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Kansas: State Resource Guide

Digital Collections

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials related to Kansas, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, photographs, sheet music, and sound recordings. Provided below is a link to the home page for each relevant digital collection along with selected highlights.

Written materials in the Library's digital collections include but are not limited to books, pamphlets, government documents, and manuscripts. Examples of written materials related to Kansas are provided for the collections listed below.

Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents. The Lincoln Papers are characterized by a large number of correspondents, including friends and associates from Lincoln's Springfield days, well-known political figures and reformers, and local people and organizations writing to their president.

Selected highlights from this collection:

African American Perspectives: Materials Selected from the Rare Book Collection

The African American Perspectives collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummel, and Emanuel Love. Use the search box to find Kansas items.

Alfred Whital Stern Collection of Lincolniana

Alfred Whital Stern (1881-1960) of Chicago presented his outstanding collection of Lincolniana to the Library of Congress in 1953. The collection containing more than 11,100 items, documents the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) both through writings by and about Lincoln as well as a large body of publications concerning the issues of the times including slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and related topics. It includes the complete collection of Stern's contemporary newspapers, Lincoln's law papers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, letters, campaign tickets, and other ephemeral items. You can browse the collection by location to find several items related to Kansas.

American Notes: Travels in America, 1750 to 1920

The collection comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907. Use the location index to search for Kansas related items.

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers Project 1936 to 1938

The collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration and assembled and microfilmed in 1941. Browse the collection by location to find Kansas related items.

Carrie Chapman Catt Papers

The collection reflects Catt's steadfast dedication to two major ideals--the rights of women, particularly the right to vote, and world peace with the bulk of the material dating from 1890 to 1920. Items from Kansas are represented.

A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875

The collection consists of a linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875. Search the full text using the search term Kansas for items relating to the state.

Selected highlights from this collection:

Clara Barton Papers

The papers of nurse, educator, philanthropist, and lecturer Clara Barton (1821-1912) consist of correspondence, diaries and journals, reports, addresses, legal and financial papers, organizational records, lectures, writings, scrapbooks, biographical material, printed matter, memorabilia, and other papers. Items representing Kansas are included.

Elizabeth Cady-Stanton Papers

The papers of suffragist, reformer, and feminist theorist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) cover the years 1814 to 1946, with most of the material concentrated between 1840 and 1902. Many items from Kansas are represented.

The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920

The Evolution of the Conservation Movement documents the historical formation and cultural foundations of the movement to conserve and protect America's natural heritage, through books, pamphlets, government documents, manuscripts, prints, photographs, and motion picture footage drawn from the collections of the Library of Congress. Items from Kansas are represented.

The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress

The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The special presentations for the collection include a Timeline, Douglass in His Own Words, and a Family Tree. Browse the collection by location to locate two items for Kansas.

Frederick Law Olmsted Papers

The papers of farmer, writer, reformer, landscape architect, urban and suburban planner, and conservationist Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) consist of approximately 24,000 items, spanning from 1777 to 1952, with the bulk dating 1838-1903, contains materials on both Olmsted's private and professional life. Items from Kansas are represented.

Gideon Welles Papers

The papers of Gideon Welles (1802-1878), newspaper editor and U.S. secretary of the navy under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, include slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction, role of the U.S. Navy in the war, Lincoln and Johnson presidential administrations, and the limits and uses of federal and state powers. Documentation for Welles' political, literary, and personal endeavors is distributed throughout the collection. A few Kansas related items are represented.

James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers

The papers of James Buchanan (1791-1868), representative and senator of Pennsylvania, secretary of state, and fifteenth president of the United States, and those of his niece and White House hostess Harriet Lane Johnston (1830-1903) contain approximately 1,600 items dating from 1825 to 1887. James Buchanan's papers include correspondence, notes, drafts of remarks, commissions, land patents and other papers relating chiefly to Buchanan's career in the United States Senate, as secretary of state, and as minister to Great Britain prior to his presidency. Kansas is represented.

