Our Presidents and governors have said |
Kansas Writers Meet January 30, 1935, Hotel Jayhawk,
Topeka, Kansas—Book Display by Authors in Kansas
A display of books by Kansas authors was one of the interesting features at the
annual meeting of the Kansas Authors Club in Topeka, January 30. Some of the
books on display were:
The Human Mind by Karl A. Menninger
Unhappy Wind by Nelson Antrim Crawford
Bird Notes by Harry L. Rhodes
George Washington in Sculpture by Frances Davis Whittemore
History of Kansas by Clara Hazelrigg
Indian Myths by the late Wm. Connelly all of Topeka and
His Soul Goes Marching On by Anna L. January of Osawatomie
Urup as Is by the late W. Y. Morgan of Hutchinson
A book of short stories by Carmea L. Kesting of Kansas City
Also works by Madeleine Aaron of Wichita.
There were also books by William Allen White, Henry J. Allen, and Margaret Hill
McCarter. Tom McNeal’s much talked about book, When
Kansas Was Young; and
Candy, Mrs. M. L. Alexander's book which won the $10,000 Pictorial Review-Dodd
Mead Prize and which was published serially in the Pictorial Review last year.
Books of plays by Ruby P. Bramwell and Mrs. Nelson Ward of Belleville were shown
and also a book of monologues by Ceora Lanham of Topeka.
Volumes of Poetry by Patricia Mueller of Topeka, Alberta McMahon Sherwin of Arkansas
City, May William Ward of Wellington, Ed Blair of Cadmus, Nell Lewis Wood of
Kinsley, Alice Wilson Oldroyd of Arkansas City, May Fink Converse of Wellsville,
and an anthology of Kansas Verse by Helen Rhoda Hoopes of Lawrence were shown.
Juvenile work was represented by Topsy
Turvy's Pigtails and Topsy Turvy and the
Tin Clown by Bernice G. Anderson of Partridge,
Ginger and White Rock by William E. Landers of Topeka,
Wolfe the Storm Leader by Frank Caldwell of El Dorado,
Lane O'Ladlan by John J. Eberhardt, Salina,
When You and I Were Very Young by Jesse Perry Stratford of El Dorado,
Hugh and Denis by Edna Becker of Topeka, and
Bing by Dr. Thomas C. Hinkle of Carbondale.
—Source: 1934 Kansas
Authors Club Year Book: Made up of news from 1934
and the annual
meeting 1935; page 28.
VIRGINIA DOCKING
Kansas History
The fact that I did not attend school in Kansas until
I was in college may account, in some part, for the fact that I find Kansas
history so fascinating. I have found, however, that many colorful facts
in the state's history are not known to her native sons and daughters. Many
things of interest have been brought to my attention since I have had the
opportunity of living in the Executive Mansion. Details concerning the state
flag and banner, origins of names of Kansas towns, outstanding Kansas citizens
and the various trails are some examples.
The fact that Kansas
has both an official State flag and an official banner is not too generally
known, but is, at least to me, highly intriguing.
Both
the state flag and the state banner are of 
comparatively recent origin.
The state flag, bearing the Great Seal of
the State of Kansas topped by a replica of the state flower (the sunflower)
done in carefully established color on a field of blue, was adopted in the
1927 Session of the Legislature under House Bill No. 397.
The 1925 Legislature had already provided for the adoption
of an official state banner, while the 1953 session established a more exact
description for it. The banner consists of one huge sunflower set in
a field of blue, which by law must match the same tint as that found in the
field of the United States flag.
Each of these other interesting
sidelights could be developed in equal or greater detail, and western movies
and TV shows continue to create new interest in the dramatic era of Kansas
history and in her traditions.
—Source: Kansas
Authors Club Yearbook 1958,
Contributed by: Gail Martin, El Dorado, KAC
State Archivist
The time has come for Santa's call!
So close your eyes, my children small,
And don't you dare to peek!He'll fill your stockings full of toys
Old Santa loves good girls and boys,
He'll steal without the littlest noise
Adown the chimney tall.Perhaps he'll leave a shiny tree,
With sweets and gifts for you and me
So go to sleep, my darlings wee,
Tomorrow you'll have all.
