansas prospered in the 1920s, the farm economy had overexpanded when wheat prices were high during the war, and had to cut back sharply. Many farmers took out large mortgages to buy out their neighbors in 1919, and now were hard pressed.

In 1922, suffragist Ella Uphay Mowry became the first female gubernatorial candidate in the state when she ran as "Mrs. W.D. Mowry." She later stated that, "Someone had to be the pioneer. I firmly believe that some day a woman will sit in the governor's chair in Kansas."^[51][52][53]

The

The

.

William Allen White in his novels and short stories, developed his idea of the small town as a metaphor for understanding social change and for preaching the necessity of community. While he expressed his views in terms of his small Kansas city, he tailored his rhetoric to the needs and values of all of urban America. The cynicism of the post-World War I world stilled his imaginary literature, but for the remainder of his life he continued to propagate his vision of small-town community. He opposed chain stores and mail order firms as a threat to the business owner on Main Street. The Great Depression shook his faith in a cooperative, selfless, middle-class America.^[55]

Great depression

The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms caused by a massive drought that began in 1930 and lasted until 1941. The effect of the drought was overshadowed by the plunging wheat prices and the financial crisis of the Great Depression. Many local banks were forced to close. Some farmers left the land but even larger numbers of unemployed men left the cities to return to their family's farm.^[56][57]

The state became an eager participant in such major

World War II

The state's main contribution to the war effort, besides tens of thousands of servicemen and servicewomen, was the enormous increase in the output of grain production.^[61] Farmers nevertheless grumbled about price ceilings for their wheat, production quotas, the movement of hired hands to well-paid factory jobs, and the shortage of farm machinery; they lobbied the Congress to make sure that young farmers were deferred from the draft.^[62]

Wichita, which had long shown an interest in aviation, became a major manufacturing center for the aircraft industry during the war, attracting tens of thousands of underemployed workers from the farms and small towns of the state.^[63]

The Women's Land Army of America (WLA) was a wartime women's labor pool organized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It failed to attract many town or city women to do farm work, but it succeeded in training several hundred farm wives in machine handling, safety, proper clothing, time-saving methods, and nutrition.^[64]

Cold War era

Kansas state law permitted segregated public schools, which operated in Topeka and other cities.^[65] On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education unanimously declared that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal and, as such, violate the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens "equal protection of the laws." Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities (legal establishment of separate government-run schools for blacks and whites). The site consists of the Monroe Elementary School, one of the four segregated elementary schools for African American children in Topeka, Kansas (and the adjacent grounds).^[66]

During the 1950s and 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles (designed to carry a single nuclear warhead) were stationed throughout Kansas facilities. They were stored (to be launched from) hardened underground silos. The Kansas facilities were deactivated in the early 1980s.

On June 8, 1966,

). Total dollar cost was put at $100 million.

Recent personalities

Kansas was home to

.

Sports

The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame chronicles the history of competitive athletics in the state.

College sports

See also Timeline of college football in Kansas

Kansas sports history includes several significant firsts. The first college football game played in Kansas was the 1890 Kansas vs. Baker football game played in Baldwin City. Baker won 22–9.^[67] The first night football game west of the Mississippi was played in Wichita, Kansas in 1905 between Cooper College (now called Sterling College) and Fairmount College (now Wichita State University).^[68] Later that year, Fairmount also played an experimental game against the Washburn Ichabods that was used to test new rules designed to make football safer.^[69]

In 1911, the

The 1951 season saw the Southwestern head coach Harold Hunt gain national recognition for rejecting a touchdown in a game against Central Missouri. Hunt informed the officials that his player had stepped out of bounds, nullifying long touchdown run. Not a single one of the referees had been in a position to see him do so, but they agreed to nullify the touchdown, and returned the ball to the point where Coach Hunt said Johnson had stepped out. A photo of the run later confirmed Coach Hunt's observation.^[73]

On October 2, 1970, a plane crashed that was carrying about half of the football team for Wichita State on their way to play a game against Utah State University. 31 people were killed.^[74] The game was canceled, and the Utah State football team held a memorial service at the stadium where the game was to have been played.^[75]

Professional sports

The history of professional sports in Kansas probably^[

In 1887, the Western League was dominated by a reorganized Topeka team called the Golden Giants – a high-priced collection of major leaguer players, including Bug Holliday, Jim Conway, Dan Stearns, Perry Werden and Jimmy Macullar, which won the league by 15½ games.^[77] On April 10, 1887, the Golden Giants also won an exhibition game from the defending World Series champions, the St. Louis Browns (the present-day Cardinals), by a score of 12–9. However, Topeka was unable to support the team, and it disbanded after one year.

