A Visit to the Kansas History Museum; Unknown

after a long strange year the doors are open at the kansas museum of history in topeka i'm j mcintyre today and k pr presents we're visiting their museum and their exhibit upward to equality kansas women fight to vote mary madden is the director of the kansas museum of history marriott it's great to see you thank you and glad to visit with the spent a long time there has been a longtime take us back to march twenty twenty and the date they can says museum of history closed its doors for what would be upwards of fourteen months hard to believe yeah it coincided with the opening of this exhibit so we were all ready to have a grand opening on friday march twentieth and it never happened and so we've dusted the exhibit through the months and now we're ready to open that tomorrow i'm it was created to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the passage of the twenty eight of the nineteenth amendment giving

women the right to universal suffrage in nineteen twenty so we just carry on that commemoration one more year what it felt like to close the doors of a museum for upwards of a year yes and it the area it took awhile to sink in and then because of the same professional organizations i've thank goodness for the web because we start talking to our colleagues and seeing what they're doing and well i just ducked low water paddling handling you know what are you doing what's happening and we decided to go as fertile as we could arm so we talked to some teachers about what they needed and we created lessons on that but the program called near pod so they're itself contain lessons but interactive says students can do the last in line and then the teacher can grate it so when we did that we went to virtual tours which we learned surprisingly the students are much better on virtual tours and

so we have a hundred yards out in haste a hundred kids under two or read not be manageable and these kids were good is called ask great questions were thinking you know maybe what were on a continuum because you just trying to get to the museum here in eastern kansas is prohibitive are too many schools and so for thirty dollars an hour ah we'll give them a to work with the guide any answer other questions and bob it's just been a great success we also created and the teacher newsletter and there included in that a lot of short videos that they could use about like the pain and demand or different topics along so we just come edward pettit but we've been very very busy trying to share our resources our educational resources in particular do with schools when you talk about taking a hundred kids and two were of the museum so this isn't just like you push a button and the two were

starts band and you're watching a video of someone walking through tor it's actually it's interactive so we do it with tom hanson just it's like it isn't call and so there and there and an asian have a big screen and out we have one person half domain that person speaking and then that tour guide or are staff person at this point is we're close when the volunteers know temporary staff all that sale eat they would give it to her and we could really streamlined it right to exactly what the students or teachers were interested in and it's been really successful and we hope armed teachers will take advantage of what they said the kids were good is called the day the house address questions that we can take them in the collection storage to see our storage area with a hundred and twenty thousand things on which you can take or don't want to take you know a bunch of fourth graders into a storage area like that that

i don't share their events center and we'll be glad to give your tour that's so interesting marriage as i think probably many people think ok the museum is closed nothing is happening in here it until you reopen the doors but that was not at all the case for the cancer's museum of history yale and we also a bomb converted art museum after arts program so it was it's a friday night lecture it's a second friday of the month and we started it with calm are major exhibit on our imams cruel hughes who was in world war one and world were tunes called captured on because he went to in that national party went to on taxes to capture poncho via and then under pershing he joined the army and went to world war one and captured world one with his filming here is photographer and then he stayed in the military and was sent to the philippines in october of forty one and so it

wasn't very long after that he was captured at the time in april of forty two and spent four months captured as her four years as a pure blooded annie kept a diary so we transcribe the diary and the family had given us all these materials so i'll we started out a lecture series with that and now we've grown so it's grown so much liquid might ever heard the other day and he was talking about on the oceans of kansas and masa solar isn't we've had these talks and santa fe trail and so that's virtually ah and it's free it's on friday nights at six thirty and people can sign in hand ask us questions over chat and it's been so successful and so rewarding because not only do we get locals but we get people from all over kansas oliver the united states and all over the world it's like oh brazil just checked in what how so it has been a lot of work because it's not like or luddites but you know it it's like

