Kansas Historical Society

Worrall’s guitar music revived

Lawrence, Kansas, guitarist Brian Baggett is bringing the music of Henry Worrall to life through interpretive performances of Worrall’s original music manuscripts held by the Kansas Historical Society (KSHS). Video and audio recordings of Baggett’s performances are now available on kansasmemory.org.

 

Henry Worrall moved to Topeka, Kansas, in 1868 and became widely known for his illustrations of the American west. But decades earlier in Cincinnati, Ohio, Worrall was a musician and composer of popular guitar instrumentals. Worrall’s “Sebastopol” and “Spanish Fandango” were widely published as parlor guitar music promoted primarily to young women. They also became standard pieces in many self-instruction manuals for the guitar through the early Twentieth Century.

 

Through these compositions, Worrall’s open-tuned, finger-picked style of guitar playing influenced guitar players for many decades. Some contemporary musicians and music historians think Worrall’s compositions provided the foundation for the development of nascent country and blues guitar styles in the American rural south in the last century.

 

The wife of Henry Worrall’s grandson, Anton Worrall, donated Henry Worrall’s personal music collection to the Kansas Historical Society in 1968. The collection remained unknown for nearly forty years. Then, in 2007, a researcher from Atlanta, Georgia, helped explain why the collection is important to understanding the development of early country and blues music. KSHS described the collection and published it on kansasmemory.org the same year. Since then, the collection’s availability online has led to a renewed interest in Worrall’s compositions and their influence on popular music in the Twentieth Century.

 

Baggett is focusing on Worrall’s original manuscripts because they likely document the way Worrall actually performed the pieces. Published sheet music was often simplified to make it accessible to a broader public. Baggett has interpreted “Sebastopol” and “Carmencita” from original, undated manuscripts in the Worrall collection. Sebastopol is Worrall’s most famous composition and was published in Ohio as early as 1856. By contrast, Carmencita appears to be a later composition, the only known printed copy having been published in 1896 by E. B. Guild in Topeka, Kansas.

Recordings of Baggett’s performances are now available on kansasmemory.org. For more information, or to contact Brian Baggett, see his website at www.brianbaggettband.com . More information on the Worrall collection is available on the KSHS website at Henry Worrall Collection. View Henry Worrall materials on Kansas Memory by selecting the category People - Notable Kansans - Worrall, Henry, 1825-1902.

Menninger Historic Psychiatry Collection

The Menninger Historic Psychiatry Collection includes many notable individuals in the field of psychology and psychiatry. Other individuals such as King George III (right) are included for being famously “mad”. The material found in this collection was donated to or collected by members of the Menninger family. The activities and achievements of the following individuals are highlighted in this collection.

Lucio Bini discovered electro-convulsive shock therapy, aided by fellow Italian Ugo Cerletti, in 1938. Anton Boisen headed the clinical pastoral education movement which taught the benefits of having hospital chaplains and theology in the mental health setting. Dorothea Dix was a mental health advocate and activist for designated mental health facilities and asylums dedicated to the treatment of those suffering from a mental illness. Henry Havelock Ellis was a British psychologist who studied human sexuality. Anna Freud and her father, Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, often corresponded with members of the Menninger family. This photograph (below) shows Anna Freud meeting Dr. Karl Menninger and Dr. Bob Menninger. Harry Guntrip was a psychoanalyst who published several works relating to the development of the psyche based on one’s environment. William James was an American psychologist and philosopher. Herman S. Major operated a psychiatric facility devoted to the treatment of alcoholics in Kansas City, Missouri. Silas Weir Mitchell was an American physician who specialized in neurology and authored many poems and short stories. Florence Nightingale pioneered the field of nursing in the 19th Century. Nina Ridenour authored a fifty year history of mental health in the United States, as well as many other publications. Benjamin Rush, in addition to being a signatory of the Declaration of Independence, is known as the “Father of American Psychology.” Elmer Ernest Southard directed the Boston Psychopathic Hospital and mentored Dr. Karl Menninger. Frankwood E. Williams directed the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. Walker Winslow authored a biography about the Menninger family. 

