History
In 1949, Kenneth and Helen Spencer established a foundation in Kansas City for charitable giving in the region. Over the course of thirty years, the Foundation donated millions of dollars to universities, museums, and other cultural institutions in the Kansas City area and across the Midwest. Helen became president and director of the foundation following Kenneth's death in 1960 (she held these positions until the dissolution of the foundation in 1979).
Shortly after Kenneth Spencer's death in 1960, Helen was approached about donating her husband's personal papers and business records to the University of Kansas. She agreed, and by October 1964, attention turned to how and where the materials would be housed as a special memorial library. KU's Watson Library was deemed unsuitable, as the facility's lack of space already hindered librarians' efforts to process and make available special collections materials.
"Upon reflecting on this," Helen later recalled, "and knowing that a university gains prominence through its Graduate College, I was inspired to give this graduate research library." [1] Helen was also inspired to establish the library so as to help combat the exodus of scholars from the Lawrence area, writing, "Kenneth and I had so often observed and regretted the loss of talented native Kansans to other larger eastern and western graduate schools because most of them found employment in those areas and never returned to the Middle West." [1]
In January 1966, Helen donated funds to the University of Kansas for the construction of a library in honor of her late husband Kenneth. Helen's gift was, at the time, the largest single gift ever given to KU or to any institution in Kansas. When the gift was announced, Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe declared that the library "will stand as a living memorial not only to an outstanding man and his equally distinguished wife but to the pursuit of learning that holds so much promise for the future and to the spirit of philanthropy which holds out for the University of Kansas the promise of future greatness." [2]
Construction of the library began in January 1967. The library was dedicated on November 8, 1968, and it officially opened a month later. More than 150,000 books and 250,000 manuscripts were moved from Watson Library to Spencer, allowing KU to bring together previously scattered special collections as well as grow the collections and establish new services.
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, the Edwards Campus in Overland Park. There are also educational and research sites in Garden City, Hays, Leavenworth, Parsons, and Topeka, an agricultural education center in rural north Douglas County, and branches of the medical school in Salina and Wichita. The university is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of over 100 libraries within the university. The library is a major scholarly resource for members of the University of Cambridge and external researchers. It is often referred to within the university as the UL. Thirty-three faculty and departmental libraries are associated with the University Library for the purpose of central governance and administration, forming "Cambridge University Libraries".
The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands. It became part of the university in 1972, and now houses the majority of the Special Collections of The University of Manchester Library, the third largest academic library in the United Kingdom.
The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, it is "the largest and most significant repository of documents covering women's lives and activities in the United States".
The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States.
The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new “Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 million volumes housed in fifteen university buildings and is the third-largest academic library system in North America and the second-largest housed on a singular campus.
Laird Maurice Wilcox was an American researcher of political fringe movements. He was the founder of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, housed in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas.
With the growth of science fiction studies as an academic discipline as well as a popular media genre, a number of libraries, museums, archives, and special collections have been established to collect and organize works of scholarly and historical value in the field.
Manuscripts and Special Collections is part of Libraries, Research and Learning Resources at the University of Nottingham. It is based at King's Meadow Campus in Nottingham in England. The university has been collecting manuscripts since the early 1930s and now holds approximately 3 million documents, extensive holdings of Special Collections, and the East Midlands Collection of local material, all of which are available for researchers to use in the supervised Wolfson Reading Rooms.
Kansas City Repertory Theatre is a professional resident theater company serving the Kansas City metropolitan area, and is the professional theater in residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).
Kenneth Aldred Spencer was a Kansas coal mine owner who transformed a government surplus factory into the world's biggest ammonium nitrate producer. Money from his and his wife's estate was donated to philanthropies throughout Kansas.
Denise Low is an American poet, honored as the second Kansas poet laureate (2007–2009). A professor at Haskell Indian Nations University, Low taught literature, creative writing and American Indian studies courses at the university. She was succeeded by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg on July 1, 2009.
David Gilbert Booth is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the executive chairman of Dimensional Fund Advisors, which he co-founded with Rex Sinquefield.
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library is principal repository for special collections of Columbia University. Located in New York City on the university's Morningside Heights campus, its collections span more than 4,000 years, from early Mesopotamia to the present day, and span a variety of formats: cuneiform tablets, papyri, and ostraca, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, early printed books, works of art, posters, photographs, realia, sound and moving image recordings, and born-digital archives. Areas of collecting emphasis include American history, Russian and East European émigré history and culture, Columbia University history, comics and cartoons, philanthropy and social reform, the history of mathematics, human rights advocacy, Hebraica and Judaica, Latino arts and activism, literature and publishing, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, oral history, performing arts, and printing history and the book arts.
Sallie Casey Thayer, née Casey was a Kansas City art collector and advocate. Her diverse collection of fine and decorative art became the founding gift of the Spencer Museum of Art.
William Elsey Connelley (1855-1930) was born in Johnson County, Kentucky. He was self-educated but he taught school in Johnson County between 1872 and 1880. He moved to Wyandotte County, Kansas, and lived in Bonner Springs, teaching until 1882. Connelley then moved on to other pursuits. He attended the Wyandotte County Normal Institute and received a teaching certificate. He worked for a time as a farmhand.
The Spencer Art Reference Library (SARL) is a library housed in the Bloch Building of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Its collection of over 260,000 visual arts related resources support the work of the museum.
Carel Victor Gerritsen was a Dutch politician known for his radical views. The husband of Aletta Jacobs, he was a proponent of open government, fair wages and birth control. He served as an alderman in Amsterdam and a representative in the States of North Holland. He helped found many radical organisations in the Netherlands including the Nieuw-Malthusiaansche Bond, Radicale Bond and Vrijzinnig-Democratisch Bond.
The Gerritsen Collection is a diverse collection of women's archival materials and feminist records covering fifteen languages and over 4,700 volumes. Acquired by the John Crerar Library of Chicago in 1903, it was subsequently sold to the University of Kansas in 1954. In the 21st century, the holdings were digitized and are now widely available through subscription to libraries worldwide.
Elizabeth Josephine Watkins (1861-1939) was a philanthropist, best known for funding hospitals and scholarship halls in Lawrence, Kansas.