[From Poetry of William Allen White, collected and edited by Donald Stuart Pady, Leawood, Kansas: Leathers Publishing, 2002, xxii, 233 pp.]
CHARLES
SHELDON
from Prairie Sketches
by Raymond Nelson
Charles
M. Sheldon came to Topeka in 1889 as pastor of Central Congregational Church,
where he remained as pastor (except for a brief hiatus from 1912-1915) until
his retirement in 1919. He preached a social gospel, yet held firmly to early
traditional ideas on Christian behavior (no drinking, dancing, smoking, or
attending the theater). He was generous, caring tireless in ministry. When
people would not attend his Sunday evening services, he devised sermon stories
(like In His Steps, which he read aloud to his congregation chapter
by chapter. The result was a full church each Sunday evening. Then he published
the stories as novels.
The central theme of In His Steps is to remake
the modern business world in response to the query, “What would Jesus
do?” Thus all moral issues in contemporary life would be resolved by
deciding a right course of action in terms of that question. Through a fluke,
the book was not properly copyrighted on publication and Sheldon received
very few royalties. On the other hand, because the book was in the public
domain, it was reprinted dozens of times–more than almost any other
book except the Bible–including about twenty-five translations to other
languages.
Sheldon was particularly concerned to help the 3,000 blacks
living in Tennessee Town, the ghetto in Topeka made up of those who had fled
the South after the Civil War. There were clear racial lines in the city in
the nineties, and he worked hard to improve the lot of these people. He and
his church established a kindergarten for them, and, among other similar efforts,
tried to find jobs for them. The were welcome in his church, though not many
came.
He fought hard for Prohibition, and he agitated for “Christian”
news. For one week in March of 1900, Sheldon, by invitation, edited the Topeka
Daily Capital on the principle of “What Would Jesus Do?”
It was phenomenal short-term success: the Capital’s usual circulation
had been about 11,250, but during Sheldon’s week it rose to 2,176,100
papers, worldwide. Why? Because his reputation as the author of In His
Steps plus the use of youthful Christian Endeavor salespeople in England
and America led to national and international orders.
Sheldon lived in Topeka until 1947, when he died in his
eighty-eighth year. He was never wealthy, despite his fame. He was offered
many handsome salaries to turn to writing and editing, but he was a pastor
at heart. So he remained the Christian minister, travelling widely as lecturer
and preacher.
Source: © 1992 Raymond Nelson, District 5. Used with permission of the author.
September 2, 1940, Chicago. Frank Marshall Davis met Irma Wassall. Davis describes their meeting:
Shortly before the scheduled closing of the exposition
[The National Negro Exposition ran from July 4 through September 9, 1940],
I received word that a Kansas poet named Mrs. Irma Wassall, of Wichita, would
be in Chicago on Labor Day and wanted to meet me. Immediately envisioning
a stout, mousey, middle-aged white woman with a clock-stopping face who escaped
from gray boredom in a rainbow world of words, I did not relish the meeting.
But in view of developments over the previous two years, I felt obliged to
at least go through the motions.
Three or four years earlier the first Anthology of Kansas
Verse published at Kansas State College had included a number of poems
by Langston Hughes, who grew up in Lawrence and Topeka, and myself, bringing
immediate protests from several racist readers that "Negroes were overrepresented"
in the collection. Some white supremacists would even like to restrict words
to the ghetto.
Evidently these racists were influential, for the Kansas
Authors Club announced that the 1938 club contest would be open only to white
writers. Immediately there arose a tornado in a teapot. Some of the leading
members resigned in protest, among them Dr. Karl Menninger of the world famous
Menninger Clinic, Senator Arthur Capper, ex-Senator Henry J. Allen, Kirke
Mechem, and Nelson Antrim Crawford, a former president of the organization
who issued a statement saying: "At least three Negro writers in Kansas
have produced much more significant poetry than most of us white authors will
ever produce. I refer specifically to Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, and Frank
Marshall Davis."
Although a native of the West Indies, Claude McKay had attended
Kansas State for a brief time, long enough to be pointed to with pride when
literature was discussed. In another ten years, incidentally, Crawford would
have been able to add the name of Gwendolyn Brooks, first to win the Pulitzer
prize for poetry.