okay we're learning and there are resources out there you know there's a google for that so we kept dr pierce and just cloud and i'm visiting with mary madden she's the executive director of the kansas museum of history and to peek out which has just reopened its doors after fourteen months of being close to marry you when you come to the museum now if it back to business as usual or are there some adjustments economy we'd have to make adjustments are probably the biggest one the public will know this is our limited hours we're ten before wednesday through saturday time that is due to oil that's all the staffing we can afford it and i wish we could be open more our special exhibit gallery the main gallery will be open the discovery place were still holding off on that maybe for another month just to get a little bit pascoe because it is a hands on gallery and arm and people don't have to wear masks

and so there with the hands and gallery their children cisco every center in town make sure masse because there's so much and so we just decided we're just going to keep a close intimate see how things go and go but the nature trails open and a lot of things to do out here when i was driving an act so if i saw a number of people out on the nature trail and i think that's something that maybe people aren't really familiar with that they kansas historical society has quite extensive and beautiful grounds out here in topeka can you describe the setting a little bit so we decided to move the museum i don't hear how one of the attractions besides they own the finding came from a local who wanted the museum built out here in gave us a good price on the eighty one acres company was having the space to do that support their programming and the historic mission is out here so we use that for programming as well i am brad lubben says now secretary of wildlife and parks

are god bless him he was with the west are and he helped us set up or nature trail and we interpret it not as a you know this is a locust tree or this is poison ivy or wherever but talking about how people adapted to the plane's so how they changed what was prairie into guardian what building material they had so you'll see examples of stone fences i'm barb wire fences at hedge osage orange fences i'm and then there's the woodland airy as seton go through c of update prairie areas one these trail the north's trill is more woodland because it's by the river and then i'll have another prairie area with our winner in school so you can walk to the school and say in general i understand you know whatever the animals were here who lived here how wood

trails went through here historically so yes it's an educational to work to self guided tour it's beautiful it is that i saw several people out walking and i thought you know when we're done here i might go join them and go walk around the grounds there somewhere checks out there and say yeah it's always finally see bobcats lot a deer but the which records in beavers there are favorites mary madden she's the director of the kansas museum of history in topeka they've reopened this week and with that there've been opening of their exhibit upward to equality kansas women fight to vote mary tell me about the sink fitbit and what was so special about that fight for the vote here in kansas well i think it's a real educational opportunity people i am i unfortunately don't think a lot of things have happened in kansas and boy are they wrong sale of the women's movement and especially on the vote for

suffrage a kansas led the way in now i'm in during vietnam reading cam says there are the abolitionists who came out were against slavery they were also for women's rights so so after the civil war the leading suffragist in the east chose kansas to be kept the first battle for universal suffrage because kansas led the way against slavery so they thought if anybody's going to have the right for women to vote they came to kansas elizabeth cady stanton susan b anthony they all came out here and they failed but aren't they tried mean you're out here campaigning day they wasn't ready for it at one of the down follows that a teen sixties ever in campaign was this split between the african americans and both men and

women and white women would need to step in here you mean the split between people who wanted to give african american men and women the right to vote generally the men and people who wanted to have that to specifically focus on giving white women rate about three echo as a lead to a split in the suffrage on leadership and so susan b anthony and elizabeth cady stanton for it the national suffrage organization that focus primarily and given white women the right to vote and there were black women who we're working for suffrage but they were isolated it's a product of the time and then frederick douglass and lucy stone formed the other anti american people suffered association because as frederick douglass said you know i'm fighting for my life and

eventually the man was black man did get the right to vote may eighteen seventy with the fifteenth amendment so this exhibit was also celebrating the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of black male suffrage as we know unfortunately we jim crow laws and everything it wasn't until the civil rights or inactivated sixty five that things got better but as we look at our society today when george floyd and black lives matter first of a long way to go what types of things are you hoping that people learn from your upper to equality exhibit here at the cancer's museum of history well i don't really like them to know how in the forefront kansas was first with the eighteen sixty seven messages show amendment which failed but i'm also because of clarinet cause a lobbying during the curatorial period of women kansas women were the first to get the right to vote in school elections in the nation so that was a biggie and so that

