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K-State Today

September 23, 2019

Summer issue of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains has been published

Submitted by Ginette Aley

Summer Issue

The summer issue of Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, a collaboration of the Kansas Historical Foundation and history department, is now available. 

The summer issue is a special issue devoted to the history surrounding the free-state Missouri River town called Quindaro. It includes provocative essays from a 2018 symposium that probed the town's meanings to its varied inhabitants and beyond.

Guest co-editors Tai S. Edwards and James N. Leiker introduce the issue with a brief discussion of Quindaro's historical founding — and the long journey to its 2019 designation as a national commemorative site.

The Reverend Stacy R. Evans considers Quindaro from the perspective of her role in pastoring at Allen Chapel AME Church.

John Nichols’s essay engages the Native American context in his focus on the Wyandot origins of the town.

While much has been written about the ideological battles over slavery expansion into Kansas Territory, Nicole Etcheson exposes the economic motivations among freestaters in their town-building efforts.

Ian H. Munro traces the different ways that Quindaro and its inhabitants were portrayed in local, regional and distant newspapers.

As Paul Wenske details in his essay, one of the more remarkable legacies connected to Quindaro was Western University, a historic black school, especially its music program — and the numerous notable music students who began their careers there.

Fred Whitehead brings attention to the significant struggle behind preservation efforts during the 1980s to save the Quindaro townsite.

Preservation also comes in the form of collecting oral histories, and these are the focus of Anna L. Jacobson’s essay. Her interviews with older residents cover the topics of childhood, community life, work and hopes for the future.

Finally, Leiker brings together the collective ideas of the contributors as lessons we can learn from historic Quindaro.

For more information, visit k-state.edu/history/kansas-history/