TRANSACTIONS OF THE KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE
Vol. 111, no. 3/4 p. 310-312 (2008)
A brief, annotated bibliography of the history of the Kansas Academy of Science MICHAEL J. EVERHART1 Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas 1. Co-editor, Transactions, Kansas Academy of Science –
[email protected] Founded in 1868, the Kansas Academy of Science celebrated its 140th year in 2008. The current volume of the Transactions is the 111th to be published since 1872. Technology has changed greatly since the printer (Miller Brothers, Topeka) hand-set the pages of the first volume in lead type. One hundred and forty years later, the co-editors review and format papers that they received in digital form via the Internet for publication on personal computers, a process that could have hardly been imagined by the founders of the Academy. While the distribution of the early volumes of the Transactions was greatly limited by the distances and communications systems of the day, the current volumes are made quickly available around the world via the Internet. Most recently, all of the volumes published by the Kansas Academy of Science have been scanned and digitized by JSTOR. One of the useful spin-offs of this effort to preserve the Transactions in digital format is the ability to do a detailed search for information contained in those volumes published since 1872. Schoewe (1964, v.) was among the first to comment on the need for a searchable bibliography for the Transactions as a result of his earlier research on the geography of Kansas and noted that volumes 1-65 (through 1962) included more than 22,000 pages. His bibliography (ibid.) of the Transactions includes 1415 authors and 2763 articles, and also contains 14 tables of historical information about the Academy. Since that time, however, another 46 volumes and more than 12,000 pages have been published. Digitization by JSTOR in 2005 makes all but the most recent 3 volumes of the publication searchable. Online publication of the last three years of
the Transactions by BioOne means that all 111 volumes are now available for downloading. Since the publication of the first volume of the Transactions, various members have written articles relating the history of the Academy. In the first issue, John Parker (1872, p. 4-5) summarized the founding of the Kansas Academy of Science and the first four meetings. He noted that a letter had been published in the [Kansas] Journal of Education inviting “all persons in the State interested in natural science to meet at Topeka on the first Tuesday of September next, at 3 P.M. at the college building, for the purpose of organizing a State Natural History Society.” Parker was among the group that met on September 1, 1868 and officially formed the Kansas Natural History Society. B.F. Mudge was elected the first President of the society and Parker served as its first Secretary. The second meeting was also held in Topeka and the officers were reelected. During the third meeting in 1870, it was decided that that the scope of the society should be enlarged to include all fields of science and in 1871 the name was officially changed to the Kansas Academy of Science. According to Harshbarger (1918), Mudge served as the President or Vice-President of the KAS during the last 5 years of his life and never missed a meeting. In his address to the 16th Annual Meeting of the Kansas Academy of Science, the outgoing President, Dr. A.H. Thompson (1884, p. 7), noted that “Prof. J. D. Parker was the principal actor in the origination of the Society, and to him is due its suggestion, inception, and exertions.” The text of Parker’s 1868 letter was included in Thompson’s address. He also
Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 111(3/4), 2008 suggested that the “name and work of the Academy are inseparable from the name and work of Professor Mudge. Its very existence is due to the affection he had for it and the care he bestowed upon it.” Mudge’s work and accomplishments were then described in detail. At the 31st Annual Meeting, D.E. Lantz (1897) discussed the history of the Kansas Academy of Science at length in his presidential address and also reported on significant problems with storing and maintaining the Academy’s library and various collections of specimens. In 1918, the “Semi-Centennial” volume of the Transactions was published. The Annual Meeting featured a symposium on “Fifty years of scientific development in Kansas.” Harshbarger (1918) provided an extensive history of the Academy and its relationship to the growth of the state, and concluded with the statement: “It is clear to me that the Kansas Academy of Science has a greater opportunity to do beneficial work for the state now than it has ever before had, and this opportunity will increase with the years. If the Academy in its new environment can demonstrate its ability and willingness to do this work efficiently and can devise some plan for prompt publication, there need be no question of its success during its second fifty years.” Harshbarger’s words were somewhat prophetic in that the Academy endured its worst record of publication during the following decade (Schoewe, 1938). In that same volume, S.W. Williston (1918) wrote of the growth of science during the previous 50 years. Williston had been a student of Mudge, served as President of the Academy in 1897 and was voted an honorary membership in 1902. In his discussion regarding the history of the Kansas Academy of Science, L.C. Wooster (1937) concentrated on describing the many contributions to science made by its members over the previous seven decades. He noted that Professor F.H. Snow of the University of Kansas ranked first among the state’s collectors of specimens, citing his extensive