was the president and then come in at eighty seven women got the right to vote in municipal or city elections and that was the first as well and we also i also at that time an elected the first mayor woman mayor ice is an assault are from air gonyea and then the first all women count city council was in syracuse and then later the next year in ask a loose and say oh that was the first when the women got the right to go and city elections and so that was eighteen eighteen eighty seven now and at ninety four they tried to pass to another constitutional amendment and some of that failure as a result of love that weighs in at ninety three there was the populists a fight with the republicans or democrat the politics were right to get organized and so that failed and so they try once again with some new leadership during the progressive movement arm under

lucy johnson and that they eventually gain the right to vote when the eighth state in the union to gain the right to vote on november fifth nineteen twelve so where ahead of the curve and when they come out they'll be older see a map that you know wyoming was the first to give women the right to vote and if you look at this map the pump that all the states they gave women the right to vote or in the west and people have wondered about a lot of things there but it was is probably a combination of the right time you know there but i think it was clear in the nichols said that you know the people in vermont where she came from and the eighteen fifties were too set in their ways so here you have a frontier arm everything's changing so it gave it was right so then kansans after nineteen twelve when east and south and worked on the national level with carrie chapman catt and alice paul so we were very

active on campaigning arm to continue for for women's suffrage and two things that are interesting i think in this the whole battle was alice paul took the british model says she was the compound of what she did the hunger strikes and sail a woman from auburn humes is nina calendar she designed and jailed for freedom and so if you were on a hunger strike you got the pin and then you only woman from kansas who earn that was at the boutwell mean roosevelt and says she actually got the pinch you went to that degree i'll cherish carrie chapman catt he developed the winning play and she was more working with in the political machine adam lobbied will center as did house pull back as and woodrow wilson yes president woodrow wilson you're here women are going into the nurse corps making

sacrifices going into the work force and yet they don't have the right to vote and finally he caved and so the susan b anthony amendment it was written and passed and ratified in nineteen twenty and visit with mary madden she's the director of the kansas museum of history in topeka which has just reopened its doors this week after a long time being closed because of a coven nineteen pandemic nair you've mentioned clear in a nickel a couple of times longtime listeners to keep your presents we may remember that we've had a presentation by kansas author diana i caught it was done the greatest living history portrayal of corona nichols talked a little bit about how corin and nichols was and how she came to him take up this banner i think a lot of these women who

came out were you know like susan b anthony in and they were in families that are valued women's education so you have that background images you know we're out of nothing i mean she came out here with her husband for the abolitionists fight ham but she was tenacious and she attended the constitutional convention and she would sit there were turned eighteen and then lobby people afterwards and she is credited with giving or three things under the wind that constitution which was written eighteen fifty nine and passed on kansas day january twenty nine eighteen sixty one out clearing and nickels secured liberal property rights for kansas women equal guardianship of their children and the right to vote in all the school elections so very successful do you think that's a hundred years later we've kind of

forgotten how hard these women fought to get something that we so take for granted and take for granted to it to a degree that a lot of americans and a lot of kansans don't vote yes and also i think technology today you know you forget that these women came out here in rodin buggies and we get like a hundred speeches a month and we have a wall in the exhibit a wall of ink wells and parents because that's how they were writing and communicating there was a man at this instant communication our and that's why we named the exhibit women fight to two vote wildly kansas museum of history was closed of the past year where there are parts of this exhibit we were still able to bring into kansans and other virtual visits the museum a while celebrations were going on virtually across the country emily collette as a

christian yes we did a videotape of the exhibit and sarah down who is a history and just that or pitched in history she was our guest curator is she had just done all this research on this topic and so we found her in the gallery so that you go online you can see that there's also a lesson plans with her video and there's a number of other videos that we posted out there so people can see the collection see our exhibits but i hope they take an opportunity to see the exhibit also the publication which was funded on by women lawyers the catalog is available online but also in print some people wanna heart happy they can just write us or send one or if they come out here they can pick one up and visiting with mary madden and today's k pr presents she's the director of the kansas museum of history we've been talking about upward to equality kansas women fight to vote married this is not the