Meanwhile at Winfield, Kansas, some fifteen miles from my hometown,
was a fiery young Cuban named Ruben Menendez who wrote a regular column headed
"Among Kansas Poets" for the weekly Winfield Record. Menendez,
who I had never met, became so incensed at the announcement by the Kansas
Authors Club, I later learned, that he challenged the president to a duel.
It never transpired, but Menendez went out of his way to print favorable comment
about me, including a special article by Dr. Kenneth Porter, a Kansas poet
then teaching history at Vassar College.
And in 1941, when the Tourist Guide to Kansas was
published by the Kansas Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commission, I was amazed
and gratified to find listed among historical facts about my native Cowley
County: "Frank Marshall Davis, Negro Poet, born at Arkansas City."
I have not yet been able to decide if this recognition was from genuine appreciation
or whether that section of the state was such an intellectual desert that
the Kansas State Historical Society in desperation grabbed at any straw.
Realizing from such incidents as these that I had a pretty fair
image among Kansas writers, I knew it would be best for me to meet Irma Wassall.
I’d be polite but get rid of her as soon as possible.
I screwed around in my office upstairs at the Coliseum,
went to the bar and downed a couple of Cuba Libres, and at last reluctantly,
a half hour late, started slowly for the information desk where I was to meet
my guest. Around 150 feet away I spotted a young woman who even at that distance
was positively stunning. Immediately I bemoaned my fate in not having a gorgeous
doll like that waiting instead of the grizzly bear I would meet. The dazzler
turned her head in my direction, saw me, and smiled.
It was Irma Wassall, of course. She knew me from the description
given her.
I tried for that old poker face from high school but don’t
think I quite made it. I must have looked like a hound dog that had treed
something nice but didn’t know what it was. Irma was in her late twenties
and exquisitely lovely with an exotic, continental look that came from Hungarian
gypsy ancestors. She wore clothes so well that she modeled newly designed
dresses, created by a close personal friend, for buyers at Kansas City department
stores and for Marshall Field’s in Chicago. In addition to her unusual
appearance, she wrote sensitive poetry, played guitar, and was so well informed
on jazz she was a correspondent for Down Beat magazine.
Inwardly, I berated myself for throwing away that half hour
through fear of boredom. But I did my best to compensate. With the aid of
innumerable daiquiris, I occupied her time for some six hours straight until
she had to return to her hotel. Since then I have taken no chances on another
goof when somebody wants to meet me; I have learned to be on time. (pp. 265–267)
Source:
Livin’ the Blues: Autobiography of Frank Marshall Davis,
John Edgar Tidwell, ed. Contributed by: Eleanor Bell, Topeka.
1923 Kansas Authors yearbook on page 18, an item about Lila Day Monroe. [Notice that her first name is sometimes spelled with one "l", sometimes two "l"s] :
"One of the busiest of Kansas women is
Lila Day Monroe, editor of the Kansas Women's
Journal, a paper which should be in every Kansas home. By her
organizing abilities and keen foresight, she is bringing this timely monthly
a deserved success and making it one of the potent forces in public thought
of our state.
Mrs. Monroe was much interested in the Author' Club Book
Shelf at the 1923 Kansas State Free Fair and had this to say; "Your
arrangement for a Kansas Authors' Book shelf at the State Fair was fine. A
great many people will always be interested in such a display and I was glad
to be able to look it over. Such a collection of Kansas Literature was a revelation
to many of us."
Contributed by: Gail Martin, El Dorado, KAC State Archivist
Summer issue of the Kansas Authors' Club Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 2 July 1923, page 12:
"Authors'
Club Exhibit at Kansas Free Fair
Topeka, September 10th to 15th
The Secretary of the Kansas Free Fair, Phil
Eastman, writes about the Kansas Authors' Clubs as follows:
We extend to the Kansas Authors' Club an invitation to make
an exhibit at the Fair, September 10 to 15, that will bring to the attention
of our 300,000 patrons the success that Kansans have made in literature. Some
of the other exhibits to be shown in connection with the Kansas Bookshelf
will be a collection of Dr. Charles M. Sheldon's manuscripts,
books etc., which will be quite extensive and Mr. Marco Morrow,
assistant publisher of the Capper Publications, will make an exhibit along
publishing lines. Also E. Haldeman-Julius of Girard plans
an extensive display from his successful publishing business." [The
bolded names were members of Kansas Authors Club]
Contributed by: Gail Martin, El Dorado, KAC State Archivist
Spring Meeting at Manhattan, May 16-17, 1921.
