Kansas History - Autumn 2024
Autumn 2024
(Volume 47, Number 3)
“Motherly Intentions: Potawatomi Women and the Society of the Sacred Heart in Early Kansas”
by Abigail Scott
In 1841, the Society of the Sacred Heart sent five women to establish a Catholic school in the Potawatomi village of Sugar Creek, Kansas. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart used “intimate colonialism” to assimilate Potawatomi women and children through education and religious conversion, using the Virgin Mary to bridge Potawatomi and Catholic practices. However, this article reveals the contentious nature of colonialism and assimilation in early Kansas. The Potawatomi maintained their cultural integrity while blending their traditional faith with Catholicism. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart made concessions with the Potawatomi to remain in the village and simultaneously had to justify their presence among the Potawatomi to both American and French institutions. This story demonstrates the complexities of colonial regimes in the U.S. borderlands, as well as the support these colonial missions received from metropolitan sites.
“A Contribution to Victory: Western University’s Vocational Training Program for World War I”
by Bernard Harris
Western University was an educational institution that trained and educated predominately African American students in Quindaro, Kansas, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This article examines the university’s contributions to the U.S. Army from 1917 to 1918 during World War I. It includes a brief synopsis of Western University’s origins, its educational contributions to the local community, the U.S. Army’s vocational training program, its impact on civilian students on campus, and finally Western’s significant contribution to the war effort. This research supports Western University’s little-known claim to the Governor of Kansas in 1918 that it was one of the best educational institutions in the nation. Examining Western’s vocational program provides a glimpse into the operation of the university in a time of crisis. However, information about the program is scarce, which makes the limited resources available from surviving university records and National Archives holdings even more important to portray Western’s role in the war.
The Political Roots of City Managers in Kansas
by H. Edward Flentje, with a foreword by H. Edward Flentje and Chase M. Billingham
Cities across Kansas adopted the manager form of government in the twentieth century. This structure, wherein most administrative responsibilities are delegated to a professional manager appointed by a local elected governing body, was designed as a model of “good government”; it would depoliticize local government, professionalize civil service, and root out corruption, graft, and scandal. Despite its nonpolitical orientation, implementing the manager plan involved highly politicized and partisan campaigns in the 1910s, especially in the city of Wichita, where the proposal faced substantial resistance. This article by H. Edward Flentje, originally published in Kansas History in 1984, traces the origins of the manager from of government, its major proponents (especially Wichita Beacon publisher and future governor and U.S. senator Henry J. Allen), and the political struggles that ensued, leading ultimately to its spread across Kansas. In the new foreword to the reprinted article, Flentje and urban sociologist Chase M. Billingham provide historical and political context, update some of the original findings, and situate the legacy of this research within the tradition of urban historical scholarship in Kansas.
Editor's Note
Book Reviews
Book Notes