John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax Papers

Correspondence and memoranda comprise the bulk of this collection, with voluminous dispatches from the field to the reliable Harold Spivacke adding context to the famous Lomax disc recordings. Letters between the two Lomaxes provide glimpses into their relationship with the Library and each other. Items from Kansas are represented.

John G. Nicolay Papers

The papers of presidential secretary and biographer John G. Nicolay (1832-1901) span the years 1811 to 1943, with the bulk concentrated in the period 1860-1901.The collection particularly reflects Nicolay's tenure as private secretary to Abraham Lincoln and documents his numerous literary activities. A limited amount of material relates to the literary activities of his daughter, Helen Nicolay (1866-1954). The collection is composed mainly of correspondence and research material, supplemented by notebooks, scrapbooks, and miscellaneous material. Items related to Kansas are included.

John Tyler Papers

The John Tyler Papers contains more than 1,400 items dating from 1691 to 1918, most of which fall between 1757 and 1918. The collection is made up primarily of correspondence, including letters and copies of letters to or from Tyler (1790-1862), a governor and U.S. representative and senator from Virginia, who served as vice president under William Henry Harrison before becoming the tenth president of the United States upon Harrison's death in 1841. John Tyler supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Mary Ann Bickerdyke Papers

The papers of Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke (1817-1901), a Civil War nurse and agent for the United States Sanitary Commission who was known as Mother Bickerdyke to Union soldiers, consist of 1,800 items in five containers spanning the years 1847-1905. A large portion of the papers consists of correspondence grouped into family, general, and special correspondence files. Her involvement with the Kansas Grasshopper Plague is included.

Meeting of Frontiers

Meeting of Frontiers was an attempt to use the technologies pioneered in the National Digital Library Program to tell the parallel and interacting stories of America's west including Kansas, and Russia's east through digitized images and texts of original source materials.

Millard Fillmore Papers

The papers of Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), educator, U.S. representative from New York, vice president, and thirteenth president of the United States, contain approximately thirty-five items spanning the years 1839-1925, with the bulk dating from 1839 to 1870. The collection includes correspondence relating primarily to political issues such as slavery, Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, John Brown's 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and congressional politics.

National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection

The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection is a library of nearly 800 books and pamphlets documenting the suffrage campaign that were collected between 1890 and 1938 by members of NAWSA and donated to the Rare Books Division of the Library of Congress on November 1, 1938. The bulk of the collection is derived from the library of Carrie Chapman Catt, president of NAWSA from 1900-1904, and again from 1915-1920. The collection contains the tabulation of the Women's Vote in Kansas.

National American Woman Suffrage Association Records

The records of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) span the years from 1839 to 1961 but are most numerous for the period 1890 to 1930. The collection of approximately 26,700 items reflect NAWSA's multifaceted history, including the activities of precursor organizations involved in the abolition and women's rights movements, state and federal campaigns for women's suffrage, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and international women's suffrage organizing. Records of the Kansas suffrage campaign and the Kansas suffrage associations are included.

Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera

The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, song sheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics. The collection contains more than twenty items pertaining to Kansas.

Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929

This collection is particularly strong in advertising and mass-marketing materials and will be of special interest to those seeking to understand economic and political forces at work in the 1920s. Search the full-text of the collection to locate the three items related to Kansas.

Salmon P. Chase Papers

The papers of Ohio governor, Lincoln cabinet official, and Supreme Court justice Salmon P. Chase (1808-1873) span the years 1755-1898, consists primarily of diaries, correspondence, letter books, speeches and writings, financial papers, and legal files. The collection also includes a printed copy of the eight-page pamphlet Appeal of the Independent Democrats, written by Chase to denounce the Kansas-Nebraska bill (1854)

Selected Digitized Books

This collection is made up of digital versions of books from the Library of Congress General Collections on a wide range of subjects. Most of the books in this collection were published in the United States before 1923 and are in English, but there are also some materials in foreign languages or that were published elsewhere. The collection features hundreds of works of fiction published between 1800 and 1922, including books intended for children and young adults. The collection will grow over time. Browse the collection by location to find several items for Kansas.