only exhibit going on at the kansas museum of history what else is happening here this month well we have a wonderful collection of memory paintings by a woman in kansas city she grew up in strawberry hill her name is mariana gray's neck and she has graciously donated a large portion of her collection to us and we are putting section seven up in the hallway so she grew up in the thirties forties fifties and this croatian community arm very insulated and sochi has paintings were she records her memories of fear of weddings making pull the teeth that sliding it's whiners dump which was owned by mr sliger but she said really was an adult i have you know going to the church of holy days i'm so it's a wonderful snapshot of that time period and strawberry hill i fell to half of it was carved out when seventy went through so they lost half their

community but these croatian settlers came in they worked at home the meatpacking plants a lot of them so there's pictures of that in our prize and she's it's just so fun and she's a very good artist would you describe them as the memory paintings i am unfamiliar with that term i think some people are caught like folk art because she wasn't trained professionally but har du xi is recording its memory so scientists creating something that is visually appealing and she's actually recording this without words what it was like in the old country was like to come here on as she has to know that women hanging wanderin monday morning and women pass it being and killing chickens for dinner or and so you get a sense of what it was like it's the most voter groups but thinking and that's a temporary exhibit it will be ongoing but since we have so many we're going to change a quarterly so watch tom is if people would really like to know what's going on here they shoot

join our e newsletter seven our website e newsletter sign up it's free and then once a month you find outlaw them the great things were doing on your website is kate as h s dot org for kansas state historical society dot org so you can look there to find out what's happening at the kansas museum of history but there is one other exhibit going on here that i wanted to talk about june is gay pride month and they canvass museum of history has an exhibit that kind of ties into that yes and it scabs more just a case of the whole exhibit but gilbert baker and the man who designed the gay pride flag is he was born in june you'd grow up in persons and gary tennis fast as he can at the pace that dorothy take me away because it was not a very welcoming environment in the sixties he joined the army or navy during the vietnam war and they settled in san francisco and

at that point he became more activist arm and he designed our flag with you eight and nine stripes a rainbow flag and be because of commercial purposes now it's six stripes that you'll recognize that i am unfortunately he died several years ago and these were he made a series of flags right before he died and we are very fortunate one of the last like see made so where we feel so privileged because he has a kansan he led to a very important movement in america and so kansans are still influencing the nation and we want people to realize that there is a lot of things coming out of kansas i am so glad you said that because i think you're in the middle of a country we tend to think oh you know kansas history is kansas history without necessarily having a sense that kansans have done some amazing things whether it's creating the first gay pride flag

or really you leading the way it in the fight for women's votes well and here is a little known secret so the equal rights amendment it was introduced by dickinson's it was charles curtis and susan b anthony's brother daniel anthony so was introduced in nineteen twenty three in the legislature or in congress of course it didn't pass and then it was eisenhower who re introduced it in the fifties so we have been interested in women's rights for a long time and the married men she's the director of the kansas museum of history just reopened after more than a year of being closed let's go take a look at that upward to recall the exhibit glad to we've walked into the main exhibit area at the kansas museum of history and mary we were talking about this a little earlier tell me about what we're looking at here we're looking at the gilbert baker flag and so it

has nine stripes this one arm and the some of the early fights had eight stripes and i read that there were some issues with the color pink and and having it in august production issues so that i think they're trapped and now it's down to six colors for this winter from lavender painted red orange yellow green light blue royal blue purple and he so that it looks very much like something you've sown i meet your machine you know it's it's not totally straight down looks like it looks like something i would so that the cities that probably stated it looks very homespun when they sent it to say also send us pictures of the flight just like this one mounted just like this city gave the president obama so we're in very good company there's these fighters are very rare and very coveted how did the

