William Curtis Hamilton, a POW from Kansas

William Curtis Hamilton was a survivor in more ways than one. Living through the Great Depression in a borrowed farmhouse in the middle of Kansas, he learned many valuable lessons about life. Perseverance was the key to surviving any hard time. This was a foundational principle in the Hamilton family. It was a standard that pushed William to succeed as he climbed the ranks in the US Army. It would also be a fundamental belief that kept him alive as he suffered through, what some have termed, the worst treatment of US Soldiers in history.

On April 9, 1942, US soldier surrendered to Japanese forces in Bataan, a northeastern territory of the Philippines. The Japanese believed surrender was reprehensible and that a soldier’s duty was to fight to the death. American forces, along with Chinese and Filipino soldiers, were forced to march 61 miles with no food or water. Beatings were random and unprovoked. Of the 72,000 prisoners, only 54,000 reached their destination. It was a nightmare that had just begun.

After their march, William along with his comrades spent 62 days crammed inside of a ship bound for Japan. Many died along the way. The lack of air was the main cause of death, though other factors such as no bathroom or daylight played a significant part in their torturous journey.

William survived but fell ill. His experience in the “hospital ward” of the prison camp was horrifying. “The men lay on filthy straw with their mouths open, green blow flies crawling in and out while their last gasps of life drifted away. All night long, I would listen to them struggle for their last breath. Some died from just plain neglect, no name attached as a reason for their death; some just gave up.” *

William was a Japanese-held POW for 1,256 days. He survived and returned to the US, a decorated war hero. He chose to retire in California until his death on April 16, 2008. He was 86 years old. His memories are recorded in a memoir titled Late Summer of 1941 and My War with Japan.

*http://www.lindavdahl.com/Bio%20Pages/W.Hamilton/W.Hamilton%20Obit.2.htm

Protecting our Beloved State

As you drive west on I-70 from Kansas City, there are very few exciting stops, let a lone, exciting things to look at. One of the more thrilling parts to the drive westward is passing Fort Riley. It is, for some people; jaw dropping to see the same helicopters, tanks, trucks and personal that are being used in the wars in the Middle East.

The same goes for Fort Riley, as for a lot of things you see in Kansas. Why would they put a Fort in the state of Kansas? What does Kansas have to offer militaristically? Let’s take a look back on how and why Kansas and more specifically Fort Riley, has been involved with our nations military.

The main role for forts in the Kansas was to control peace among Native American tribes and White immigrants. The forts in Kansas were established to prohibit infringement on native lands and protection of tribal violence. The formation of the Santa Fe Trail in the 1820s brought foreigners to the state of Kansas. Trading across tribal lands expanded during this time. The growth brought more opposition between the tribes. The Kansas forts provided services such as Indian agencies and distribution points.

The Native American Removal Act created a transition period for forts in Kansas. By the 1860s the majority of Native Americans in Kansas were removed. The Army in the Kansas forts helped deplete traditional Native American life on the Plains.

Fort Riley was established in 1853. The three decades to follow the initiation of Fort Riley served as a staging area to protect the expanding frontier. During the 1890s, Fort Riley served as a major figure in the U.S. Army’s educational program. The fort was a key contributor to the evolution of cavalry tactics and training. Soldiers were taught skills from the trenches of World War I to the sands of Kuwait.

Perhaps, next time you see signs for exit 301 on I-70, you should consider exiting. Since the inception of Fort Riley to present day, the people whom inhabit the fort are protecting our freedom. While we sit in our classrooms learning history, math and science, there are military personal sitting in the classrooms of Fort Riley. They have given up their freedom to learn the tactics and strategies, which protect our liberty and maintain the United States as the most powerful nation in the world.

http://www.kshs.org/places/forts/index.htm

http://www.kansasmemory.org/locate.php?query=fort+riley

-Sammy Greenberg

Carry Nation Takes an Axe to Alcohol

Most of us heard of Carry Nation’s spree of alcohol-smashing saloon raids.  But few have heard the entire story and context that caused the string of non-violent (at least non-violent toward human beings) attacks perpetrated by the Holton resident.  Little known fact, however, is that Nation wasn’t actually born in Kansas.  She was born in Kentucky in 1846, but moved to Kansas much later on.

