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.

A.E. Hunt's 'aeroplane' that never flew used principles involved in today's whirlies
Creator: Wichita Eagle
Date: January 8, 1956
This article published in the the Wichita Eagle deals with the accomplishments of early aviation enthusiast A.E. Hunt. Hunt, of Jetmore, Kansas, built a flying machine in 1910 containing design elements that would later be refined and used in some of the world's first helicopters. In fact, the article compares the features found on Hunt's rotary aircraft to a Cessna CH-1 helicopter in order to demonstrate the similarities between the basic elements of each craft's design.

Aeroplane stabilizing mechanism
Date: November 11, 1919
This patent drawing and description depicts and describes Frank Dove's Aeroplance Stabilizing Mechanism. Dove, a resident of Topeka, Kansas, who worked with Albin Longren, applied for the patent on February 6, 1918, and the patent itself was issued on November 11, 1919. Dove's mechanism provided increased control and helped stabilize airplanes in flight.

A. J. Arnold to Joseph Hebbard
Creator: Arnold, A. J.
Date: August 11, 1892
In this brief but informative letter A. J. Arnold, a Topeka, Kansas, druggist, informs Joseph Hebbard, treasurer of the Farmer's Alliance, of his decision to switch his allegiance from the Democratic Party to the People's (Populist) Party. He is eager to "release the state of Kansas from the misrule of the Republican Party." While Arnold is confident that he has made the right decision, he also notes that many other Democrats are wavering. Consequently, Arnold has prepared a letter to the Democrats that expresses the benefits of supporting Populism; he asks Hebbard to read through the draft of this letter and provide comments. This enclosure is not with the original letter and has not been located.

Albin Kasper Longren and Dolly Longren with plane #5
Date: 1914
A photograph showing Dolly Longren at the controls of Longren airplane #5. Albin Kasper Longren the designer and builder is standing by the plane.

Albin K. Longren
Date: Between 1910 and 1915
A portrait of Albin K. Longren, who in 1911, constructed and flew his first pusher-type biplane, dubbed the Topeka I. That flight earned him the distinction of being the first to manufacture within Kansas a successfully-flown aircraft. This was the beginning of a lifelong career in aviation for Longren. As an aviator, he barnstormed throughout the Midwest, making a total of 1,372 exhibition flights from 1911 - 1914 without a major mishap. Longren channeled his income from barnstorming into his more serious interest of aircraft design and construction in his Topeka factory.

Albin K. Longren's No. 6, Model G airplane
Date: Between 1916 and 1920
This is a photo of Philip Billard sitting in Albin K. Longren's No. 6, Model G airplane (biplane) which was built in 1916. Longren and his wife Dolly opened an airplane factory in Topeka, Kansas. Longren's factory was the first successful aircraft manufacturing firm in Kansas.

An act conferring upon women the right to vote
Creator: Kansas Legislature.
Date: 1893
In 1893, state senator Michael Senn sponsored Senate Bill 94, An Act conferring upon Women the Right to Vote, before the Kansas Legislature. The Judiciary Committee, chaired by A. W. Dennison, recommended to the Senate that the bill not be passed. Kansas women gained the right to vote in municipal elections in 1887, but it was not until 1912 that the state approved full female suffrage.

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.

A party of patches
Creator: Judge Magazine
Date: June 6, 1891
This political cartoon drawn by Bernard Gilliam was copied from the satirical magazine Judge presents the Republican perception of the People's (Populist) Party. The artist depicts the People's Party as a hot air balloon made up of a patchwork of pieces, with each piece labeled with the name of the political organization or party that has been subsumed under the banner of the Populists. Some of the more recognizable "patches" include the Prohibition Party, the Greenback Party, the Farmer's Alliance, and the Knights of Labor Party. Inside the balloon's basket are two leading Populists from Kansas, William Peffer and "Sockless" Jerry Simpson.

Battery A on the Kansas State Capitol grounds in Topeka, Kansas
Creator: Farrow, W. F.
Date: February 1893
During the Populist War of 1893, Battery A, a militia unit from Wichita, Kansas, was stationed on the grounds outside of the Kansas State Capitol building in Topeka, Kansas. The dispute began when both the Republican and Populist parties claimed victory in the Kansas House elections in 1892. A number of contests were still being disputed when the legislative session began in January 1893. The conflict between the parties reached a crisis when the Populists locked themselves in the House Hall. The Republicans used a sledgehammer to break down the doors to the hall. The governor requested support from the state militia. After a three-day standoff, Governor Lewelling was able to negotiate an agreement with the Republican speaker of the house, which amounted to a Populist surrender. The state Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the Republicans.

Between Millstones
Creator: Kelly, H. B.
Date: 1896
This short pamphlet discusses the problems that high tariffs and the gold standard create for workers and farmers. It clearly presents Populist ideas about the dire situation of Kansas farmers by giving several examples of how businessmen and merchants benefit from the oppression of common laborers. The pamphlet was written by H. B. Kelly and printed by the Jeffersonian Publishing Company in Lawrence, Kansas; each pamphlet cost five cents.