Susan B. Anthony Papers

The papers of reformer and suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) span the period 1846-1934 with the bulk of the material dating from 1846 to 1906. The collection includes correspondence, diaries, a day book, scrapbooks, speeches, and miscellaneous items. Items from Kansas are represented.

William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection

The William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection spans the years 1773 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the Civil War period, 1861-1865. The collection consists of correspondence, pay vouchers, orders, muster rolls, enlistment and discharge papers, receipts, contracts, affidavits, tax records, miscellaneous military documents, and printed matter. Most items document African Americans in military service, especially the United States Corps d'Afrique and the United States Colored Troops, which were organized during the Civil War. Volunteer enlistments for a member of the 1st Colored Infantry and a member of the 2nd Regiment Kansas Colored Infantry are included.

William T. Sherman Papers

The papers of General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) span the years 1810-1897, with the bulk of the material originating between 1848 and 1891. The collection consists of correspondence, a volume of recollections during and after the Mexican War, military documents, printed matter, memorabilia, and manuscripts of Sherman's Memoirs. Kansas related items are included.

Wm. Oland Bourne Papers

The papers of reformer, poet, editor, and clergyman William Oland Bourne (1819-1901) span the years 1841-1885, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1856-1867. As editor of the periodical The Soldier's Friend, Bourne sponsored a contest in 1865-1866 in which Union soldiers and sailors who lost their right arms by disability or amputation during the Civil War were invited to submit samples of their penmanship using their left hands. Items related to Kansas are included.

The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people. Search using the subject heading United States--Kansas to find digital images related to Kansas, such as prints, photographs, and political cartoons.

Bain Collection

This collection represents the photographic files of one of America's earliest news picture agencies. The collection richly documents sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations.

Selected highlights from this collection:

Brady-Handy Collection

In 1954 the Library of Congress purchased approximately 10,000 original, duplicate, and copy negatives from the daughters of Levin C. Handy who was apprenticed at the age of twelve to his uncle, famed Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady. The majority of the Brady-Handy negatives are of Civil War and post-Civil War portraits.

Selected highlights from this collection:

Cabinet of American Illustration

Contains more than four thousand original drawings by American book, magazine, and newspaper illustrators, made primarily between 1880 and 1910. The collection includes illustrations for magazines, novels, and children's books; cartoons; cover designs; and sketches for posters. An original drawing representing Kansas is included.

Carpenter Collection

The extensive collection represent the extensive photographic files assembled by Frank G. Carpenter and his daughter Frances to illustrate his popular writings on travel and geography. A photograph of Kansas is illustrated.

Cartoon Drawings

The Cartoon Drawings filing series spans the late 1700s to the present, primarily from 1880 to 1980. The cartoons cover people and events throughout the world, but most of the images were intended for publication in American newspapers and magazines.

Selected highlight from this collection:

Cartoon Drawings: Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon

The Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon contains 2,085 drawings, prints, and paintings that span the years 1780 to 1977. Most of the images are cartoons, comic strips, and periodical illustrations drawn by American artists between 1890 and 1970. Kansas related items are among those represented.

Cartoon Prints, American

This collection of more than 500 prints made in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries encompasses several forms of political art, including Kansas related items.

Civil War

This collection explore the faces, places and events of the U.S. Civil War through photographs, prints and drawings. Browse the collection by location to access items related to Kansas.

Daguerreotype Collection

There are approximately 700 daguerreotypes in the Prints & Photographs Division. The majority of the images are portraits, but the collection does include a few early architectural views, outdoor scenes, and copies of works of art. Most of the daguerreotypes are credited to Mathew Brady's studio. Items from Kansas are represented.

Detroit Publishing Company

Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photo lithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. Subjects strongly represented in the collection include city and town views, including streets and architecture; parks and gardens; recreation; and industrial and work scenes. Photographs of the Kansas Battleship are included.

Drawings (Documentary)

The Documentary Drawings category includes more than 3,000 drawings made between 1750 and 1970. Eye-witness sketches made during the U.S. Civil War are the most frequently used images. Kansas drawings are represented.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives

The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection consist of about 175,000 black-and-white negatives of American people and places. The collection of photographs, taken by a group of U.S. government photographers, fall into the public domain and contain more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs of Kansas.

