Ada L. James to Lucy B. Johnston
Creator: James, Ada L.
Date: November 6, 1912
Ada James, President of the Political Equality League of Wisconsin, sent this telegram to Lucy Johnston, President of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association in Topeka, Shawnee County. James congratulated Johnston on the successful passage of a full suffrage amendment to the state constitution.

Agitate, educate, organize: price catalogue of books, documents and periodicals
Creator: Breidenthal, John William, 1857-1910
Date: Unknown
List of published pamphlets for sale by the People's Party State Central Committee of Kansas.

AHEPA Heart of America Chapter 73, Kansas City, Missouri
Date: Between 1931 and 1932
This is a photograph of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA) Heart of America Chapter 73, possibly taken in Kansas City, Missouri. Third from left, front: Steve Sakoulas, Louis Kartsonis, and Father Speloitis.

Airmail Special Letter: Robert Carter to Mckinley Burnett
Date: March 31, 1953
Attorney Robert Carter acknowledges receipt of a copy of a letter from McKinley Burnett sent with an enclosed memo from Superintendent of Topeka Schools, Kenneth McFarland. Carter advises Burnett that if the McFarland proceeds in this (possible dismissal of Negro teachers) he would immediately initiate a court action. Carter further advises that he would be in Des Moines and that he would be happy to meet any teachers who have received "these notices."

A lie shattered by a Salina shell
Creator: Kansas State Temperance Union
Date: 1910
A small pamphlet on prohibition circulated by the Kansas State Temperance Union.

Alliance songster
Creator: People's Party of Kansas
Date: 1890s
This incomplete songster of populist political songs advocates a change from the status quo and promotes the ideas of the Populist or People's Party. It is possible the source for this item is the Alliance and Labor Songster. It is similar to item # 209682, which is the third edition of an Alliance Songster.

Alliance songster
Date: Between 1890 and 1897
This Farmer's Alliance pamphlet includes populist political songs used to organize the farm community behind its political banner.

American Woman and Her Political Peers
Creator: Ford, W. A.
Date: between 1892 and 1893
This 58" x 48" pastel is titled American Woman and her Political Peers. Pictured at the center is Frances E. Willard, American educator and reformer. Portrayed around Miss Willard (clockwise from upper left) are a mentally disabled man, a convict, a madman, and a disenfranchised Native American. Henrietta Briggs-Wall of Hutchinson, Reno County, Kansas, designed the picture and commissioned Mr. W. A. Ford, also of Hutchinson, to execute it. Mrs. Briggs-Wall was active with the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association and with national and state chapters of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

An analysis of the proposed right-to-work legislation
Creator: Kansas State Federation of Labor
Date: August 1954
In 1958, Kansas voters ratified the "right to work" amendment to the state constitution. The amendment stated, in part, that "No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of membership or non membership in any labor organization..." In this pamphlet, the Kansas State Federation of Labor argues that the purpose of the legislation was to limit the power of organized labor.

An epoch marking opinion by Justice John Dawson of the Supreme Court of Kansas
Creator: Monroe, Lilla Day, 1858-1929
Date: 1921
Lilla Day Monroe authored this pamphlet on behalf of the Topeka Good Government Club's Committee on Legislation. It includes excerpts concerning the property rights of married women and the rights of children to inherit from their mother. The pamphlet discusses the efforts of the Good Government Club of Topeka to secure passage of a law supporting property rights for women. Monroe was writing about an opinion of Justice John Dawson of the Kansas Supreme Court in case 104 (pp. 47-57), which she felt provided legal interpretation supporting women's property rights. She applauded the support for abused wives but felt the opinion did not adequately discuss the rights of children. Her retelling of the plantiff's case describes in detail the abuses that Ida Doe suffered at the hands of her husband.

An important letter to T.C.T.A.U. crusaders
Creator: Twentieth Century Total Abstinence Union
Date: July 31, 1900
A letter sent to members of the Twentieth Century Total Abstinence Crusade that informs them how to recruit and secure new members. Accompanying the letter would be a packet of material full of pledge cards, badges, and literature promoting the organization and its cause, abstinence from liquor consumption.

Anna Howard Shaw to Lucy B. Johnston
Creator: Shaw, Anna Howard, 1847-1919
Date: November 6, 1912
Anna Shaw, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, sent this telegram to Lucy Johnston, president of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, announcing that women in Kansas had gained the vote.

Annie (Le Porte) Diggs
Creator: Snyder
Date: Between 1890 and 1899
A portrait of Annie (Le Porte) Diggs, who was born in 1848 in Canada to an American mother and French father. Two years later the family moved to New Jersey, where she attended school. Diggs moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1873 and married Alvin S. Diggs shortly thereafter. While in Kansas, Diggs began to attend the local Unitarian Church and developed a strong sense of moral responsibility that prompted her to work for temperance and women's suffrage. During 1882, Diggs and her husband published the newspaper Kansas Liberal, and beginning in 1890 she was the associate editor of the Alliance Advocate. As a radical reformer seeking to wipe out injustice, Diggs also allied herself with the Farmer's Alliance, aiding in the creation of the People's (Populist) Party, serving on the Populist National Committee, and supporting the fusion of the Populist and Democratic parties in the 1898 election. Throughout this time she continued to work actively for women's voting rights and served in the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association. In 1898, she was appointed the state librarian of Kansas, and she was also elected president of Kansas Press Women in 1905. Diggs moved to New York City in 1906, where she worked on two publications: The Story of Jerry Simpson (1908) and Bedrock (1912). She relocated to Detroit, Michigan, in 1912 and died there on September 7, 1916.