Nation was part of Women’s Christian Temperance Union, whose members made speeches in areas all over Kansas about the dangers of alcohol consumption, and how all liquor ended up destroying the family.  But after years of protesting alcohol verbally, Nation and her compatriots of the WCTU decided to take more aggressive steps.

The first few saloons she targeted experienced little more than aggressive.  She was shooed out by the saloon keepers, but her cries and prayers attracted attention until swarms of people gathered around the saloon in question until (with mounting peer pressure) the business closed.  The notorious hatchet Nation wielded only began appearing in 1901.

Eventually, things settled into a pattern.  Nation and her peers would raid a saloon, smash the alcohol, get arrested, and pay their bail with money raised by the WCTU.

http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry1.htm

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/507

Interestingly enough, there’s an annual festival dedicated to Nation held in Holly, Michigan.  Nation visited Holly in 1908 to help free the starving town of alcohol.  Here’s the link to the festival’s site.  It has a lot of great info.

http://www.carrynation.org/

 

–Elliot Kort

Missile Silo-Home for Sale!

   

     Have you ever felt the world was going to end? Have you ever awoken in the middle of the night and known, without a doubt, the war of the worlds was underway? Or that the sky was going to fall? Or the moon was going to explode? Or the aliens would return? 

     If you answered yes to any of the questions above, today is your lucky day! Your may be able to purchase an underground silo-home for a fraction of what it cost to construct!  Read on…

     Currently, there are more than four missile silos for sale within one-hundred miles of Lawrence, Kansas. Built in the 1950s, at the cost of millions of dollars to taxpayers, the silos were outfitted with technology so advanced that the American public would not learn of our military’s capabilities until several years after these sites were decommissioned. 

     Around World War I, the U.S. government realized that future wars would be won or lost in the air. With this in mind, the American military focused its research on the development of long range bombers and ballistic missiles (1). At the beginning of World War II, the U.S. would have hundreds of missile sites constructed on her soil for protection against a possible future enemy, namely, the Soviet Union (2). 

     As the Cold War reached its climax, twenty-five miles outside of Topeka, Kansas lived a few soldiers whose only responsibility was to push a red button if the red phone rang. The button would initiate the launch sequence for an Atlas missile whose rocket boosters would allow it to be visible from Lawrence as it reached its peak altitude of 1200 km (3). 

 

     When the war ended, the United States began destroying many of its silos, preferring nuclear submarines over ground based launch pads. Ed Peden, a Topeka public school teacher, stumbled upon a flooded missile site awaiting to be imploded by the Arm Corps of Engineers(4). With 15,000 square feet behind a 47-ton door, sitting on 33 acres, it cost Americans four million dollars to construct in the 1960s. Ed negotiated a purchase price of $40,000 (5). 

     After two years of remodeling, the Peden family is enjoying their new home immensely. In fact, they enjoy it so much that they have created a company that buys missile sites and sells them to the public as potential home sites. As of October 2009, there are Kansas missile silo sites for sale around Valley Falls, Russell, and Scott City.                            http://www.missilebases.com

Peden home tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_liNYkZn_M

 

By: M. Canfield

1. http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/bmd/BMDV1.pdf
2. http://www.airforcebase.net/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_missile
4. http://www.missilebases.com/history
5. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/16730

Pictures:

http://just-thinkin.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/luxury-home-in-a-missile-silo.jpg

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/16730

“Dirty Thirties”

During the 1930s, Kansas suffered through the Great Depression along with the rest of the United States, but Kansas arguably dealt with an even harsher situation than the rest of the United States.  The state had a horrible period of natural disasters including blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms, known as the Dust Bowl.[i] It was called the Dust Bowl, because the strong winds blew the topsoil off the land sending it across the United States[ii].  It took several things to cause this horrible disaster.  While nature provided the wind, farmers provided the soil that could be whipped into dust.  Kansas farmers enjoyed great success during the 1920s with their wealthy harvesting of wheat.  At the onset of the Great Depression, farmers kept plowing all their fields using new effective technology instead of leaving some fields unplanted, because they needed to make more money during this economically troublesome time.[iii] These plowed fields created a lot of loose dirt that the storms blew everywhere.  So the farmers created a worse environmental and economic situation for themselves.  This dust greatly affected the lives of the farmers of Kansas.  For example, the wheat that was not destroyed by the dirt from the storms was small and weak.[iv] Farmers could not produce as much, leaving little money, so they had to live very simple lives[v].  They used vegetable gardens for soup, and burned cow chips to heat their homes.  Kansas farmers were living like the early Kansas pioneers before them.  Their lives turned into a struggle for survival against the harsh environment.  Farmers not only had to protect their crops from dust, but also their homes and families.  This time was appropriately nicknamed the “Dirty Thirties”, because people could not stay clean with the constant dust[vi].  Babies had to be covered with wet sheets, so they did not develop dust pneumonia.[vii] But ultimately residents of Kansas dealt with the dust, better than the other states that were affected, because there was not a mass exodus to the West.[viii] This shows the strength of the people of Kansas during times of struggle and change.  They fought through the consequences of their actions combined with natural disasters, and learned their lesson about rotational farming.  It is important to know about the “Dust Bowl”, because it is a good example of the unique situation of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