kansas museum of history that well up since he is from kansas we reached out and richard clarke he actually who used to work at the spencer art museum and i said keep this may be interested in this and just gave us a tip like any collection people have ideas and we followed up on it and they were very happy to have it to give it to us they wanted to make sure it stayed on display not put in a closet we said we can do that and so it will be on permanent display whether new exhibits when we do new exhibit sell it's a treasure as are so many things here in macon says museum of history i feel like this is such a it's such a gem thank you so let's take a look at or upward to equality exhibit this is radio so our listeners can't see this bikini you tell me what we're looking out so we're talking about the eighteen fifties in a tin sixties so this are you writing at writing utensil so that they

were pencils or canon ink so we have painting clothes and pink wells come from that time period to illustrate doubt writing campaigns to women you know they don't have that and technology we do today to share their message so they were giving like cherries but also writing to legislators who can summon the mayor's thumb just anyone who would listen and trying to get their support so it it's an example love i think you look at what are these squirrels and ink wells some of them are really beautiful you know somewhat quite utilitarian but others are really beautiful and i think more than anything it just gives you a sense of the physical act of writing we tried to get a body in here that are baggy resume in good enough shape because that would also strip and this is pre trains they're

doing and mainly eastern kansas cassettes would settle but they're out there in a horse and buggy going from town to town to town to give talks at churches at any any poems a place people would gather mary when a carrier attention to another political cartoon and its first one that shows a father holding on to twins ends is that why presumably going off to vote on election day so this was a type a propaganda put out by anti suffrage organizations that the walls would be reversed so if women got the right to vote than men would be stuck at home in an apron yeah and then i am i want to throw another one says i want to vote for my wife won't let me also a neighbor india and this one at the bottom it has this little hen party for president mrs henry a pack down the hen pecked husband for vice president misses

william nack you know there's that beautiful silver set over here so pretty pride sugar cream or swell that this section of the gallery is dealing with it eighteen eighties when the women's christian temperance movement really gets started so at anyone is kansas becomes the first state to prohibit alcohol and so they get e c t was very powerful and though suffrage women were there was a hand in glove they all supported a we worked with each other anonymous and campaigns and so this is the tea set that was served a caring nation ahmed she comes a little later she is more like nineteen hundred nineteen oh one but this is an example of how women got their message across sitting down having tea with other women with politicians out and one of the things keynes and should be really proud of is that

the national women's suffrage movement recognize kansas for their leadership by picking the color yellow for their movement after the kids a sunflower i'm a yellow was one of their colors but i didn't realize that was why his kansas have led the way and so they chose yellow for kansas where there is a beautiful dress over here and an ax this is carrie nation i have a feeling maybe we were headed yeah well i mean carrie nation stuff and carrie nation he shares some great quotes you refuse me the boat and i had to use a rock arch if i could vote by when smash so again that i am anti liqueur but also women's suffrage and says thirteen by nineteen hundred and nineteen oh one that's when she really got rolling in smash and saloons with this address and actually you are actually her dress and she would have in her handbag we have for him big two she would

have little hatchet pins that she would sell for five dollars we have her bible they're not on display right now but yeah she she was internationally known for her activism you could do some real damage about x oh yeah way pictures you know so instance tear the chancellor that says so in an enterprise but look on her face when i don't think she took no for an answer i think she she lived i think she really liked her role and her celebrity she was a hundred and twenty percent dedicated to everything she did bomb this is a quote that's been the ads also in the video two are betting nation's words quote the loving more influence of mother's best be put in the ballot box free men must be the sons or free women to elevate men you must first elevate women a nation cannot rise higher than their mothers in ok oh mary there is a beautiful

