Kansas governor Mike Hayden held office from January 12, 1987 - January 14, 1991. Hayden grew up in Atwood in northwest Kansas and relied heavily on support from agriculture and the rural areas of the state in his 1986 campaign. During his administration a comprehensive state highway plan was passed and statewide reappraisal was implemented. Hayden lost his bid for re-election to Kansas' first woman governor, Joan Finney, largely because of the reappraisal controversy.
Dec 15, 2010•14 min
This features excerpts from the second interview with Kansas Governor John Carlin, who held office from January 8, 1979 to January 12, 1987. In 1978, in a surprise upset, he defeated the Republican incumbent Governor, Robert Bennett, in his bid for re-election. In this interview, Carlin recalls that Bennett initially won, not because he was a popular choice, but because his Democratic opponent was Vern Miller, the controversial Wichita sheriff and Kansas Attorney General from 1971-1975. Carlin r...
Oct 13, 2010•13 min
Kansas Governor John Carlin held office from January 8, 1979 to January 12, 1987. He was elected to the Kansas legislature in 1970 and was Minority Leader of the House from 1975-1977; then Speaker of the House from 1977-1979, when Democrats unexpectedly won a majority. In 1978, Carlin upset incumbent Governor Robert Bennett's re-election bid by only 16,335 votes. The interview is the basis for Dr. Bob Beatty's article, "Be willing to take some risks to make things happen," published in Kansas Hi...
Sep 15, 2010•14 min
William Avery would have never become a politician if not for a series of disastrous floods in Kansas in the mid 20th century. He was the third generation of Averys farming near Wakefield, in Clay County, when President Truman appropriated funds to build two dams in the Blue Valley that would inundate his farm. Avery became an opposition leader and was elected to serve in the Kansas Legislature from 1951-1955, and went on to serve in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1955-1965, though he w...
Aug 18, 2010•13 min
John Anderson Jr. was governor of Kansas from January 9, 1961 to January 11, 1965. Dr. Bob Beatty, professor of political science at Washburn University, conducted this interview as part of the Kansas Governors Recorded History and Documentary Project, 2005. In these excerpts, Governor Anderson explains his support for the death penalty during his tenure in office and the major changes he helped bring about in the Kansas public education system. Video and a complete transcript of the interview i...
Jul 21, 2010•13 min
Robert Lee Carter was hired by Thurgood Marshall after WWII to work as an assistant counsel for the NAACP. He worked on a number of civil rights cases and represented the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case before the U. S. Supreme Court. Because of the case, the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Jun 23, 2010•13 min
This podcast features excerpts from the letters written home by young Clark Bruster of Waverly, New York during the fall of 1917 while he was training with U. S. Artillery Battery A at Fort Riley, Kansas. Some artillery are still drawn by horses during WWI and Clark describes their drills in detail. He is proud of what an accomplished horseman he has become, but saddened that he is missing the birth of his first niece.
May 26, 2010•12 min
Clark Bruster's great-grandfather was an early settler of Waverly, N. Y., a village on the New York/Pennsylvania border. Harvey and Cora Bruster raised Clark and his brothers there in the early 1900s. Waverly had about 6,000 residents at that time. Clark had finished school and begun working as a meat salesman in nearby Elmira, when the U.S. entry into World War I changed his life dramatically. From Fort Slocum on Long Island, Clark boarded a train to travel to Fort Riley, Kansas, in June 1917, ...
Apr 28, 2010•13 min
Susan Bixby Dimond and her husband Will made the long journey from her family home in Mayville, New York, to Osborne County, Kansas, in February 1872 to begin a promising new life in the West. Susan was a 30 year-old former schoolteacher; Will was a Civil War veteran from Pennsylvania who worked as a blacksmith in addition to farming. Their severest test came during the winter of 1874 and 1875, after millions of locusts had descended on the Midwest the previous summer, decimating every shred of ...
Mar 31, 2010•12 min
John William Gardiner was the third of nine children in the large Gardiner family. His parents, William and Susan, were farmers who moved from Missouri to Jefferson County, Kansas Territory, in March 1855 when John was four years old. These excerpts are from the diary he kept in 1875 while completing classes in Leavenworth in order to obtain his teaching certificate, then teaching at a new school in Winchester in Jefferson County. He impatiently waits for letters from his girlfriend, Mattie. He ...