 

---

[i] http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html

[ii] http://www.english.illinois.edu/MAPS/depression/dustbowl.htm

[iii] http://www.kshs.org/cool2/coolplow.htm

[iv] http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html

[v] http://www.kancoll.org/voices_1998/0398dust.htm

[vi] http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html

[vii] http://www.kancoll.org/voices_1998/0398dust.htm

[viii] http://www.kancoll.org/voices_1998/0398dust.htm

Image: http://thenonconsumeradvocate.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/the-great-depression-everything-old-is-new-again/

 

-Brittany Ross

 

 

 

 

Appeal to Reason

The Appeal to Reason newspaper made its debut in Kansas in February of 1897 in Girard, Kansas after being moved from Kansas City, Missouri.  The newspaper had between 300,000 and 500,000 subscribers in the height of its popularity in the late 1890’s to the early 1910’s.

The Appeal to Reason newspaper was the primary outlet for the right-wing of the Socialist Party.  The right-wing of the Socialist party believed in introducing Socialist practices steadily into society instead of introducing Socialism all at once by a proletarian revolution.  The national Socialist party at the time was also right-wing and believed in introducing Socialism gradually.

The style of the Appeal has been described as combining “the frontier militancy of the old Populist movement, the revolutionary class consciousness of the laboring class, and the utopianism offered by Edward Bellamy.”  This style definitely suited not only the people of Kansas at the time but also the nation.  The rise of Populism showed that the nation was dissatisfied with both the Democrats and Republicans.  Also by teaching class consciousness to its readers the Appeal created a readership that understood that they were the majority, not the elites that ruled over them, and that the only way to change their environment was to become politically active.

One of the main reasons the Appeal to Reason newspaper was able to thrive for as long as it did was because of the “Appeal Army.”  Some of the most loyal Appeal readers and loyal Socialists made up this 60,000 member group.  They traveled the country spreading their message of a Utopia achieved through socialism and selling subscriptions.  When the Appeal was financially strapped the “Appeal Army” contributed money and sold off their property in order to save it.

Another interesting aspect of the Appeal to Reason newspaper was its staunch opposition to Theodore Roosevelt.  As I’m sure many of you know TR created a third party in order to run in the 1912 Presidential election.  He named the party the Bull Moose or Progressive party.  The Appeal was concerned that Teddy Roosevelt was not sincere holding up to the views that the Appeal believed a third party should have.  The newspaper believed that TR created this party simply because he was shunned by the Republican Party and not because he had an ideological split with the party.

As you can see the Appeal to Reason newspaper had a significant impact on politics at that time and helped support one of the many attempts at a 3^rd party during this time period. 

 

http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/211131

http://www.archive.org/stream/thefightingedito00brewuoft/thefightingedito00brewuoft_djvu.txt

http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/4941/1/MARSV8N1A3.pdf

The First Female Dentist in the United States

Lucy Hobbs Taylor was born on March 14, 1833 in Franklin Country New York. Lucy, although born in a time when women were restricted to being mothers or schoolteachers, wasn’t interested in following this plan. As a young woman, Taylor taught for 10 years in Michigan but always aspired to study in medical field. In 1859, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio and applied to the Eclectic College of Medicine but was denied admission merely because she was a woman. Taylor however persevered and began taking private lessons with a one of the school’s professors who eventually lead her to take interest in dentistry. Taylor also took private lessons with the dean of the Ohio College of Dental Surgery and studied under a graduate student from the school. She was denied admission into the actual college because of her gender so she opened her own practice, even though she didn’t have an diploma, in Cincinnati in 1861 at the age of 28. She moved her practice to Bellevue, Iowa and later to McGregor, Iowa where she was known as “the lady who pulls teeth”. *

The Iowa State Dental Society admitted Taylor as a pupil in July 1865. Not only was Taylor seen as an equal to her male classmates but also attended The American Dental Association convention that took place in Chicago. After four years of seeing patients, Taylor was accepted as part of the senior class at the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. In February 1866, Taylor received her degree and became the first woman in the United States to receive a doctorate in dentistry.