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collections of insects, plants, birds, meteorites, fossils and weather data. Snow was also among the most prolific contributors to the Transactions, publishing 59 papers between 1872 and 1907 (Schoewe, 1964). The following year, Schoewe (1938) published what is probably the most detailed account of the Academy up to that point, including the finances, membership and problems with publications. He indicated that the Academy had met every year except 1915 since 1868. As one of its major accomplishments, Schoewe took pride in the fact that the Academy had actively pushed the Kansas legislature for the establishment of a state geological survey. He further noted that, 110 geological papers had been published in the Transactions prior to the formation of the Kansas Geological Survey (See Schoewe, 1963, for a discussion of the relationship between the KAS and KGS). Schoewe also noted that due to problems with funding (see also Skelton, 1998) only two volumes of the Transactions were published between 1918 and 1928: “Volume 30, for the years 1919 to 1921, appeared in 1921, and volume 31, for the years 1922 to 1928, was published in 1928.” This paper is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the Kansas Academy of Science. H. R. Skallerup’s (1963) paper summarized the histories of the various academies of science in the United States. Skallerup stated that the “bibliography is an attempt to bring together such significant papers, and it is presented as an aid to scientific and historical researchers who might not otherwise be able to sift through the great bulk of academy publications for information of this kind. As many academies are without adequate indexes to their own contents, this bibliography may also be of help in locating known articles within them.” Bonwell (1968) provides an updated account of the history of the Academy and also adds some interesting bits of information (and
312 documentation) to the stories regarding the earliest meetings. He reported that the first meeting in 1868 was poorly attended because a severe storm two days earlier had disrupted transportation. Only three people attended the second meeting in Topeka (Mudge, Parker and Snow) even though Parker had arranged for “half-fares” on the Kansas Pacific Railroad for those attending. However, the third meeting held at the University of Kansas in 1870, was well attended and proved to be a turning point for the young organization. The most recent paper regarding the history of the Kansas Academy of Science was published by Skelton (1998). Much of his research was based on the reports published by the various secretaries of the KAS during the previous 130 years. Skelton also provides a graphic showing the growth (and decline) in the membership of the Academy during that time. Notes by Everhart (2006 and 2007) reported on the important issues being discussed at the annual meetings in 1906 and 1907. The many papers that have recently become available in digital format provide a wealth of information regarding the history of the Kansas Academy of Science. LITERATURE CITED Bonwell, C.C. 1968. The founding of the Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 71(3):247-256. Everhart, M.J. 2006. Kansas Academy of Science one hundred years ago: The museum. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 109(3/4):269-270. Everhart, M.J. 2007. One hundred years ago in the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science. Transactions 110(3/4):312-314. Harshbarger, W.A. 1918. The Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions, 29:35-41. Jewett, J.M. 1968. The Kansas Academy of Science and one hundred years of the
Everhart evolution of geology. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 71(3):315-326. Lantz, D.E. 1897. The Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 16:24-33. Parker, J.D. 1868. [Letter suggesting the formation of a state natural history society]. Journal of Education 4:268. Parker, J.D. 1872. Organization and history. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 1:3-7. Schoewe, W.H. 1938. The Kansas Academy of Science: Past, Present and Future. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 41:399416. Schoewe, W.H. 1963. The Kansas Academy of Science and the State Geological Survey of Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 66(3):453-461. Schoewe, W.H. 1964. Bibliography and index of the Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science; Volumes 1-65 (1872-1962). Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions, 259 pp. Skallerup, H.R. 1963. Bibliography of the histories of American academies of science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 66(2):274-281. Skelton, L.H. 1998. A brief history of the Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 101(3/ 4):140-145. Taft, R. 1955. First Hundred Years of Science in Kansas. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions, 58(4):452-476. Thompson, A.H. 1883. The Origin and History of the Academy. Kansas Academy of Science, 9:4-16. Williston, S.W. 1918. The progress of science since the foundation of the Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 29:53-61. Wooster, L.C., 1937. Some of the founders and workers of the Kansas Natural History Society and the Kansas Academy of Science. Kansas Academy of Science, Transactions 40:215-220.
