When Idealistic New Englanders Moved to Kansas Territory to ‘Put an End to Slavery’

Hundreds of Abolitionists Founded Manhattan, Kansas, in the Hope of Creating a Free State

When a Union soldier from upstate New York marched through Manhattan, Kansas, during the dismal Civil War summer of 1862, he was astounded: “All at once, as if by magic, a beautiful village rose around us, with large commodious churches, hotels, stores and [a] schoolhouse. We were surprised and delighted to see, where we supposed at most a few settlers’ cabins, a village combining the neatness, thrift, and comfort of New England, with the freshness and fine natural scenery of the West. Such is Manhattan, standing at the advance guard …

What 19th-Century Kansas Cow Towns Teach Us About Global Capital | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

What 19th-Century Kansas Cow Towns Teach Us About Global Capital

Like Amazon Today, Railroads Determined the Fortunes of Even the Most Distant Communities

Boasting dozens of windows and a hundred-person dining room, the Drovers Cottage was quite a hotel by the standards of the 19th-century American West. Even more impressive: It managed to …

When Kansas Was America’s Napa Valley

Before Prohibition, German Immigrants Created a "New Rhineland"

Located in the northeastern corner of Kansas, Doniphan County’s eastern edge is shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece, carved away by the flowing waters of the Missouri River. The soil …

A Reborn-Again Kansan

My Diverse, Bloody, Odd, and Treasured Sunflower State

We hear so much about presidential candidates–and so little about life in the states that elect them. In “Beyond the Circus,” writers take us off the trail and give us …