Kansas History - Winter 2010/2011
Volume 33
Larry R. Gerlach, “Ernie Quigley: An Official for All Seasons”
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Little remembered today, Ernest C. Quigley, 1880–1960, was the “greatest” sports official in history and a legendary Kansas sports figure. A major league umpire from 1913 to 1938, he also for twenty-seven years annually refereed college football and basketball. During his forty-year career the first and only year-around major sports official traveled coast-to-coast from his home in St. Marys, Kansas, working some 5,400 baseball, 1,500 basketball, and 400 football games. In 1944 Quigley, a former University of Kansas athlete, returned to his alma mater as athletic director, promptly establishing the fiscal and programmatic foundation for KU athletic success. Posthumously enshrined in 1961 in the National Basketball Hall of Fame and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, Quigley’s contributions to the history of sports officiating and intercollegiate athletics administration, concludes Professor Gerlach, University of Utah, personify the nature of sport in America during the first half of the twentieth century.
Brian Carroll, “‘Praising my people’: Newspaper Sports Coverage and the Integration of Baseball in Wichita, Kansas”
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Race relations have received considerable attention in the pages of Kansas History during the past few years. Brian Carroll, associate professor in the Department of Communication at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, offers yet another new perspective by examining newspaper coverage in Wichita during the first half of the 1930s to show how commentators responded, and failed to respond, to increasingly interracial athletic competition as the decade progressed. “Praising my people” seeks to reveal the changes underpinning and animating integration in the American heartland in the Depression Era, more than a decade before Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers broke major league baseball’s color barrier. Examined are Wichita’s two dailies, the Wichita Eagle and the Wichita Beacon, as well as several weeklies, including the underused African American newspaper the Negro Star, a family-run newspaper for more than thirty years.
“A Message from the Governor, Charles Robinson, March 30, 1861”
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Southern secession from the Union made Kansas admission as the thirty-fourth state possible on January 29, 1861. Within days the territorial legislature adjourned for the final time, and Kansans, led by their first governor, Charles Robinson, were free to take the necessary steps to launch the first government of the State of Kansas. Robinson took the oath of office in Lawrence on February 9, 1861, once official word of Kansas admission had been received; the first Kansas State Legislature convened on March 26 in Topeka; and the governor delivered his first address to the assembled state legislature on Saturday morning, March 30, 1861, with the nation on the brink of a horrific Civil War. Governor Robinson’s address to that first legislature, edited for publication and printed in the winter issue of Kansas History, contains several observations, thoughts, and comments that we think are worthy of our reconsideration on the eve of Kansas’s statehood sesquicentennial.
In Memoriam
Editor’s Note
Reviews
Dammed Indians Revisited: The Continuing History of the Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux
by Michael L. Lawson
xxiv + 397 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2008, cloth $18.95.
Reviewed by Raymond Wilson, professor of history, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas.
Doris Fleeson: Incomparably the First Political Journalist of Her Time
by Carolyn Sayler
300 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Santa Fe, N.M.: Sunstone Press, 2010, cloth $32.95, paper $24.95.
Reviewed by Nancy Hulston, director of archives and the Clendening History of Medicine Museum, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas.
American Indians and the Fight for Equal Voting Rights
by Laughlin McDonald
xiv + 347 pages, notes, bibliography, index.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010, cloth $55.00.
Reviewed by Warren Metcalf, professor of history, University of Oklahoma, Norman.
The Quest for Citizenship: African American and Native American Education in Kansas, 1880–1935
by Kim Cary Warren
xvi + 229 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010, cloth $59.95, paper $24.95.
Reviewed by Marilyn Irvin Holt, independent researcher and author, Abilene, Kansas.
Hancock’s War: Conflict on the Southern Plains
by William Y. Chalfant
540 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Norman, Okla.: Artur H. Clark Company, 2010, cloth $59.95.
Reviewed by James E. Sherow, Department of History, Kansas State University, Manhattan.
Traditions of the Osage: Stories Collected and Translated by Francis La Flesche
edited by Garrick Bailey
xvi + 176 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008, cloth $29.95.
Reviewed by William J. Bauer, Jr., associate professor of history, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Deadly Dozen: Forgotten Gunfighters of the Old West. Volume 3
by Robert K. DeArment
xiv + 396 pages, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010, cloth $29.95.
Reviewed by Jim Hoy, director, Center for Great Plains Studies, Emporia State University.
Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush with Commentary and Primary Sources
edited by Gastón Espinosa<
xiv + 543 pages, illustrations, notes, index.
New York: Columbia University Press, Columbia Series on Religion and Politics, 2009, paper $34.50, cloth $89.50.
Reviewed by Alan Bearman, associate professor of history, Washburn University, Topeka.
Book Notes
Images of America: Lawrence Survivors of Quantrill’s Raid. By Katie H. Armitage. (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010, 128 pages, paper $21.99.)
