History and society
African-American Communities in the United States – An Overview Since 1865
LaBarbara James Wigfall, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, Regional & Community Planning
African-American settlements were established in every region of the United States following Emancipation. This presentation traces the founders’ lifestyles and the evolution of their communities.
Conducting a Community History Study
LaBarbara James Wigfall
This presentation focuses on techniques a student or community group might use to record the history of a place. Analyzing photographs, maps, county records, and interviews can be fascinating if you know how and where to use the clues. Learn more about community genealogy techniques.
Historic Campus Structures and Their Stories
Dr. Michaeline Chance-Reay, Professor of Secondary Education and Women’s Studies
History of Nicodemus, Kansas
LaBarbara James Wigfall
Nicodemus, in western Kansas (off Highway 24, between Stockton and Hill City), is the only remaining post-Civil War African-American settlement west of the Mississippi. Discover how the early settlers survived on the Plains and why Nicodemus still exists today.
Land-Grant Ladies: Kansas State University Presidential Wives, 1863-2011
Dr. Michaeline Chance-Reay
In 150 years Kansas State University has had 12 very responsible first ladies. Each was a woman with her own interests, a wife, and a mother before becoming a public figure. All had many family responsibilities, but they also contributed to the university and community in significant ways.
Lighthouses in the American Landscape
Dr. Kevin Blake, Professor of Geography
Rife with symbolism even when operating as navigational aids, lighthouses today have multifaceted meanings relating to nostalgia, preservation, faith, place-identity, and nationalism. Richly illustrated with photographs from the author’s fieldwork along the coastlines of the Atlantic, Pacific, Great Lakes, and Gulf of Mexico, this presentation examines how lighthouses have become local, regional, and national icons within the American cultural landscape. Several aspects of lighthouse symbolism are especially worthy of focus, including light station ownership, tower height, daymark designs, architecture, geographical setting, and tourism. The presentation features Cape Hatteras (North Carolina), Portland Head (Maine), Split Rock (Minnesota), and Heceta Head (Oregon) as some of the most iconic American lighthouses.
Postcards from the Prairie
Dr. Kevin Blake
Some people denigrate the plains of Kansas as “flyover country,” yet others (including the presenter) celebrate this same landscape as a special place in America’s heartland. This presentation examines how Kansas postcards portray the state’s rural environment. Postcards are a widely available, historically significant, and visually vibrant resource for studying how people perceive and communicate the image of a place. This visually engaging presentation includes about 45 postcards of Kansas agricultural and prairie environments that illustrate how geographers study perceptions of the environment and asks questions about what these postcards might say about how Kansans and tourists view the prairie.
Save It or Tear It Down? The Choices We Make For Progress
LaBarbara James Wigfall
Have you ever passed an old school house, church, or office building scheduled for demolition and wondered what it was like in its heyday? Isn’t it funny how we take ordinary places for granted until they’re threatened by redevelopment? This presentation highlights the issues and choices associated with removing or replacing a historic site or structure in a community.
U.S. Presidential Pets
Dr. Ronnie Elmore, Associate Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine
Zane Grey and Images of the American West
Dr. Kevin Blake
The fifty-five Western novels by Zane Grey crystallized a set of symbols for the American West in the minds of his millions of readers. He infused the frontier myth with vivid imagery of a sublime and beautiful landscape inhabited by heroic cowboys, deadly gunmen, polygamous Mormons, and noble Indians. Two of his books – Fighting Caravans and The Trail Driver – are set inKansas along theSanta Fe and Chisholm trails. Grey also localized the mythic West in and along the southern margin of the Colorado Plateau inArizona, so that his vision of the landscape became the quintessential West. Grey encouraged the belief that the Wild West extended well into the Twentieth Century by setting the action of nearly one-third of his Westerns in the first four decades of that century. Illustrated with vivid dust jacket covers and photographs of places featured in Grey’s work, this presentation discusses the significance of Zane Grey in how we think about Kansas and the West.