Selected highlights from this collection:

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs

The pictures focus on rural areas and farm labor, as well as aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working. Several photographs from Kansas are represented.

Selected highlight from this collection:

Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs

The William A. Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered, with scattered examples through 1945. James Henry Lane, politician and leader of the Free Party of Kansas is represented.

Goldstein Foundation Collection--Prints and Drawings

This category consists of all of the individually issued prints and drawings in the Ben and Beatrice Goldstein Foundation Collection: 1,688 items dating primarily from the 1880s to the 1960s. The collection focuses on working people, American industry, and political issues. Art work by social realists, women, African Americans, and Mexicans is well represented. Two items from Kansas are represented.

Groups of Images (LOTs)

More than 13,000 groups of photographs, prints, drawings, and other visual material offer access to 1.5 million items dating primarily from the 1800s through the present. The groups, called "LOTs", gather images related to one another by provenance, creator, subject, or format into manageable sets.

Harris & Ewing Collection

The Harris & Ewing, Inc. Collection of photographic negatives includes glass and film negatives taken by Harris & Ewing, Inc., which provide excellent coverage of Washington people, events, and architecture, during the period 1905-1945. Two items from Kansas are represented.

Highsmith (Carol M.) Archive

The online presentation of the Carol M. Highsmith Archive features photographs of landmark buildings and architectural renovation projects in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. The first 23 groups of photographs contain more than 2,500 images and date from 1980 to 2005, with many views in color as well as black-and-white. Highsmith, a distinguished and richly-published American photographer, has donated her work to the Library of Congress since 1992. Her generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for copyright free access also makes this Archive a very special visual resource. The archive contains more than 20 Kansas photographs.

Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey

The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies. Browse the collection by location to locate more than 40 items for Kansas.

Lamb Studios Archive

This online presentation offers images of nearly 2,500 design sketches for stained glass windows, murals, mosaics, furnishings, metalwork, and interior architecture. The drawings feature striking watercolors created from the 1860s to the 1990s, primarily for churches, synagogues, and other sacred spaces. A few images represent Kansas.

Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs

More than 3,500 special portrait photographs, called ambrotypes and tintypes, and small card photos called cartes de visite represent both Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War (1861-1865). The portraits often show weapons, hats, canteens, musical instruments, painted backdrops, and other details that enhance the research value of the collection. Other photo topics include flags, city views, veterans, and ships. Among the most rare images are sailors, African Americans in uniform, Lincoln campaign buttons, and portraits of soldiers with their families and friends. Kansas related photographs are included in the collection.

National Photo Company Collection

This collection documents virtually all aspects of Washington, D.C., life. During the administrations of Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, the National Photo Company supplied photographs of current news events in Washington, D.C., as a daily service to its subscribers. It also prepared sets of pictures on popular subjects and undertook special photographic assignments for local businesses and government agencies. The images date between ca. 1850 and 1945 and include several Kansas officials.

Panoramic Photographs

The Panoramic Photograph Collection date from 1851 to 1991 and features American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses; sports; and transportation. All 50 states including Kansas are represented.

PH Filing Series Photographs

Covers more than 2,500 original, individually cataloged photographic prints and more than 100 portfolios containing sets of prints created between the 1840s and the present. Many of the Library's photographic prints that have a special aesthetic, technical, or historic importance are preserved in this series, which emphasizes the photographer's name and the type of photographic process. Two items from Kansas are represented.

Popular Graphic Arts

About 15,000 historical prints (ca. 1700-1900) created to document geographic locations such as Kansas or popular subjects that are sometimes used for advertising and educational purposes. Most are by American printmakers (e.g., Baillie, Currier & Ives, Sachse & Co.).

Selected highlights from this collection:

Posters: Artist Posters

The online Artist Posters consist of a small but growing proportion of the more than 85,000 posters in the Artist Poster filing series. This series highlights the work of poster artists, both identified and anonymous. It includes posters from the nineteenth century to the present day. Two posters from Kansas are included.

Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978 to 1996

The Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project was a field project conducted in 1978 by the American Folklife Center, in partnership with the National Park Service. The quilt images convey the range of contemporary quiltmaking styles in the United States, while the recorded interview segments provide information on the quiltmakers and their work within the context of their lives and region and a more in-depth portrait of quiltmaking in daily life. Images of three quilts from Kansas residents are highlighted.

Stereograph Cards

Stereographs consist of two nearly identical photographs or photomechanical prints, paired to produce the illusion of a single three-dimensional image, usually when viewed through a stereoscope. The Prints & Photographs Division's holdings include images produced from the 1850s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the collection dating between 1870 and 1920. The online images feature cities and towns around the world, expeditions and expositions, industries, disasters, and portraits of Native Americans, presidents, and celebrities. Items from Kansas are included.

Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party

The photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, a collection housed in the Manuscript Division, document the National Woman's Party's push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later efforts for passage of the Equal Rights. Kansas related photographs are available.

The Library of Congress has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 500 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including over 19,000 CDs/DVDs.

The Library oversees one of the largest collections of motion pictures in the world. Acquired primarily through copyright deposit, exchange, gift and purchase, the collection spans the entire history of the cinema. The following moving image collections contain materials related to Kansas.

Film and Video

The moving image collections at the Library of Congress include a wide variety of films ranging from historic silent films to webcasts of recent Library events and performances. Search for your state by subject (begin with United States and then select Kansas).

Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies

This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles. You can view the Advance of Kansas Volunteers at Caloocan motion picture here.

National Screening Room

The National Screening Room showcases the riches of the Library's vast moving image collection, designed to make otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, accessible to the viewers worldwide. The majority of titles in the National Screening Room are freely available as both 5 mb MP4 and ProRes 422 MOV/Quicktime downloads. The collection contains a motion picture filmed in Kansas and the other based on lead miners in the Kansas-Missouri-Oklahoma Tri-state area.

The Library of Congress holds the nation's largest public collection of sound recordings (music and spoken word) and radio broadcasts, some three million recordings in all.

After the Day of Infamy: Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor

This collection presents approximately 12 hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States. The result is a portrait of everyday life in America as the United States entered World War II. Kansas born folklorist and professional writer Vance Randolph is represented.

Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature

The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943 and contains nearly two thousand recordings - of poets and prose writers participating in literary events at the Library's Capitol Hill campus as well as sessions at the Library's Recording Laboratory. Listen to Kansas born poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, William Stafford, and Elisavietta Ritchie.

Italian Americans in the West

The Italian Americans in the West Project collection contains the sound recordings, photographs, video recordings, field notes, publications, ephemera, and accompanying manuscript materials associated with the American Folklife Center's Italian Americans in the West project. Kansas is represented.

The Library of Congress Celebrates the Songs of America

The Songs of America allows you to explore American history as documented in the work of some of our country's greatest composers, poets, scholars, and performers. From popular and traditional songs, to poetic art songs and sacred music, the relationship of song to historical events from the nation's founding to the present is highlighted through more than 90,000 online items. There are over 70 items representing Kansas.

National Jukebox

The Library of Congress National Jukebox, makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Search the National Jukebox to locate items pertaining to Kansas.

Selected highlights from this collection:

The Library's sheet music collection include popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.

Historic Sheet Music Collection, 1800 to 1922

This sheet music collection consists of approximately 9,000 items published from 1800 to 1922, although the majority is from 1850 to 1920. The bulk was published in many different cities in the United States, but some of the items bear European imprints. Most of the music is written for voice and piano; a significant minority is instrumental. One piece of Kansas sheet music is included.

Selected highlight from this collection:

Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1870 to 1885

Consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music, including Kansas items registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.

Selected highlights from this collection:

World War I Sheet Music

From 1914 through 1920 the Library of Congress acquired over 14,000 pieces of sheet music relating to what ultimately became known as the First World War, with the greatest number coming from the years of the United States' active involvement (1917-1918) and the immediate postwar period. Over 50 pieces of Kansas themed sheet music is included.