NEWSPAPER COLLECTION
Our collection includes most newspapers published in the state. These issues tell the state’s history and the stories of communities large and small. We continue to collect Kansas newspapers today, including those created only online. The collection includes dailies and weeklies, and those published for specific audiences: African American, Civilian Conservation Corps, labor, populist, socialist, and territorial.
Newspaper Collection
Kansas Weekly Herald
At the Kansas Editors’ and Publishers’ convention in Topeka in 1875 members decided to organize a state historical society “for the purpose of saving the present and past records of our 21 years of eventful history.”
Collecting and preserving the state’s newspapers became one of the Kansas Historical Society’s primary goals. As representatives of free-state values, these members focused their efforts in collecting the newspapers that conveyed their views. When publishers submitted issues for the collections, they became members of the society.
Among the first of those papers to be printed was the Kansas Weekly Herald in Leavenworth, which began production 108 days after the Kansas Territory was created on September 15, 1854. Legend says that the newspaper’s founders, proslavery Democrats, set up the printing press “among the scrub oaks and hazel brush . . . under an elm tree, down by the river.” The newspaper continued to publish tributes to that elm tree until it ceased publication in 1861. Even though the newspaper’s focus was in opposition to the members’ early collecting mission, several issues were preserved.
Because of the vision of these publishers, the Kansas Historical Society today has one of the largest and most complete statewide newspaper collections in the nation.
Kansas Memory
Find samples in our online digital archives
Materials in this Collection
Kansas Memory, our online digital archives, contains more than 23,000 photographs from the collections. New entries are continually being added.
These collections are not open to the general public. Researchers can access the collections through scheduled appointments. Please use this request form.
Find descriptions of the object collection in the Museum Catalog.
No online catalog is available for the ethnographic collection.
How to Access This Collection
Kansas Memory, our online digital archives, contains more than 23,000 photographs from the collections. New entries are continually being added.
These collections are not open to the general public. Researchers can access the collections through scheduled appointments. Please use this request form.
Find descriptions of the object collection in the Museum Catalog.
No online catalog is available for the ethnographic collection.
How to Purchase Copies From This Collection
Prints of most digitized objects in our collection can be purchased.
Please use this online order form.
How to Donate to This Collection
We appreciate the donation of objects to the collections that reflect the history of Kansas from early to current days. We are unable to provide appraisals. This form can be used to provide information about an item to be considered for donation.