Annual Convention of the Kansas League of Women Voters
Creator: League of Women Voters of Kansas
Date: March 1, 1923-March 2, 1923
One page program lists the speakers for the Fourth Annual Convention of the Kansas League of Women Voters. The convention was held at the Hotel Lassen in Wichita, Kansas, March 1-2, 1923. The heading includes the names of the directors, officers and committee chairs.

Anti-Cigarette Law
Creator: Kansas. Governor (1915-1919: Capper)
Date: 1915
This file includes a letter from Mrs. Johnson from Gridley, Kansas asking for the permission to print the Governor's name on printed Anti-Cigarette law statements that she intends to display in public places. This is part of a bigger collection of Governor Arthur Capper correspondence.

Anti Horse Thief Association meeting, Chanute, Kansas
Creator: Spicer & Bumbarger
Date: 1914
This is a photograph of the Anti Horse Thief Association's annual meeting in Chanute, Kansas. Though not identified, a member of the Association was Ferdinand Katzer of Greeley, Kansas.

Anti-Saloon League materials
Date: 1920
This correspondence and financial documents are from the records of the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas, including mass mailings from Treasurer J. C. Mohler saying "we have just closed perhaps the most remarkable year in the history of the Prohibition Movement." Mohler solicited financial subscriptions to aid missionaries around the world and to uphold the National Prohibition Act, also known as the Volstead Act. There is also correspondence from W. J. Herwig, superintendent, of the Kansas Department, The Anti-Saloon League of America.

Anti-Saloon League materials
Date: 1918
This correspondence and financial documents are from the records of the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas. The majority of the letters are exchanged between Milo G. Kelser, field manager for the Anti-Saloon League of America located in Westerville, Ohio, and Rev. W. H. Herwig, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas. Other correspondents include Boyd P. Doty, assistant financial secretary for the Anti-Saloon League of America, H. T. Laughbaum, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of America, and Miss Nettie F. Corning, secretary for the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas.

Anti-Saloon League materials
Date: 1919
This correspondence and financial documents are from the records of the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas. The majority of the letters are exchanged between Milo G. Kelser, field manager for the Anti-Saloon League of America located in Westerville, Ohio, and Rev. W. H. Herwig, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of Kansas. Letters are also exchanged with Boyd P. Doty, assistant financial secretary for the Anti-Saloon League of America and assistant general manager of the American Issue Publishing Company, publishers for the Anti-Saloon League of America.

Anti-Saloon League materials
Date: 1917
These materials relate to the Kansas Department of the Anti-Saloon League of America. Correspondence is primarily between State Superintendent W.J. Herwig and Reverend Milo G. Kelser, field manager at the Anti-Saloon League of America headquarters in Westerville, Ohio. Correspondence is also exchanged with Reverend Julius Smith and Professor O. G. Markham of Baldwin City. Travel itineraries, legislation, and the effects of World War I are frequent topics of conversation. The group sought to organize prohibition meetings in conjunction with Sunday church services around the state. Monthly financial reports are also included.

Aristocracy in America
Creator: People's Party of Kansas
Date: 1892
People's Party Committee publication equating the millionaire class in the United States to the landed aristocracy class in England and the dangers inherent in both.

Arthur Capper's pen
Creator: American Pencil Company
Date: 1917
Green dip pen with cork grip, manufactured by the American Pencil Company. Kansas Governor Arthur Capper used this ceremonial pen to sign the "Bone Dry Law" on February 23, 1917, effectively banning alcohol in Kansas. Passed by the Kansas legislature days prior, this law prohibited the possession of liquor by individuals within the state, and ended direct shipments of liquor from out-of-state. Kansas established multiple laws restricting or prohibiting the sale of alcohol from 1880 to 1948. The state's early and lengthy regime of Prohibition lead to some of the most restrictive alcohol laws in the nation. After signing the bill into law, Capper awarded the pen to Mrs. Lillian Mitchner, President of the Kansas Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), in recognition of her work. A resident of Beloit, Kansas, Mitchner later donated to the pen to the Kansas Historical Society.

A saloon wrecked by Carry Nation, Enterprise, Kansas
Date: Jan. 23, 1901
Interior view of a saloon wrecked by Carry Nation and her followers, Enterprise, Kansas.

Attorney Robert Carter to McKinley Burnett
Date: September 14, 1951
This letter dated September 14, 1951, is from NAACP Assistant Special Counsel Robert L. Carter to Topeka NAACP Chapter President McKinley Burnett. Carter advises Burnett that the National Chapter of the NAACP would require $5,000 to take the Brown case to the United States Supreme Court. However, Carter explained that the money would have to be raised locally and that nearby NAACP chapters could contribute if they so desired.

Board of management at the Topeka Woman's Club, Topeka, Kansas
Date: Between 1924 and 1929
This photograph shows the "Board of Management" at the Topeka Woman's Club in Topeka, Kansas. The Woman's Club was located at 420 W. 9th Street and the building is currently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.