This meeting was the first general session of the Club
held outside of Topeka. All parts of the State were represented and it proved
to be an event of state-wide importance. Twenty-five new members were admitted.
Carl Sanburg, Chicago's unique and versatile poet, gave two lecture-recitals,
at which he read his poems, sang new types of American folk lore songs and
discussed various artistic principles.
While many do not appreciate this new poetry movement, all were
entertained by Mr. Sanburg's genius and personality.
There were two main sessions besides the business on May 17.
Nearly 500 were present at the first session.
The following were the prominent features:
Afternoon Meeting in Recreation Hall, Kansas Agriculture
College
President James W. Searson, Presiding
| Address of Welcome Lecture-Recital "Conducting a Column" "Your Line of Goods" "Pioneer Writers and Records of Kansas" |
Matie Toothaker Kimball, Manhattan Carl Sanburg, Chicago Prof. Hallam Walker Davis, Manhattan Mrs. May Belleville Brown, Salina Geo. P. Morehouse, Topeka |
At the evening reception, banquet and program at the Gillett
Hotel, there was not enough room to seat those who wished to attend.
The following was the program:
| Address "Why Is an Authors' Club?" "Why Is an Author?" "The Ancient Conflict" "In Between" Greetings Lecture-Recital and Folk Songs |
by Nelson Antrim Crawford, Vice-President Fifth District. President James W. Searson Marco Morrow, Topeka Dr. Karl E. Menninger Clinton J. Masseck from Vice Presidents, Critic and Secretary Carl Sanburg, Chicago |
One of the most unique and enjoyable of the many pleasant
events at the Manhattan Conference was the "Literary Breakfast,"
Tuesday morning at nine O'clock, given by Mrs. C. A. Kimball and Mrs. S. A.
Baldwin.
It was in honor of the out of town women and was held in the
Woman's Club House, the rooms of which were decorated in red and white, with
baskets of red and white carnations, sweet peas and flags.
In the receiving line were: Mrs. W. M. Jardine, wife of President
Jardine if the Agricultural college; Mrs. James W. Searson, wife of President
of Kansas Authors' Club; Mrs. George P. Morehouse, Topeka; Mrs. Mae C. Patrick,
Vice President Seventh District; Mrs. H. O. Garvey, Topeka; Mrs. Clinton J.
Masseck, Topeka; Dean Helen Bishop Thompson; Mrs. Anna January, Osawatomie;
Mrs. May Belleville Brown, Salina; Mrs. Abble Clark Hogan;, Junction City;
Mrs. J. R. Kregar, Mrs. C. C. Waggenseller and Mrs. Kimball and Mrs. Baldwin.
Red and white individual baskets were used in serving and
the breakfast was made up from tempting delicacies and satisfying substantials.
The literary program was a rare treat and was as follows:
| Good Morning Welcome "Driving from the Back Seat" "Land of Nod" and "Parting" Poetical address Violin solos Masterpieces of the Old West Symposium, "Main Street" "Literature and Club Women" |
Mrs. W. M. Jardine May Belleville Brown Mrs. E. T. Keith Mrs. Mae C. Patrick Abbie Clark Hogan; Mrs. C. C. Waggenseller, accompanist. Mrs. H. O. Garvey Elizabeth Dickens, Clemantine Paddleford Mrs. J. R. Kregar |
First place in poetry, from nearly two hundred entries,
went to Prof. Nelson Antrim Crawford of Manhattan, for "The Carrying
of the Ghost."
First place in short story went to Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
of Girard, for their story, "The Unworthy Coopers."
—Source:: Kansas
Authors Club Yearbook 1921/1922.
Contributed by: Gail Martin, El Dorado, KAC
State Archivist
Return to
Historical
Calendar
Return
to
Hot Links