A.O. Brown to Governor John Martin
Creator: Brown, A. O.
Date: March 30, 1886
A.O. Brown, mayor of Parsons, Kansas, telegrams Kansas Governor john Martin, of Topeka, requesting immediate help from the "troops" over a labor dispute. Strikers had driven a freight train off the tracks near Parsons. In February 1885, railroad shop workers walked off the job because of a cut in pay and reduced hours of work. Governor Martin was able to negotiate a settlement to the strike but problems continued throughout Kansas, Missouri, and Texas.

Arthur Capper's pen
Creator: R. Esterbrook & 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.

AT & SF Railway lantern
Creator: R.E. Dietz Company
Date: between 1912 and 1940
The Dietz Acme Inspector Lamp was the most popular railroad lantern marketed for inspecting wheel bearings, journals, etc. The Acme was also the last square tube Hot Blast lantern produced by Dietz, with production ending prior to 1960.

AT & SF Railway paperweight
Date: between 1870 and 1900
In the 1870's and 1880's Great Britain made large investments in the Santa Fe Railroad. Lion paperweights, including this one, were made in England and distributed to Santa Fe Railroad stations, offices, and personnel. The lion is a symbol of Great Britain.

Baby's shawl
Date: 1896-1897
Baby's off-white wool shawl with a hand-embroidered floral decoration in two corners. Emily (Stephens) Grinter embroidered the shawl around 1896 or 1897. She was born in New York in 1833 and married Thomas A. Grinter in 1865. The couple lived in Wyandotte County, Kansas. Thomas was the cousin of Moses Grinter, who operated a trading post and ferry on the Kansas River in Wyandotte County. The date of the shawl suggests that Emily might have made this for one of her grandchildren.

Band, Kansas City, Kansas
Date: Between 1939 and 1940
A view of a band performing in Kansas City as part of the Work Progress Administration's Federal Music Project. Also visible is a large stone building immediately behind the band.

Box camera
Creator: Eastman Kodak Company
Date: between 1897 and 1899
Eastman Kodak No. 2 Falcon box camera. Belonged to Alice G. Sennrich, a well-known professional photographer in Valley Falls, Kansas. She entered the business in 1902, purchasing the studio of C.S. Edington, and continued until about 1935. Eastman Kodak manufactured the the No. 2 Falcon from 1897 to 1899.

Bugle
Creator: William M. Hostmann Company
Date: between 1910 and 1916
1912 variation of the 1894 pattern B Flat Infantry Bugle. Brass bugle with steel mouthpiece. The bugle belonged to Faustino Julian Domingo. Domingo was born in the Philippines and was brought to the United States by his American teacher in 1904. He settled in Lawrence, Kansas, where he finished high school and joined the Kansas National Guard. In 1915, a Topeka newspaper described Domingo as an "expert bugler." After working as a drill master and battalion instructor, he served in the Mexican Campaign in 1916 and with the 137th Infantry in France during World War I. Exposure to poison gas during that war caused a respiratory illness that forced Domingo to retire from the National Guard 1944. He was on active duty in World War II at the time of his retirement. He died in 1961.

Calculator
Creator: Tandy Corporation
Date: between 1980 and 1985
Radio Shack model TRS-80 pocket computer with miniature printer. Tom Shrimplin of Manhattan, Kansas, purchased this device ca. 1985 at a local Radio Shack store hoping to gain computer skills. At the time, Shrimplin worked as a technician at Kansas State University. Radio Shack, an electronics retail store, was established in 1921 and acquired by Tandy Corporation in 1962. TRS-80 (Tandy Radio Shack 80) was an early generation microcomputer that used innovative programming language.

Camera
Creator: Vive Camera Company
Date: between 1897 and 1902
Magazine camera model Vive No. 1, made by the Vive Camera Company of Chicago, Illinois. Black leather-covered wooden frame, vertical viewfinder, and fixed stop diaphragm. Used by Alice G. Sennrich, a well-known professional photographer in Valley Falls, Kansas, from 1902 into the 1930s.

Carter's Ink Banner from Fort Hays, 14EL301
Date: 1867-1889
This brass advertising banner was recovered by Kansas Historical Society archeologists during excavation at historic Fort Hays in Ellis County. It may have been fixed to a display box for the Carter Ink Company (1858-1976). The banner states "CARTER'S PAT JULY 21st 68 INKS." Fort Hays was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and is a State Historic Site.

Carter's Ink Bottle from Cottonwood Ranch, 14SD327
Date: 1890-1920
This brown glass ink bottle was recovered during the 2002 Kansas Archeology Training Program field school at the Cottonwood Ranch in Sheridan County. The ink bottle has a conical body, tooled double ring finish, and traces of a paper label. Embossed on the bottle bottom is the bottle mold number and "CARTER'S," indicating it was manufactured for the Carter Ink Company (1858-1976). The ranch was established by Abraham Pratt, from Yorkshire, England, in 1878 to raise sheep. Pratt's son, John Fenton Pratt and his family continued to raise sheep at the ranch until 1904. Cottonwood Ranch is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is a State Historic Site.

C.E. Faulkner to Governor John Martin
Creator: Faulkner, C.E.
Date: March 30, 1886
C.E. Faulkner, of Parsons, Kansas, writes Kansas Governor John Martin, of Topeka, stating the strike is not over. The strike had been settled and workers returned to work when trouble disrupted in Texas. Employees who had participated in the strike were not allowed to return to their jobs. Railroad workers in Parsons were informed of this and refused to end the strike in that area.

