Frank Carlson Library

"Policing Sex in the Sunflower State recounts the little-known story of Chapter 205, a state law that gave the Kansas Board of Health broad powers to quarantine individuals with venereal diseases. Though the law was officially gender-neutral and the state initially detained a few men under the ordinance, Chapter 205 was almost exclusively enforced against women by the early 1920s. State officials quarantined women alongside regular female prisoners...

In 1869, Concordia, Kansas, was declared the county seat of what would become Cloud County. At first, the town existed only on paper as a project being pushed by James M. Hagaman and a small group of partners. Once development started, Concordia rapidly grew to become a center of commerce south of the Republican River that eventually attracted four railroad lines. It became a town of landmarks, including several famous hotels, two opera houses, Nazareth...

"Long before the first shot of the Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter, violence had already erupted along the Missouri-Kansas border--a recurring cycle of robbery, arson, torture, murder, and revenge. This multifaceted study brings together fifteen scholars to expand our understanding of this vitally important region, the violence that besieged it, and its overall impact on the Civil War. Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri blends political, military,...

"This book uses the story of Isaac Beckley Werner, a homesteader in Stafford County, Kansas, to reveal how the Populist Movement involved and affected Kansas farmers. From 1884 until his death in 1895, Werner kept a diary whose content revolved around the advice of Henry Ward Beecher: recording events around him rather than focusing on himself. Owner of an extensive personal library, an attendee of Populist lectures who contributed columns to the...

"Hang on to your land!" Julene Bair took her father's words to heart as a young girl. Even though she left Kansas as soon as she could for adventures in San Francisco and the Mojave Desert, she knew how much hard work and sacrifice her parents and grandparents had put into building her family's large farm. Hanging onto it would be her solemn obligation. When Julene inherited a share of the farm years later, however, honoring that wish no longer seemed...