Taylor met her husband, James M. Taylor, a Civil War veteran and railway maintenance worker, while practicing dentistry in Chicago. After they were married, James Taylor learned dentistry from his wife and eventually become a dentist as well. In 1867, the couple moved to Lawrence, Kansas and began a successful practice. Most of their patients were women and children who saw “Dr. Lucy” as highly regarded.* James Taylor died in 1886 and lead Taylor to retire her practice. However, he was still very active in women’s suffrage movements as well as an active member of society. Taylor’s dedication and ambition broke the social barriers placed upon women throughout the 19^th century and is noted as an established and remarkable woman in history.

Today you can still see two of the Taylor’s residences at 809 Vermont St. and 701 Ohio Street. Both of these houses were used as professional as well as living quarters.

-jordan potts

Works cited:

*http://home.comcast.net/~thorsdag/LucyHobbsTaylor.html

*Ohio History Central-http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=372

*Image Found at-http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/207968

Order #11

Order #11 was issued by General Thomas E. Ewing on August 25, 1863.  This order forcibly removed all residents of Jackson, Bates, and Cass counties.  However, if residents could either prove their loyalty to the Union they could relocate to the nearest military post or if they lived within one mile of Kansas City, Westport, Independence or one of the three military posts in the border counties.

 

Earlier in the summer General Ewing was given military command of the border counties of Missouri and Kansas by General John M. Schofield, commander of the Union army in the West.  Ewing’s first order of business was to arrest hundreds of sister, wives, and girlfriends of suspected Missouri guerillas and to hold them hostage.  When the roof of the building that these women were being held captive in collapsed and four of the women died William Clarke Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence, killing 150 residents of Lawrence.  In order to stop more raids Ewing issued Order #11.  Order #11 was not a spur of the moment idea.  In fact in letters Ewing wrote to General Schofield before Quantrill’s Raid he discussed the idea of clearing residents out the Missouri border counties.  Approximately two-thirds of all residents living in Cass, Bates, and parts of Vernon counties were expelled.  The soldiers and officers who enforced Order #11 were fairly brutal in moving the residents in many, if not most, cases burning the homes, farms, and crops of the banished residents.

 

Order #11 was carried out with approval by Abraham Lincoln.  In a letter to General Scholfield, Lincoln writes, “With the matter of removing the inhabitants of certain counties en masse; and of removing certain individuals from time to time, who are supposed to be mischievous, I am not now interfering, but am leaving to you own discretion.”

 

I wanted to blog about this topic because I was shocked that something like this happened.  It seems very cruel and unfair.  If the goal of Order #11 was to stop guerrillas and keep the violence down then the residents of the border counties of Kansas should have also been removed from their homes as well.  This would have been much fairer and seems like it could have helped accomplish the goal of the order.

 

Sources:

http://www.kclibrary.org/blog/month-kansas-city-history/evacuation-day

http://www.historiclonejack.org/order11.html

The Brutality of a Civilized Nation

 

               Rations were withheld and a warm fire was declared off-limits. These would seem to be inhumane measures taken on any captive people by their conquerors but considering that these orders were carried out on the Cheyenne Indians “in the midst of an intensely cold Dakota winter” is unbelievable. As recorded in the October 9^th, 1879 Edition of the Lawrence Journal, this was exactly what happened.  “The order was in force for seven days,” WildHog, a respected leader within the tribe, told the reporter.  In my opinion, it was not because a treaty was violated that the US Calvary to took such actions on this tribe but rather they were acts whose purpose was to dispel a deeply rooted fear.