Centron camera
Creator: Mitchell Camera Corporation
Date: between 1935 and 1940
Black metal 16mm movie camera mounted on a wheeled wooden tripod. Centron Corporation, in Lawrence, Kansas, used this motion-picture camera to produce educational and industrial films. When Centron was founded in 1947 it was located in downtown Lawrence, but a new facility was built in 1955. After the company closed in the 1980s, the University of Kansas acquired the building and this camera. The building became Oldfather Theatre, home to University of Kansas film school.

Child's harmonica
Creator: Beaver
Date: between 1920 and 1931
This Diatonic harmonica with silver cover-plates, brass reed-plates, and a black and orange wood comb belonged to Dean Thomas of Dighton, Kansas. Dean came down with appendicitis on the first day of a major two-day blizzard and was unable to reach a hospital until after his appendix had ruptured. Dean Thomas died at age 10 on March 31, 1931. After his death, his mother kept many of Dean's belongings, including this harmonica, in a trunk.

Clothing Fasteners from the Ritchie House, 14SH370
Date: 1854-1930
These clothing fasteners were recovered from the Ritchie House in Topeka during excavations by Kansas Historical Society archeologists in 1997. The suspender attachments and the slide have different decorative patterns and are made of brass and white metal. John and Mary Ritchie and their family moved to Topeka in 1854 where they were instrumental in advocating for abolition and women's rights and active in farming, real estate development, and politics.

Dr. Hertzler's shooting medals
Date: 1924-1931
A series of firearm awards given to Dr. Arthur E. Hertzler. Dr. Hertzler was an avid shooter and hunter and won numerous awards in marksmanship and shooting during his lifetime. Digitization funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission through the Kansas State Historical Records Advisory Board.

Dr. Irene Koeneke Convention Badges
Date: 1936-1953
A collection of medical convention badges and pins belonging to Dr. Irene Koeneke. Digitization funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission through the Kansas State Historical Records Advisory Board.

Dr. Tiberius Gracchus Jones and family
Date: 1898
View of Dr. Tiberius Gracchus Jones and family standing on the steps of the doctor's office, 1898. Dr. Jones was the father-in-law of John R. Brinkley.

Dwight David Eisenhower
Date: 1945
An informal portrait of General Dwight David Eisenhower at an outdoor celebration in Abilene, Kansas. Also visible are a man in a clerical collar, a bank of microphones, including those of Kansas City's WDAF and Omaha's KFAB stations, and the flashbulb hood of a Graflex press camera.

Entertainment system
Creator: Admiral Corporation
Date: 1949
Short, compact walnut cabinet containing a television, radio, and record player. This console was purchased in 1949 by Frank and Minnie Rosser of Delia, Kansas. They purchased the system in St. Marys, Kansas, during the TV boom that occurred between 1948 and 1949. It was the first TV in Delia. The couple's daughter liked to use the record player and watched several children's programs on it, including "Captain Kangaroo" and "Howdy Doody." An Admiral advertisement from 1949 listed the price of the console as $399.95.

Flood, Bourbon County, Kansas
Date: September 7, 1915
View of a group of men and boys standing near train tracks on higher ground near John Baptist's at 8AM during a flood in Bourbon County, Kansas. The photograph includes a note that the flood waters were 6 feet deep at this point.

Glass Insulators from Constitution Hall, 14DO321
Date: 1864-1929
These glass insulator fragments were collected from Constitution Hall in Lecompton, which was designated a National Historical Landmark for its role in the 1857 Lecompton Constitution. The building is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The hall was constructed in 1855 and functioned in a variety of different roles. In the summer and fall of 1988 Kansas Historic Society archeologists excavated at the site, trying to trace the building's construction history prior to renovation. Insulators were used on the tops and crossarms of telegraph, electric, and telephone poles to insulate the electrical wires. Shown here are fragments of Hemingray Glass Company insulators in a style used from the 1890s to the 1920s for long distance telephone usage. The Brookfield Glass Company of Brooklyn, New York, (1864-1929) is also represented here. Three of the fragments have embossed patent dates of May 2 and 1893.

Gran Quivira Harvey House "Lunch Room" sign
Date: between 1906 and 1920
Metal "Lunch Room" sign from the Gran Quivira Harvey House in Clovis, New Mexico. According to the Santa Fe Museum inventory, this sign alerted patrons to the lunch room's location at the Gran Quivira Harvey House, one of the earliest buildings in Clovis. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe established the town of Clovis as a division point on its new line across New Mexico, purchasing the land in 1906. Harvey Houses were the nation's first chain restaurants, operating in towns along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe rail lines.

Greensburg street sign
Date: 2007
Homemade street sign constructed of a 2" by 4" piece of wood and two rectangular-shaped pieces of plywood. Street names (Main and Scott) are spray painted in green on plywood (both front and back). Rectangular pieces of white coreplast, with names printed in large, computer-generated black letters, are nailed over the spray painted names. This street sign was put up by the City of Greensburg, Kansas, after the town was struck by an EF5 tornado on May 4, 2007. The tornado was 1.7 miles wide and traveled over 20 miles. Ninety-five percent of Greensburg was destroyed. These signs were used temporarily until permanent signs could be put into place. Since the tornado, the citizens have focused on rebuilding the town to be more environmentally sustainable.