quilts here what is this so this is a quote that belongs to recede brown johnston and her husband who is state was leading the campaign kansas for i suffer age now when we actually got the right to vote in nineteen twelve women got the right to vote and it was there are several things happening on her husband was chief justice walter stubbs was governor supported the movement so right time things are coming together and the quote was made in given to her and her husband and it has the ribbons about the kansas equal suffrage association then all kinds of years the kansas federation of women's clubs so what serves on political ribbons it's a crazy quilt named because it's not put some put together in any specific order would increase for all those ribbons and then we have a campaign banner that was

carried in a lot of parades it says eighteen sixty seven so the first campaign for suffrage and then nineteen twelve we have some buttons arm and arm so another artifact it's got a funny story it's address it's called a humble skirt a dress and you don't get you don't really see i think theres a draw strength but hubble skirts were popular for a very short period of time in the nineteen teens and what they were was they were gathered around the ankles so this woman marrying king of garnette war this third to vote the first time she could vote tonight june fourteenth well she walked downhill to the voting parlor and then she couldn't walk up hill quite so well and she had to get a cab to get so there's a skirt was too tight so it's kind of it's a beautiful dress it's beautiful but it's it's almost like mc hammer pants but it is a drastic cuts are gathered really tight around that apple's it looks like it would be impossible to walk in and

they were popular for very short kerry time and there's a reason for the square just thought that stitching it is amazing and to know that that was the dress she wore and that she took bodin so seriously she never enter a light mist an election she was so proud to be able to vote and then speaking of clothing over here you've got a military unit it's a world war one nurse's uniform and that the fact that we entered the war in nineteen seventeen arm and women were helping with the war effort as a nurse taking over men jobs it was just that extra log in the fire that said come on you know we deserve the right to vote president wilson was not so supportive of it and if you look here there were protestors outside the white house and they carried palm signs but they also have sanctions and this one's the university of kansas so there is a woman from the university

of kansas and he's a big universities and they were just hanging out going as harassing the president i love this there's a banner mr president how long must women wait for liberty and on one side that banner is someone from k you on the other side of that there is someone from the university of missouri well obviously they get together and this is you are able to agree on the us led strikes me that one of the things that i've been drawn to it looking at this exhibit is that clothing that people wore what about that close of an arrow that really brings home history in a really personal way clothing is a reflection of the timing and just look at what people wear to it in our very relaxed you are and war is our great watershed for changing clothing like a home during a world where one scripts got shorter i mean

that rick shortage world were to again they get tighter because the fabric shortage clothing hair or furniture the top art of design and is part of a change in society and you can look at closely in it it does say about a specific iran and what was acceptable so the end of the exhibit talks about what happened after the nineteenth amendment passed and was ratified in nineteen twenty so what first happened in kansas after that on one of them outcomes of the nineteenth amendment was of affirmation of the leak of kansas so women voters aren't end carrie chapman catt who was so you're on the suffrage amendment became the first president a woman from wichita was on the nominating committee um so again we're right there and then because winning kansas had the right to

vote in nineteen twelve we have our first a female legislator in nineteen eighteen many grinstead from sewer county arm at that point i am the superintendent of public instruction was an elected official so lizzy was during ninety nine team we talked a little bit earlier about how with the equal rights amendment that followed the nineteenth amendment it was to kansans who introduced the equal rights amendment by senator charles curtis and representative daniel anthony in nineteen twenty three and when that failed president eisenhower introduced and endorsed it again in nineteen fifty of course both failed sadly and so we end with this poster of women to show that yes we've made changes back you have as recently as nineteen seventy eight you have nancy a binding kassebaum the first woman elected to the kansas senate are first governor nineteen eighties saw a lot of very recent

changes and here with shri status who is one of two native american women elected in twenty eighteen and the first openly gay woman so we settle i had this come but we are making progress i did visit with mary madden she's the director of the kansas museum of history and topeka mary thank you so much for taking us through this exhibit today what it was fun i'd missed it i haven't looked at it in the year it's coming back to life yeah so this is what we do or you can find out more about what's happening at the kansas museum of history at your website k s h s dot org marry again this has been great thin fine thank you so much thank you i'm kate mcintyre keep your prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas