Hidden History Of Kansas

Author : Adrian Zink
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1439663661
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hidden History of Kansas written by Adrian Zink and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas' storied past is filled with fascinating firsts, humorous coincidences and intriguing characters. A man who had survived a murderous proslavery massacre in 1858 hanged his would-be executioner five years later. A wealthy Frenchman utilized his utopian ideals to create an award-winning silk-producing commune in Franklin County. A young boy's amputated arm led to the rise of Sprint Corporation. The first victim of the doomed Donner Party met her end in Kansas. In 1947, a housewife in Johnson County, indignant at the poor condition of the local school for black children, sparked school desegregation nationwide. Author and historian Adrian Zink digs deep into the Sunflower State's history to reveal these hidden and overlooked stories.

Author : Craig Miner
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700614249
Total Pages : 552 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Kansas written by Craig Miner and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2002-10-21 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas is not only the Sunflower State, it's the very heart of America's heartland. It is a place of extremes in politics as well as climate, where ambitious and energetic people have attempted to put ideals into practice-a state that has come a long way since being identified primarily with John Brown and his exploits. Craig Miner has written a complete and balanced history of Kansas, capturing the state's colorful past and dynamic present as he depicts the persistence of contrasting images of and attitudes toward the state throughout its 150 years. A work combining serious scholarship with great readability, it encompasses everything from the Kansas-Nebraska Act to the evolution-creationism controversy, emphasizing the historical moments that were pivotal in forming the culture of the state and the diverse group of people who have contributed to its history. Kansas: The History of the Sunflower State is the first new state history to appear in over twenty-five years and the most thoroughly researched ever published. Written to enlighten general readers within and well beyond the state's borders, it offers coverage not found in previous histories: greater attention to its cities-notably Wichita-and to its south central and western regions, accounts of business history, contributions of women and minorities, and environmental concerns. It presents the dark as well as the bright side of Kansas progressivism and is the first Kansas history to deal with the post-World War II era in any significant detail. Craig Miner has spent almost forty years researching, teaching, and writing Kansas history and has dug deeply into primary sources-especially gubernatorial papers-that shed new light on the state. That research has enabled him to assemble a wider cast of characters and more entertaining collection of quotations than found in earlier histories and to better show how individual initiative and entrepreneurial aspirations have profoundly influenced the creation of present-day Kansas. Ranging from the days of cattle and railroads to the era of oil and agribusiness, this history situates the state in its own terms rather than as a sidebar to a larger American epic. Miner brings to its pages an identifiable Kansas character to preserve what is distinctive about the state's identity for future generations, echoing what one Kansan said over half a century ago: "Kansas is simply Kansas. May she never be tempted to become anything else."

Author : Anne Kniggendorf
Publisher : Reedy Press LLC
ISBN 13 : 1681062836
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure written by Anne Kniggendorf and published by Reedy Press LLC. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most visitors know all about Kansas City’s barbecue, jazz, and football success, but there are hidden gems and wild pieces of trivia around every turn in Missouri’s largest city. Is the giant Hereford bull anatomically correct? Can a seed that’s been to outer space still grow into a normal tree? And who really killed President William Henry Harrison? You’ll find answers to the questions you didn’t know you had in Secret Kansas City: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure. Learn why three completely unrelated groups have chosen Kansas City as the center of the world and the place you want to be when the world ends. Between these covers, you’ll also find castles, a horse buried in a cul-de-sac, a ghost who likes a good laugh, and the world’s longest snake. This is not a tour guide for outsiders; it’s a scavenger hunt—insiders only, please. Longtime Kansas Citian Anne Kniggendorf is at your service to bolster your love and boost your respect for this middle-of-the-map city. With her eye for the odd leading the way, you’ll have a great time discovering Kansas City.

Author : George Frazier
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700624821
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Last Wild Places of Kansas written by George Frazier and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the last wild bison found refuge on the back of a nickel, the public image of natural Kansas has progressed from Great American Desert to dust bowl to flyover country that has been landscaped, fenced, and farmed. But look a little harder, George Frazier suggests, and you can find the last places where tenacious stretches of prairie, forest, and wetland cheat death and incubate the DNA of lost, wild America. Documenting three years spent roaming the state in search of these hidden treasures, The Last Wild Places of Kansas is Frazier's idiosyncratic and eye-opening travelogue of nature's secret holdouts in the Sunflower State. These are places where extirpated mammalian species are making comebacks; where flying squirrels leap between centuries-old trees lit by the unearthly green glow of foxfire; where cold springs feed ancient watercress pools; where the ice moon paints the Smoky Hills with memories of the buffalo, wolf, and the lonesome rattle of false indigo; where the blue lid of the sky forms a vacuum seal over treeless pastel hills, orange in winter; where bluestem rises. Some are impossible to find on maps. Most are magnificently bereft of anything beneficial to 99.9 percent of modern America. True wildernesses they may not be, but at the correct angle of light, when the wind blows pollen carrying biological memories of the glaciers, these places are a crack between the worlds, portals to the lost buffalo wilderness. En route Frazier takes us from the unexpected wilds of the Kansas City suburbs to the Cimarron National Grassland in the far southwestern corner of the state. He visits ancient springs, shares a beer with prairie dog hunters, and fails in his mission to canoe the upper Marais des Cygnes—a trip that requires permission from every landowner on the route. Along the way we encounter a host of curious characters—ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, explorers, wildlife experts, and outdoor enthusiasts—all fellow travelers in a quest to know, preserve, and share the last wild places of Kansas.