The first night game in the history of professional baseball was played in Independence on April 28, 1930, when the Muscogee (Oklahoma) Indians beat the Independence Producers 13 to 3 in a minor league game sanctioned by the Western League of the Western Baseball Association with 1,500 fans attending the game. The permanent lighting system was first used for an exhibition game on April 17, 1930, between the Independence Producers and House of David semi-professional baseball team of Benton Harbor, Michigan with the Independence team winning with a score of 9 to 1 before a crowd of 1,700 spectators.^[78]

See also

Main article:

Historical outline of Kansas

• Geology of Kansas
• History of the Midwestern United States
• Germans from Russia
  , Many of whom lived in Kansas
• Great Plains
• Railroad land grants in the United States
• Timeline of Kansas history
• Tragic Prelude

Cities in Kansas

• Timeline of Topeka, Kansas
• History of Wichita, Kansas and Timeline

Notes

Bibliography

See also: Chisholm Trail, Oregon Trail, and Santa Fe Trail

Surveys and reference

• Arnold, Anna Estelle. A history of Kansas (1914) old textbook
• Blackmar, Frank W Kansas; a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. (1912) online edition, old alphabetical encyclopedia
• Cutler, William G. History of the State of Kansas (1883), detailed, reliable older history
• Davis, Kenneth. Kansas: A History (1984)
• Dean, Virgil W., ed. John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History (2010), 27 short biographies by scholars
• Gille, Frank H. ed. Encyclopedia of Kansas Indians Tribes, Nations and People of the Plains (1999)
• Hazelrigg, Clara H. A New History of Kansas (1895) online
• Miner, Craig. Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State, 1854–2000 (2002) (
  ISBN 0-7006-1215-7
  ), the newest standard history
• Napier, Rita, ed. Kansas and the West: New Perspectives (University Press of Kansas, 2003), 416pp; essays by scholars
• Rich, Everett, ed. The Heritage of Kansas: Selected Commentaries on Past Times (1960) 852pp; essays by historians and primary sources online
• Richmond, Robert. Kansas, A Land of Contrasts (4th ed. 1999)
• Socolofsky, Homer E. Kansas Governors (1990)
• Socolofsky, Homer E. and Huber Self. Historical Atlas of Kansas (1992)
• Stuewe, Paul K., ed. Kansas Revisited: Historical Images and Perspectives (2nd ed. 1998), essays by scholars
• Wishart, David J., ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, University of Nebraska Press, 2004,
  ISBN 0-8032-4787-7. complete text online
  ; 900 pages of scholarly articles
• Zornow, William, Kansas, A History of the Jayhawk State (1957)

Specialized studies

• Bader, Robert S. Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The Twentieth-Century Image of Kansas (University Press of Kansas, 1988)
• Campney, Brent M. S. "'This is Not Dixie:' The Imagined South, The Kansas Free State Narrative, and the Rhetoric of Racist Violence" Southern Spaces 6 September 2007 online
• Carman, J. Neale. Foreign-Language Units of Kansas, I. Historical Atlas and Statistics (1962) detailed introduction to foreign settlement, with immigration statistics and detailed maps showing ethnic clusters.
• Castel, Albert. A Frontier State at War: Kansas, 1861–1865 (1958) * Dick, Everett. Vanguards of the Frontier: A Social History of the Northern Plains and Rocky Mountains from the Earliest White Contacts to the Coming of the Homemaker (1941)
• Cordier, Mary Hurlbut. Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860S-1920s (1997) online
• Entz, Gary R. "Religion in Kansas," Kansas History, Summer 2005, Vol. 28 Issue 2, pp 120–145, emphasis on the Civil War, Progressive Era, immigrants, and the civil rights movement
• Goldberg, Michael L. "Non-partisan and all-partisan: Rethinking woman suffrage and party politics in gilded age Kansas." Western Historical Quarterly 25.1 (1994): 21–44. online
• Goodrich, Thomas War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861 (1998).
• Ham, George E. and Robin Higham, eds. The Rise of the Wheat State: A History of Kansas Agriculture, 1861- 1986 (1987) 16 topical essays by experts. online
• Ise, John. Sod and Stubble: The Story of a Kansas Homestead (U of Nebraska Press, 1972)
• La Forte, Robert Sherman. Leaders of Reform: Progressive Republicans in Kansas, 1900-1916 (1974) online
• Lee, R. Alton. Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court (U of Nebraska Press, 2014)
• Luebke, Frederick C., ed. Ethnicity on the Great Plains (1982)
• McQuillan, D. Aidan. Prevailing over Time: Ethnic Adjustment on the Kansas Prairies, 1875–1925 (1990)
• Malin, James. Winter Wheat in the Golden Belt of Kansas (1944)
• Malin, James. The Grassland of North America: Prolegomena to its History (1955) excerpts, pioneering environmental history
• Malin, James. History and Ecology: Studies of the Grassland (1984)
• Miner, Craig. West of Wichita: Settling the High Plains of Kansas, 1865-90 (1986) excerpt and text search
• Press, Donald E. "Kansas Conflict: Populist Versus Railroader in the 1890s," Kansas Historical Quarterly (1977) 43#3 pp 319–333 online
• Reynolds, David. John Brown, Abolitionist (2005) (
  ISBN 0-375-41188-7
  ), favorable to Brown
• Sloan, Charles William Jr. "Kansas Battles the Invisible Empire: The Legal Ouster of the KKK From Kansas, 1922-1927," Kansas Historical Quarterly (1974) 40#3 pp 393–409 online
• Socolofsky, Homer E. "Kansas in 1876" Kansas Historical Quarterly (1977) 43#1 pp 1–43 online
• Socolofsky, Homer E. Arthur Capper, publisher, politician, and philanthropist (1962).
• Underwood, June O. "Civilizing Kansas: Women's Organizations, 1880–1920." Feminist Studies 2 (1975): 150–60. online
• Van Sant, Thomas D. Improving rural lives: A history of Farm Bureau in Kansas, 1912-1992 (1993)
• Villard, Oswald Garrison, John Brown 1800–1859: A Biography Fifty Years After (1910). full text online