Mar 03, 2010•14 min
Before he became the "Wild Bill" of legend, James Butler Hickok was one of hundreds of immigrants who streamed into Territorial Kansas hoping to acquire a piece of the Indian reservation lands that were coming onto the market. After the Kansas/Nebraska Act passed in 1854, Northeast Kansas was no longer Indian Territory and it turned into a battleground between the pro-slavery and free-state settlers. James grew up in Troy Grove, Illinois, where his father, William Alonzo Hickok, was an abolition...
Feb 03, 2010•9 min
Robert Fonzo Layher enlisted in the U. S. Navy in 1939 and was assigned to the North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego, when he resigned his commission to join the American Volunteer Group. This was a covert operation that served with the Chinese Air Force under U. S. General Claire Chennault. Since it was organized before the U. S. declared war on Japan, the pilots were technically working for a private military contractor to guarantee that supplies reached the Republic of China's armed for...
Jan 06, 2010•14 min
Arthur Jones served in WWII with the 219th Field Artillery, 35th Infantry Division of the Third Army. They landed in France shortly after Independence Day, 1944. Arthur's duty was to drive a Jeep that carried encoded messages back and forth between officers, under cover of dark. Hear his first-hand account of the 35th's push across France toward the German border, then their rush to Bastogne to assist the 101st Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge.
Dec 09, 2009•14 min
Raymond Brown grew up on a farm in Olpe, Kansas, during the 1920's and 30's. He was twenty-six when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and in 1942 he joined the newly activated 95th Infantry Division, part of General Patton's Third Army. On September 15, 1944, Private Brown landed on Omaha Beach with the 379th Infantry Regiment. They were in contact with the enemy over 100 days in a row and suffered enormous casualties. Hear his personal reminiscences about the "Victory" Divison's drive across F...
Nov 11, 2009•14 min
Mabel Holmes, a longtime Topeka resident, kept a daily diary from January 1, 1935-December 31, 1939. During this time, storms resulting from the severe drought conditions blanketed the state in dust so thick that it could be pitch black in the middle of the day; Kansans were coping with an economic depression even worse than our current one; the threat of a second World War in Europe was looming. Against this backdrop, Mabel talks about the news, weather, shopping, outings with her sister, Elma ...
Oct 14, 2009•14 min
Mabel Holmes, a longtime Topeka resident, kept a daily diary from January 1, 1935-December 31, 1939. During this time, storms resulting from the severe drought conditions blanketed the state in dust so thick that it could be pitch black in the middle of the day; Kansans were coping with an economic depression even worse than our current one; the threat of a second World War in Europe was looming. Against this backdrop, Mabel talks about the news, weather, shopping, outings with her sister, Elma ...
Sep 16, 2009•11 min
In 1868, raids by hostile Indian bands on the western frontier increased as the white population of Kansas swelled after the Civil War and railroads were built father west. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th U. S. Cavalry were assigned to pursue the Indian tribes to their winter camps and force them to return to the reservations. In Kansas, Governor Crawford quickly raised a volunteer regiment, then decided to resign from office and lead the 19th Kansas Cavalry himself. They joined Generals She...
Aug 19, 2009•12 min
In 1868, raids by hostile Indian bands on the western frontier increased as the white population of Kansas swelled after the Civil War and railroads were built father west. That winter the U. S. Army, led by General Sheridan, decided to pursue bands of Cheyenne, Sioux and Comanche to their winter camps and force them to return to government reservations by destroying their food and horses. General Custer and the 7th U. S. Cavalry were chosen for this winter campaign. In Kansas, young governor Sa...
Jul 22, 2009•9 min
Ned Beck continued writing in his diary throughout the summer of 1880, so we have his first-hand account of Holton, Kansas' 4th of July festivities. Holton planned to hold a community picnic on July 3rd, since July 4th fell on Sunday that year, but it was an unusually rainy summer and that Saturday was no exception, so the celebration was somewhat subdued. Just like kids today, Ned's favorite part of the holiday was the fireworks. Here's his description of the events of that week.