Campaign songs, as sung by the National Quartette
Date: Between 1893 and 1894
This volume of campaign songs includes four pieces that vividly express the major beliefs of the Populist Party. The first song, "For Trampling on the Grass," criticizes the businessmen and bankers who were trampling on the rights of the common people. The second song, "The Republican's Lament," pokes fun at the Republicans who were no longer able to dominate the Populists now that "they have ceased to head our whippings, and have ceased to take our word." The third song, "The Wall Street Badge" describes how the government, according to the Populists, was now in the hands of Wall Street. The final song, "One of His Legs is Longer Than It Really Ought to Be," provides a comic perspective on some of the upcoming elections, including the race between Chester I. Long and "Sockless Jerry" Simpson in 1894.

C. C. Evans to Governor Edmund Morrill
Creator: Evans, C. C.
Date: December 24, 1894
The chairman of the Sheridan County Republican Central Committee, C. C. Evans, of Allison (Decatur County), writes Governor Edmund Morrill to inform him of the desperate circumstances facing farmers in western Kansas and to ask the state to furnish seed grain to the farmers. Several years of drought and low crop yields left many farmers without sufficient seed grain for the next season's crops. Evans asks the governor to rally Republican legislators to quickly pass an appropriation for farm relief. The letter claims that Populists have thwarted local efforts to address the problem and that effective actions by Republicans at this time would attract more people in western Kansas to the Republican Party.

Cessna airplane
Date: 1911
Photo of "Silverwing," a Cessna monoplane in flight. The "Silverwing" was completed by May 1911 and was based on the Bleriot monoplane designed by French aviator and inventor Louis Bleriot.

Child labor and woman suffrage
Creator: The Club Member
Date: January 1907
This brief article in The Club Member describes the problem of child labor, arguing that in states where women had the right to vote "child labor and illiteracy have ceased to be problems." This information is taken from an article called "Treason of the Senate" by David Graham Phillips.

Clyde Cessna
Creator: Cessna Aircraft Company
Date: 1910s
Clyde Vernon Cessna, 1879-1954, aviation pioneer and founder of Cessna Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas, with a Comet airplane that was built in 1917.

Clyde Cessna
Date: 1916
Clyde Cessna and his 1916 airplane, the first Cessna aircraft built in Wichita, Kansas. This photo was taken at Beaver, Oklahoma, with part of the Beaver Boosters.

Clyde Cessna
Date: 1917
This photograph shows a group of men including Clyde Cessna (4th from left) posing with the first plane built in Wichita. The image includes a description that reads "a part of the Beaver Boosters, Okla [Oklahoma]."

Clyde Cessna, aircraft firm founder, passes
Creator: Wichita Eagle
Date: November 21, 1954
This article published in the Wichita Eagle covers the death of aviation pioneer Clyde V. Cessna. Cessna, who died at the age of 74, first became involved with aviation in 1911 when he built and flew his first airplane. By 1917, Cessna moved to Wichita, Kansas, and set up his first factory which produced a six-cylinder powered monoplane.

Delegates to the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, Topeka, Kansas
Date: 1916
A photograph showing a group of delegates to the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association in Topeka, Shawnee County. This group voted to affiliate with the national association as support for a women's suffrage amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Kansas women had already won the right to vote in 1912.

Effie Frost to Lucy Johnston
Date: November 6, 1912
Effie Frost of Junction City, Geary County, wrote this letter to Lucy Johnston, President of the Kansas Equal Suffrage Association, about a recent state election in which women in Kansas gained universal suffrage. Frost was disappointed that the Democratic candidates were elected, but she felt confident that many Democrats did support suffrage. Frost was particularly concerned that women use the vote to destroy "all vice breeding places," mentioning a pool hall in particular. Frost also informs Johnston of her efforts to keep alive a children's Sunday school class in Verdi, Kansas

E. W. Hoch to Lilla Day Monroe
Creator: The Club Member
Date: July 1908
This eloquent letter, which serves as the frontspiece of the July 1908 issue, outlines E. W. Hoch's reasons for supporting women's suffrage. Hoch wrote that "the right to participate in government rests primarily, I think, upon the ability to contribute virtue and intelligence to government and that women possess this fundamental qualification." Above the letter is a formal portrait of Hoch. Lilla Day Monroe, the recipient of the original letter, was editor of The Club Member and an active supporter of women's rights.

Executive Order No. 2, Governor Lorenzo Lewelling
Creator: Lewelling, Lorenzo Dow, 1846-1900
Date: February 15, 1893
Kansas governor Lorenzo Lewelling issued this executive order in response to the standoff that would become known as the Legislative War of 1893. During this conflict, the Republican (Douglass) House and the Populist (Dunsmore) House both claimed to have been the legally elected House of Representatives for the state. Consequently, both attempted to conduct business in Representative Hall, ignoring the presence of each other and spending day and night in the chambers to prevent the other side from gaining control. On February 13, 1893, however, the Populists barricaded the hall while the Republicans were away, preventing the Republican congressmen from re-entering the chambers. The Republican house responded by battering the hall doors with sledgehammers and posting armed guards to protect the hall. At that point Governor Lewelling issued this order, demanding that the Republicans disband and "vacate such Hall and the approaches thereunto under penalty of forcible expulsion." The Republicans refused, and after a tense standoff, on February 25 the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed the validity of the Republican House, thus ending the "war."