When the smoke cleared on that hot August morning in 1863 and those who remained had time to assess the horrific damage wrought by William C. Quantrill and his irregulars, Lawrence survivors found 180 of their number—men and boys—murdered, “about 20 percent of the male population . . . leaving behind 85 widows and 250 fatherless children” (p. 10). Local historian Katie Armitage knows well this story of the raid and those left behind, and she captures it here with text and numerous historic photographs. It is a story of survival; those who survived to rebuild their lives and their town, while remembering the family, friends, and neighbors lost through speeches, memorials, and reunions—most notably on the fiftieth anniversary on August 21, 1913, and in 1925.
Beyond Mount Rushmore: Other Black Hills Faces. Edited by Mary A. Kopco. (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2010, 353 pages, paper $19.95.)
Although the “Great Stone Faces” on Mount Rushmore have attracted millions since their completion in 1941, they are not the only South Dakota faces that warrant attention, according to author and historical consultant Mary Kopoc. Her “anthology features a selection of [ten] memoirs, biographies, and essays written by and about Black Hills personalities,” and previously published in South Dakota History. The essays are wide-ranging and diverse, from Fred Powers, who cover the 1874 Black Hills Expedition as a newspaper reporter, to Lucretia Marchbanks, a former slave who made her way in the booming region as boardinghouse manager and hotel owner; from Wong Fee Lee, a prominent and successful Chinese merchant in Deadwood, to the legendary film maker Alfred Hitchcock and his classic, North by Northwest.
William Clark: Indian Diplomat. By Jay H. Buckley (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010, xx + 306 pages, paper $19.95.)
When originally published in 2008, the historian Michael Tate reviewed Jay Buckley’s William Clark: Indian Diplomat for Kansas History in light of the rush of Lewis and Clark bicentennial materials that had “flooded the market.” Buckley had, according to Tate, “seized this auspicious moment to interpret the entirety of Clark’s life in a single, readable volume. He views Clark as a complicated man who often found himself torn between the application of his own humane views of Indian-white relations, and his enforcement of punitive policies insisted upon by the federal bureaucracy” (31:233). As explorer, principal Indian agent for the tribes of the Louisiana Territory, governor of Missouri Territory, and the nation’s first superintendent of Indian affairs Clark deeply impacted the early nineteenth century history of the region from which Kansas was carved at mid-century.
General Sterling Price and the Confederacy.By Thomas C. Reynolds, and edited by Robert G. Schultz. (St. Louis: Missouri History Museum, 2009, 279 pages, paper $24.95.)
Commenced in 1867 but never finished or previously published, General Sterling Price and the Confederacy by Thomas C. Reynolds, Missouri’s secessionist governor, has been an important resource for historians studying the career of governor and general Sterling Price for many years. Unfortunately, the Reynolds manuscript ended just before Price’s 1864 raid, with its climax along the Missouri-Kansas border in late October, but C. A. Peterson, early twentieth century president of the Missouri Historical Society, to fill out the story, added additional material from the Official Records and elsewhere. The editor’s annotated endnotes are also quite helpful.
The Dairies of John Gregory Bourke: Volume Four, July 3, 1880–May 22, 1881. Edited and annotated by Charles M. Robinson III. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2009, xiv + 545 pages, cloth $55.00.)
As noted in the journal’s mention of volume three, John Gregory Bourke was aide-de-camp to Brigadier General George Crook and firsthand witness to the early Apache campaigns, the Great Sioux War, the Cheyenne Outbreak, and the Geronimo War. He also was a prolific diarist, filling 124 manuscript volumes with notes, sketches, and photographs. Volume four, edited and annotated by Charles M. Robinson III, a historian and fellow of the Texas State Historical Association, chronicles Bourke’s staff duties for General Crook’s Department of the Platte, the controversial relocation of the Ponca Indians, and his involvement with the Bureau of Ethnology.
Keeper of the Plains: Blackbear Bosin’s “Great Indian” in Wichita. By Margaret Williams Norton. (Oak Park, Ill.: the author, 2010, 173 pages, paper $12.95.)
The “Keeper of the Plains,” created by Kiowa-Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin (1921–1980), is located, as most Kansans probably know, on the banks of the Arkansas River near downtown Wichita. Since its dedication in May 1975, “Keeper” has become a symbol of the city and “a nearly sacred gathering place” for many American Indians, and in Keeper of the Plains Margaret Williams Norton appropriately explores the history and legacy of the iconic sculpture and the artist. Of the artist, she writes: “A charismatic figure about Wichita, with a well known public persona, Blackbear was a man with many friends. His was a generous spirit,” and his painting was informed by his deep knowledge of Indian history and lore.
Defining Moments: Historic Decisions by Arkansas Governors from McMath through Huckabee. By Robert L. Brown. (Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press, 2005, xvi + 151 pages, paper $19.95.)
A justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court and long-time politico, Robert L. Brown knew personally and/or worked for nine of the ten governors about whom he writes and offers here an accessible and effective approach to some of his states recent political history, from Governor Sid McMath (1949–1953) to Governor Mike Huckabee (1996–2007). Focusing on one critical decision or “defining moment” from each administration, Justice Brown provides insight into the character and style of his various gubernatorial subjects, several of whom—Orval Faubus, Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers, and Bill Clinton, in addition to Huckabee—gained some degree of national notoriety, both positive and negative. The issues of race and education are central to the “defining moments” of at least six of the ten Arkansas governors featured.
