Primary Sources by

Kansas Memory

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:37:17 UTC

This is the official digital repository of the Kansas Historical Society, and it is updated regularly. It includes photographs, maps, letters, reports, memoirs, and much more.

Kansas Digital Newspapers

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:38:39 UTC

This site from the Kansas Historical Society links to resources for digitized newspapers.

Kansas Historical Resources Inventory

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:39:53 UTC

This site administered by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) at the Kansas Historical Society (KSHS) is a searchable inventory of the state's surveyed historic properties. This interactive database is intended to serve as an education and reference tool for preservation professionals and the general public, whether registered or non-registered users.

Religion in Kansas Project

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:45:13 UTC

The Religion in Kansas Project is an open access digital archive that creates and curates online collections of oral histories, digitized ephemera, and digital exhibitions relating to religious experience and diversity in Kansas.

Kansas Military Index

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:50:08 UTC

This index is searchable and includes information from several databases (it does not include all Kansas soldiers, because some served in other states).

KSHS Collections Catalogs

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:51:02 UTC

This links to various catalogs at the Kansas Historical Society; not all sources found in these catalogs are digitized.

Kansas Censuses

khjournal — 2022-03-05 20:53:35 UTC

These censuses from 1855 to 1940 are available from Ancestry.com without a subscription, but you must visit through this page and provide your Kansas driver's license number.

The Kansas Collection: Books

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:22:31 UTC

This project provides transcriptions of books (both primary and secondary) that are out of copyright.

National Archives

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:25:58 UTC

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) collects documents related to the U.S. federal government, and some of these sources relate to Kansas. Some are digitized. There are NARA branches around the country, including one in Kansas City next to Union Station.

Library of Congress

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:31:01 UTC

The Library of Congress has digital collections that cover topics that connect to Kansas history, such as the Mary Anne Bickerdyke Papers and reminiscences recorded in the 1930s by formerly enslaved people who later lived in Kansas.

Trails of Hope: Overland Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:32:14 UTC

This is a collection of the original writings of 49 voyagers on the Mormon, California, Oregon, and Montana trails who wrote while traveling on the trail, discussing everything from bison, to disease, to "gold fever."

Combined Arms Research Library (CARL)

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:33:36 UTC

This is largely composed of digital versions of paper documents from the Ike Skelton CARL collections and student papers produced at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Wichita State University Special Collections

khjournal — 2022-03-05 21:36:26 UTC

The Wichita State University's special collections department has some digitized resources on Wichita and Kansas more broadly.

Pittsburg State University Special Collections and Archives

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:04:23 UTC

This includes primary sources about the Pittsburg area as well as southeast Kansas more generally.

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:05:44 UTC

The Eisenhower Library has digitized a selection of documents housed in their collection.

Robert and Elizabeth Dole Archives

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:07:52 UTC

This archives, housed in Lawrence, includes materials related to Bob Dole's many years in government service.

KSU Digital Archives

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:17:36 UTC

Digital archival collections at Kansas State University include such topics as cooking and consumer science, agriculture, Kansas history, and university history including yearbooks, etc.

Washburn School of Law Digital Collections

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:21:25 UTC

This includes sources about the School of Law and legal studies in Kansas more generally.

Fort Hays State Special Collections

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:23:48 UTC

This repository includes documents related to the Cosmosphere, territorial history, military history, the history of Volga German communities, and other rare books and photographs.

Benedictine College Digital Collections

khjournal — 2022-04-01 15:25:51 UTC

Benedictine College's library has digitized a small collection of sources related to the college and Benedictine missions.

U.S. Census Bureau Publications

khjournal — 2022-04-01 18:36:01 UTC

This page on census.gov leads to various publications, including population statistics but also reports on business, education, the economy, manufacturing and industries, immigration, and agriculture.

Kansas Studies Institute Digital Collections

khjournal — 2022-04-26 19:21:17 UTC

The Kansas Studies Institute at Johnson County Community College includes digitized sources, including a series of oral history interviews with Vietnam veterans.

State Library of Kansas

khjournal — 2022-04-27 22:14:04 UTC

This website includes a variety of useful sources, including the KGI Online Library of publications by state agencies and institutions, as well as access to databases like Fold3 (military records), Heritage Quest (genealogy and censuses) and EbscoHost's Academic Search Premier. (Some resources might require you to provide a Kansas driver's license number.)

The Congressional Record (1873 to present)

khjournal — 2022-04-28 18:45:30 UTC

The Congressional Record is the official government publication detailing speeches, debates, resolutions, bills, etc. in both houses of Congress since 1873. There are PDF scans of the bound volumes at this website as well as a search feature; be aware that the PDFs are large and may take a while to load.

State Board of Agriculture Reports

khjournal — 2022-09-27 19:26:01 UTC

The University of Pennsylvania has collected publications by the Kansas State Board of Agriculture from the 1870s to the 1990s, all published on HathiTrust, into one list. Not all of the board's publications are provided here.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

khjournal — 2022-10-26 18:57:11 UTC

Although they were created specifically for fire insurance purposes, these very detailed maps include a wealth of information about buildings, townsites, etc. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This links to the Library of Congress's searchable database that includes over 200 entries for Kansas, although not all Kansas maps are digitized.