Historiography

• Averill, Thomas Fox. "Kansas Literature. A Review Essay." Kansas History 25 (Summer 2002): 141–165. online
• Becker, Carl L. "Kansas," in Essays in American History Dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner (1910), 85–111, famous interpretation. online pp 85-111; Reprinted in Everett Rich, ed., The Heritage of Kansas: Selected Commentaries on Past Times (1960), pp 340–59.

• Coburn, Carol K. "Women and Gender in Kansas History. Review Essay." Kansas History 26 (Summer 2003): 126–151. online
• Grant, H. Roger. "Kansas Transportation. Review Essay." Kansas History 26 (Autumn 2003): 206–229. online
• Hurt, R. Douglas. "The Agricultural and Rural History of Kansas. Review Essay." Kansas History 27 (Autumn 2004): 194–217. online
• Johannsen, Robert W. "James C. Malin: An Appreciation," Kansas Historical Quarterly (1972) 38#4 pp. 457–66 online
• Leiker, James. "Race Relations in the Sunflower State. A Review Essay." Kansas History 25 (Autumn 2002): 214–236. online
• Malin, James C. Essays on historiography (1946) online
• Nichols, Roy F. "The Kansas-Nebraska Act: A Century of Historiography." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 43 (September 1956): 187–212. in JSTOR
• JSTOR 25079946
  .
• Socolofsky, Homer E. and Virgil W. Dean. Kansas History: An Annotated Bibliography (1992) excerpt and text search
• Turk, Eleanor L. "Germans in Kansas. Review Essay." Kansas History 28 (Spring 2005): 44–71. online

Primary sources

• Averill, Thomas Fox, ed., What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth-Century Writers on the Sunflower State (University Press of Kansas, 1991)
• Cordier, Mary Hurlbut. Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860S-1920s (1997) online
• Missouri Pacific Railway Company. Facts about Kansas: a book for home-seekers and home-builders. Statistics from state and national reports. Farm lands, grazing lands, fruit lands. The unsurpassed and limitless resources of the great corn and wheat producing state. (1891) online

• Robinson, Sara. Kansas, Its Interior and Exterior Life: Including a Full View of Its Settlement, Political History, Social Life, Climate, Soil, Productions, Scenery, Etc. (1856) full text online
  • Courtwright, Julie. "'A Goblin That Drives Her Insane': Sara Robinson and the History Wars of Kansas, 1894–1911." Kansas History 25 (Summer 2002): 102–123. online
• Stratton, Joanna. Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier (1982), autobiographical accounts excerpt and text search
• White, William Allen. "What's the matter with Kansas?" (1896) online

External links

• Kansas State Resource Guide, from the Library of Congress
• Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, scholarly journal, with many articles online
• "The Kansas Collection" many primary sources, including books and articles about Kansas
• Rath, Ida Ellen The Rath Trail (1961) biography of Charles Rath
• The Archeological Heritage of Kansas
• Kansas Archaeology Website Archived 2019-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
• Kansas Historical Society
• Access documents, photographs, and other primary sources on Kansas Memory, the Kansas State Historical Society's digital portal