Lincoln conspirator gallows section

Lincoln conspirators' gallows in Kansas?

Posted by Michael Church (Digital Projects Coordinator) on Jan 18, 2013

Most people know that John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. What many people don’t know is that Lincoln’s assassination was part of a larger conspiracy, one meant to disable the entire United States government. In addition to Booth, federal agents identified eight other people involved in the plot to kill the president and key members of his cabinet. At their trial, four were sentenced to prison terms; the remaining four were sentenced to hang, an order that was carried out on July 7, 1865. Mary Surratt was among those executed, making her the first woman to be executed for a crime in the United States.

After the execution, the gallows used in the execution were disassembled and moved to the Old Arsenal in Washington, D.C., the pieces hidden in a pile of timber to discourage souvenir seekers. In 1885, the Secretary of the Kansas Historical Society heard of the scaffold’s location and wrote to the Quartermaster, requesting a piece for the society’s collections. He received a nearly three-foot long, rectangular-shaped piece of wood. It is part of the Society’s collections to this day.

Could this piece of wood really be part of the gallows on which the Lincoln conspirators hanged? In 2009, Barry Cauchon, a researcher who focuses on the conspirators and their execution, began an in-depth study of the gallows fragment. Using primary source documents from the Kansas Historical Society and other sources, as well as photos of the gallows from the day of the execution, Cauchon set out to prove the authenticity of the artifact. After three years of work, he will present his findings at a special program funded through a grant from the Kansas Humanities Council. Cauchon will speak at the Kansas Historical Society at 7 p.m. Saturday, February 2, 2013, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 3, 2013. Washburn University history professor Rachel Goossen will speak about the historical events that led to the execution and Museum Registrar Nikaela Zimmerman will discuss the artifact’s provenance. The program is free to the public.

Photos of the gallows fragment are forthcoming.

See the Execution of the Conspirators photo held by the Library of Congress for a view of the whole gallows.

Post by KSHS Museum Registrar Nikaela Zimmerman

Thomas County Cat (Kansas) newspaper

Search the Thomas County Cat newspaper and related titles from 1885-1891 on Chronicling America.

The premier issue of the Thomas County Cat was published in Colby, Kansas, on March 12, 1885. It was the first newspaper in Thomas County, which was not officially organized until October 8, 1885. Although the number of pages in each issue fluctuated between four and ten, the Cat maintained a six-column folio format, weekly publication on Thursdays, and a Republican affiliation. The Cat proclaimed it was “celebrated for its originality” and acknowledged itself as the “Official County and City Paper.” In 1885, Thomas County had only 981 inhabitants, two-thirds of which were single and male. From a rather inauspicious beginning of fourteen subscribers during its first month, circulation swelled to 960 five years later in 1890, exceeding the population of Colby by at least one hundred and equaling one issue for every six residents of the county. 

A motto appeared on the first issue only: “It purrs for Thomas County.” General interest and adoration towards the newspaper’s chosen mascot led it to be referred to as simply “the Cat”. In the first address to subscribers, publishers D.M. Dunn and Eugene P. Worcester wrote: “The Cat will purr for Thomas county, and what we deem the best interests of all her people…The Cat has velvet paws, but will not allow the fur to be stroked the wrong way. To all concerned it would be well to remember that a Cat has nine lives, and farther [sic] that a Cat is greatly attached to a place where located.” The Cat was printed in a 12’ x 14’ sod structure, which was also used as a boardinghouse. The newspaper readership expanded when “the editor agreed to take anything but native fuel as payment for subscriptions.” Later, the Cat moved to the first frame building in Colby, located at 452 N. Franklin Street.

The Thomas County Cat experienced frequent administrative changes in the mid-1880s. During its short six-year tenure, the paper had at least nine known editors and publishers. In November 1890, the Cat absorbed the Brewster Gazette, also published in Thomas County. A few months later in February 1891, the Cat was absorbed by the Colby Tribune, which continued until 1925.

Search the Thomas County Cat newspaper and related titles from 1885-1891 on Chronicling America.

"When anything is going to happen in this country, it happens first in Kansas."

William Allen White, 1934