Jun 24, 2009•8 min
Another school year is coming to a close in Holton, Kansas. Final exams; class picnics; summer baseball teams forming--it could be May 2009--but 11 year old Ned Beck wrote this diary in 1880. This podcast features Ned's diary entries during late May. Moses and Mary Beck are enlarging their home to accomodate their full household: Ned, or Edward, their oldest son, his younger brother William, who is 7, and two daughters: Mattie, 9, and Clara, 3. In addition, they have a 17-year-old servant named ...
May 27, 2009•10 min
In the late 19th century, American tax laws favored Northeastern industrialists, who amassed enormous fortunes, while farmers in rural America found it harder and harder to make a living. The Farmer's Alliance, combined with other labor movements, formed The People's Party and took control of the Kansas House of Representatives in 1890. Kansas newspaper editor, William Peffer, represented the Populists in the U. S. Senate from 1891 to 1897. This podcast is drawn from his editorials, which champi...
Apr 29, 2009•11 min
Samuel Reader joined the Kansas State Militia in Shawnee County when the war broke out between the North and South, but they didn't see action until "Price's Raid" in the late fall of 1864. Samuel wrote this eye-witness account of the Battle of the Big Blue in 1898, based on his 1864 diary entries. The Militia helped delay the advance of the Confederate troops, even though they were inexperienced and outnumbered 6-to-1. They suffered heavy losses and Samuel was among the men taken prisoner by th...
Apr 01, 2009•10 min
Samuel began keeping a daily record of his life at the age of thirteen and continued faithfully until he died in 1914 at the age of 78. In 1855, when he was just 19, he moved from Illinois to Kansas Territory. These passages are from Samuels diary of 1861, when the war between the North and South is just beginning. Most of Samuels narration is about their every day struggle to raise livestock and produce enough crops to survive in the harsh Kansas climate. He includes copies of his letters home ...
Mar 04, 2009•10 min
Abraham Lincoln visited Kansas only once, in December 1859. This podcast features excerpts from Lincoln's speech as published in the Leavenworth newspaper and observations about the future president by people who saw him speak during that visit.
Feb 04, 2009•13 min
"The new Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery, nominated Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860. Lincoln took office only a month after Kansas was admitted to the Union. Excerpts from correspondence written by and to Kansans in 1859 and 1860 help us see how Lincoln was regarded in Kansas during the 1860 election."
Jan 07, 2009•8 min
"In early December of 1944, Second Lieutenant Martin Jones of the 106th Division of the Army moved through Belgium to the German border. Jones and his division were scattered through the Ardennes forest when the Germans began moving tanks across the border. The battle that ensued, called the Battle of the Bulge, lasted from December 16, 1944 through January 25, 1945 and claimed over 75,000 casualties and prisoners of war. He recalls the engagement and his subsequent capture at the hands of the G...
Dec 10, 2008•10 min
Participants in the Kansas Veterans of WW II Oral History Project, sponsored by the Kansas State Legislature, remember their service in the European and Pacific Theaters during the Second World War. This podcast features the reminiscences of Captain William W. Seitz, of Allen, Kansas, a pilot in the Army Air Core who flew missions out of North Africa and Victor A. McAtee, of Lyons, Kansas, who along with some 30,000 US Marines, aided in the capture of Iwo Jima.
Nov 12, 2008•11 min
In the spring of 1915, fifteen year old Harry Fine graduated from the Princeton Preparatory School in Princeton, New Jersey. That fall, he headed west to spend a year as a working cowboy in Maple Hill, Kansas. Harry's father, founder and headmaster of the Princeton Preparatory School, thought Harry could use some "real-life" experience before he continued his studies. Before he left home, Harry promised his parents he would write every week with an account of his adventures. His parents saved hi...
Oct 15, 2008•12 min
This podcast features two stories recorded by visitors to the Forces of Nature exhibit, currently on display at the Kansas Museum of History through January 9th, 2009. In the first segment, farmer and author Thomas Holmquist describes a 2007 flood on his farm in Saline County near Smolan. The second recording is by Holmquist's wife, Marlysue Esping-Holmquist. She describes the history of their farm and how it was obtained through an allotment system in 1868 by her ancestors, who didn't realize i...
Sep 17, 2008•11 min
The death penalty has always been controversial in Kansas. Executions were first halted in 1872, after the legislature passed a law requiring the governor to sign off on all execution orders. Capital punishment has continued to stir controversy, not only in the political arena, but in the hearts and minds of Kansans.
Aug 20, 2008•11 min