Author : Sarah Smarsh
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0762766441
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book It Happened in Kansas written by Sarah Smarsh and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-08-17 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Happened in Kansas features over 25 chapters in Kansas history. Lively and entertaining, this book brings the varied and fascinating history of the Sunflower State to life.

Author :
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 1618583999
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Historic Photos of Kansas written by and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-03-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Positioned in the geographic center of the contiguous 48 states, Kansas has played a vital role in the nation’s development. From its Native American roots—the state is named for the Kansa tribe—Kansas has been both eyewitness and participant to history. No state, literally or figuratively, has been more in the middle of America’s fascinating story than the Sunflower State. Culled from Library of Congress and Kansas Historical Society collections, the nearly 200 striking black-and-white images in Historic Photos of Kansas trace a progression from “Bleeding Kansas,” a period of violent struggle between free-state abolitionists and pro-slavery sympathizers, to the state’s many contributions to westward expansion, railroads, agriculture, and America at war. Although these photos speak for themselves, when combined with captions and chapter introductions, they will transport curious readers to a close-up view of Kansans helping to write history.

Author : Nicole Etcheson
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700614923
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bleeding Kansas written by Nicole Etcheson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2004-01-29 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war. While other writers have cited slavery or economics as the cause of unrest, Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. Covering the period from the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to the 1879 Exoduster Migration, it traces the complex interactions among groups inside and outside the territory, creating a comprehensive political, social, and intellectual history of this tumultuous period in the state's history. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.

Author : Nicole Perry
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
ISBN 13 : 0700631887
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Policing Sex in the Sunflower State written by Nicole Perry and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Policing Sex in the Sunflower State: The Story of the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women is the history of how, over a span of two decades, the state of Kansas detained over 5,000 women for no other crime than having a venereal disease. In 1917, the Kansas legislature passed Chapter 205, a law that gave the state Board of Health broad powers to quarantine people for disease. State authorities quickly began enforcing Chapter 205 to control the spread of venereal disease among soldiers preparing to fight in World War I. Though Chapter 205 was officially gender-neutral, it was primarily enforced against women; this gendered enforcement became even more dramatic as Chapter 205 transitioned from a wartime emergency measure to a peacetime public health strategy. Women were quarantined alongside regular female prisoners at the Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women (the Farm). Women detained under Chapter 205 constituted 71 percent of the total inmate population between 1918 and 1942. Their confinement at the Farm was indefinite, with doctors and superintendents deciding when they were physically and morally cured enough to reenter society; in practice, women detained under Chapter 205 spent an average of four months at the Farm. While at the Farm, inmates received treatment for their diseases and were subjected to a plan of moral reform that focused on the value of hard work and the inculcation of middle-class norms for proper feminine behavior. Nicole Perry’s research reveals fresh insights into histories of women, sexuality, and programs of public health and social control. Underlying each of these are the prevailing ideas and practices of respectability, in some cases culturally encoded, in others legislated, enforced, and institutionalized. Perry recovers the voices of the different groups of women involved with the Farm: the activist women who lobbied to create the Farm, the professional women who worked there, and the incarcerated women whose bodies came under the control of the state. Policing Sex in the Sunflower State offers an incisive and timely critique of a failed public health policy that was based on perceptions of gender, race, class, and respectability rather than a reasoned response to the social problem at hand.

Author : Elliot Jaspin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0465036376
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Buried in the Bitter Waters written by Elliot Jaspin and published by . This book was released on 2008-05-06 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist exposes the secret history of racial cleansing in America

Author : Roger Ringer
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1467146846
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book True Tales of Kansas written by Roger Ringer and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historic tales of the Sunflower State and its people are as interesting as the days are long. A pair of brothers went from making airplanes to tractors and soon became part of John Deere. Kansan Captain Donald K. Ross won the first Congressional Medal of Honor through his actions at Pearl Harbor. The first telephone exchange in the area was invented by a Mr. Strowger because a rival funeral director had a girlfriend who was an operator for the local telephone company and kept sending his business to her friend. Nannie Jones, who stood up to Jim Crow racism and won her case in court, is memorialized by a headstone at Highland Cemetery. Author Roger Ringer details these stories and more.