PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION
More than 500,000 images visually represents Kansas and Kansans from the 1850s to the present in this collection. It features work by renowned photographers, like Alexander Gardner, Albert Bierstadt, L. W. Halbe, Henry L. Wolf, J. Carbutt, and Alfred Lawrence. Significant content relates to agriculture, military, Native Americans, railroads, cattle industry, bands, and settlement.
Photograph Collection
Ada McColl and Buffalo Chips
A photographer’s apprentice for H. L. Wolf in Garden City, Ada McColl purchased a large view camera, an 1890 model made by the Rochester Optical Company, for about $15.
She planned and staged this photo shot in 1893. To portray a traditional pioneer woman, McColl chose a cotton dress and sunbonnet with a deep curtain or bavolet used to shade the neck from sun and wind, and pushed a wheelbarrow. With few trees near Lakin in Kearny County, early settlers used buffalo or cow chips as fuel.
McColl loaded the glass plate and positioned and leveled the large view camera on the tripod. She posed with her brother, three-year-old Burt, who sat on a wooden camera box. McColl directed her mother to press the shutter release with a six- to eight-minute exposure time.
This and a similar photo with Ada by herself have been reproduced many times. Ada left her negatives with Wolf and moved away. After Wolf’s photograph studio closed, the negatives were discovered and credited to Wolf.
Those photos were later donated to the Kansas Historical Society. In 1984 Ada’s granddaughter identified the real photographer.
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.
Much of the collection can be viewed in person in the Research Room in Topeka.
Find descriptions of the photograph collection in the Archives Catalog.
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.
Much of the collection can be viewed in person in the Research Room in Topeka.
Find descriptions of the photograph collection in the Archives Catalog.
How to Purchase Copies in this Collection
Prints of most photographs in our collection can be purchased.
Please use this online order form.
How to Donate to this Collection
We appreciate donations by Kansans to share photographs to add to the collections that reflect the history of Kansas from early photography to current days. Please consider donating originals or sharing photographs that can be scanned and returned. A form is available for your use.