           The desire to dominate is primarily fueled by hidden fear; fear of the known, fear of the unknown. It was widely acknowledged that the will of the Indian nations was almost impossible to break, sometimes they followed orders to move, other times they didn’t. It should not be assumed that this was an indication of submission but, more so, a willingness to cooperate. Cooperation can preserve tradition. Yes, there were disputes within the tribe, some broke off and travelled to other tribes, but as a whole the people retained an enduring will to survive.

           Living through the journey to the Indian reservation was miraculous enough for the Cheyennes, but then they were attacked by sickness and given two days rations that they were forced to make last an entire week. The living conditions on the reservation were unbearable; their children were dying in their arms.  Under the leadership of WildHog, they made plans to return to their homeland. They began their journey peacefully; they  “molested no one for the first hundred miles, nor did they even forage off the country, except to take here and there a little corn to keep them from starving.”  This is one of several instances where the self-control demonstrated by the community was incredible. Only after they were attacked did they fight back.

            Self-control, when maintained by an entire community, can only be achieved if the leadership is held with upmost respect. The will of the people was carried out through their leaders and abided by, no matter the cost, by the rest of the tribe. Not taking the food they could have easily stolen was an example of the strong will of the people. They wanted to return, so WildHog directed that if it was attempted it would be done peacefully and honorably, they obeyed.  I believe that the US Government feared a national, organized Indian people. If a small tribe can behave such a way, what would an entire nation of Indians be capable of?  Giving the Indians enough time to organize between their tribes was not an option, the consequences were fearfully unknown and the US did not want to find out. I believe that this was one of many factors behind the Indians’ removal from their territory. The Germans used the same tactics when they moved the Jews into ghettos. Remove familiarity and retaliation dissolves.

            The US Government treated the Indians as half-breeds, as unintelligent animals but it is my belief that the cruel measures enacted upon the Indian people, as exemplified in this article, revealed something else. That hidden under the white settlers beliefs that the Indians were a weaker race was a deep-rooted fear, a fear that the Indians strength was stronger than their own.

-Micah C-

All quotes taken from article: http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/210684/page/1

Influencing Children and Agriculture

Born July 14, 1865 in Garnett, Kansas, Arthur Capper was a two-term governor and a five-term senator of Kansas. Throughout his political career, Capper demonstrated interest in underprivileged children with the creation of the Capper Foundations for Crippled Children. More topical to our class, though, Capper also had interest in agriculture and helped strengthen agriculture production for the state of Kansas. Before Capper’s inauguration as Kansas Governor, he served as President of the Board of Regents at the Kansas State Agriculture College from 1910-1913.

Capper commenced programs for rural children and young teenagers, which encouraged them to raise corn, tomatoes, poultry and produce. These programs turned into the Capper Pig Clubs for boys and the Capper Poultry Clubs for girls and eventually both organizations were morphed into the 4-H movement. The 4-H movement began around the start of the twentieth century. The focus of 4-H comes from the idea of practical hands-on learning, focusing on: head, hear, hands and health. Today, 4-H has over 6.5 million members from ages 5-19.

In the early nineteen hundreds, Capper foresaw the potential Kansas had as a prosperous agriculture state before federal government pushed states to increase agriculture production. Capper founded and published two agriculture journals, “Mail and Breeze”, which were specifically for the state of Kansas. “Mail and Breeze” were very successful for their time. They consisted of political and practical news. Competing against nearly 500 agricultural publications, “Farmer and Breeze” ranked as two of the twelve leading journals of its kind in the United States.

In 1908, Capper supported an annual summer celebration for Topeka children known as the Capper birthday party.  Annualy held on the fourth of July, crowds of fifteen to twenty thousand would attend the picnic. Unfortunately, the Capper Birthday celebrations ended in 1952, when a devastating flood that summer, canceling the celebrations.

Capper’s influences on children’s lives was recognized with the passing of the Capper-Ketcham Act in 1928, which provided federal financial support through the agriculture extension network, which provided for further development of agricultural work at land-grant colleges.

Today, Kansas State honors Arthur Capper with the Arthur Capper Cooperative Center, which provides research based information, education and assistance to people interested in cooperative-based businesses.

“For the 95 per cent whose only means of schooling is the district or the city school, we must provide what we are not now providing, an education that will better fit them for the struggle of life.” – Arthur Capper

-Sammy Greenberg

Sources:
http://www.kansasmemory.org/category/4702
http://www.kshs.org/portraits/capper_arthur.htm
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-4HClubMovement.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_capper.html