Measuring Worth Calculator

khjournal — 2023-03-09 17:20:51 UTC

This calculator created by economists can provide rough estimates of the purchasing power, inflation rates, etc. for both the U.S. dollar and the British pound.

Caselaw Access Project

khjournal — 2023-03-09 17:23:25 UTC

This site provides the text of almost 7 million court cases across the country, with over 50,000 cases from Kansas. They can be accessed digitally or downloaded as PDFs.

Kansas Session Laws

khjournal — 2023-04-11 17:01:30 UTC

The Session Laws of Kansas contain all acts passed during each session of the legislature (bills), as well as vetoes and certain other messages from the governor, certain concurrent resolutions, executive reorganization orders, directories of certain officials and a list of statues repealed and amended by the legislature.

Cold War in the Heartland

khjournal — 2023-04-11 17:07:09 UTC

Created by faculty and graduate students at the University of Kansas, The Cold War in the Heartland brings together primary source documents, landscape case studies, and oral history interviews. It also provides tools for teachers and students to learn more, with guided discussions, activities, and an interactive timeline.

Inflation Calculator

khjournal — 2023-05-05 19:46:50 UTC

This database draws from U.S. Bureau of Statistics reports from 1914 to the present to estimate rates of inflation.

Presidential Libraries Search

khjournal — 2023-08-02 19:15:33 UTC

This link from the National Archives (NARA) provides a search engine for all of the official Presidential libraries.

Justia

khjournal — 2023-08-02 19:22:05 UTC

Justia includes a wealth of information about the law for lawyers and law students, but for historians it includes information on Kansas District Court cases from 1925 to present, Courts of Appeal (Kansas is in the 10th Circuit), as well as the Federal Supplements and Federal Reporter.

Chapman Center for Rural Studies

khjournal — 2023-08-04 01:50:26 UTC

The Chapman Center for Rural Studies at Kansas State University collects research on small towns and rural life. It is especially useful for accessing photographs, autograph books, and postcards.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

khjournal — 2023-08-04 02:18:54 UTC

DPLA makes millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience. Their “browse by topic” feature is particularly useful. The eight primary topics listed are: American Civil War, aviation, baseball, Civil Rights Movement, food, immigration since 1840, photography, and women in science.

Oyez

khjournal — 2023-08-04 02:39:37 UTC

Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955.

Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

khjournal — 2023-08-04 03:03:08 UTC

The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) is the search tool for print and electronic titles of the National Bibliography of U.S. Government Publications, which is made up of publications from across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the U.S. government. The CGP will only provide links to full-text resources that are the official, authoritative copy, so not all sources here are digitized.

KU Libraries Digital Collections

khjournal — 2023-11-17 19:25:59 UTC

In addition to materials connected to KU history, it includes other primary sources about the state more generally.

Historic Kansas Statutes

khjournal — 2023-11-17 19:27:25 UTC

Here a genealogist has compiled links to published statutes, organized by year; most are on HathiTrust or Google Books.

Kansas Oral History Project

khjournal — 2023-11-17 19:30:17 UTC

The Kansas Oral History Project is currently exploring important late-twentieth-century public policy issues through interviews. Some topics addressed include budgets, taxation, education, energy and the environment, diversity and inclusion, and leadership.

Tribal Treaties Database

khjournal — 2023-11-17 19:31:27 UTC

This database, run through Oklahoma State University, is a pretty comprehensive source of treaties with Native nations.

General Land Office (GLO) Records

khjournal — 2023-11-17 19:33:03 UTC

Land surveys, patents, tract books, and other related records are available here. The database covers the entire country, not just Kansas.

Section-Township-Range Finder

khjournal — 2024-03-15 19:39:39 UTC

This allows visitors to search for Public Land Survey System (PLSS) descriptions from the Public Land Survey.

Newspaper Digitization Efforts

khjournal — 2024-06-20 20:48:23 UTC

The International Coalition on Newspapers collects links to past, present, and prospective digitization projects of historic newspapers. Kansas is included in the drop-down list of U.S. states.

Google News Archive

khjournal — 2024-06-20 20:50:05 UTC

Though it is now discontinued and not being updated, digitized newspapers from around the world are available.

Chronicling America

khjournal — 2024-06-20 20:59:52 UTC

Search newspapers from across the country from 1770 to 1963.

Civil War on the Western Border

khjournal — 2024-06-20 21:03:32 UTC

Created by the Kansas City Public Library, this site includes numerous essays on the Bleeding Kansas and Civil War, as well as a timeline and other resources.

The Pendergast Years: Kansas City in the Jazz Age and Great Depression

khjournal — 2024-06-20 21:03:50 UTC

This resource includes both primary and secondary sources about the Kansas City metro during this era of bootlegging, party machines, jazz, and Negro Leagues baseball. It focuses more on Kansas City, Missouri, but it does include some sources about the Kansas side.