History of the KPC
Until 2005, the Kansas Population Center was known as the Population Research Laboratory. The early history of the PRL was connected to the Kansas State Agricultural Experiment Station. Its operation was supervised by exceptional scholars, such as Cornelia Butler Flora, Jan Flora, Donald Adamchak and Len Bloomquist. An important focus of the Population Research Laboratory was on rural America, backed by the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work which had a traditional research concentration in rural sociology.
The PRL was founded in 1967, 40 years ago. To celebrate this anniversary, we plan to put together a collection of memories, and publish a booklet as well.
The Population Research Laboratory in the media
The Population Research Laboratory was established in 1967, with the directorship of Joseph Disanto. The article, University To Establish Population Research Lab, in the Collegian (May 23, 1967) is the first local media information about the Lab.
Only a couple of weeks later (July 18, 1967) a somewhat longer Collegian article, Lab Tests Population Trends, discussed the research goals of the Population Research Laboratory.
This article in the Collegian is from 1990. At this time Len Bloomquist was the director, who in this article, Laboratory predicts demographic trends, talks about population projections as a possible contract operation for corporations.
One hot topic of the late 1990s was the increasing Hispanic immigration to the Midwest. In this article, published in the Olathe News, Len Bloomquist commented on this phenomenon.
In May 10, 2001 Len Bloomquist was cited in the New York Times when commenting on the demographic perspectives of Morland, KS. The article later appeared on the Citizen Review Online as well.
