The Kansas Museum of History in Topeka

Earlier this month I had a day by myself in Topeka, which is just over an hour’s drive from our home. I’d accompanied my husband when he had an all-day conference there, but I had no obligation until his group dinner that evening. So I designed a day to suit myself. I spent the morning writing and the afternoon exploring.

One of the places I explored was the Kansas Museum of History, operated by the Kansas Historical Society. My husband says we took our kids to see it when they were young, which would have been at least twenty years ago. I didn’t remember either the building or the exhibits, so it must have been completely overhauled in those twenty-plus years.

The museum covers the history of Kansas, from prehistoric times through the 20th Century. I focused on the period in the 19th Century when what is now Kansas formed a good portion of the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. After researching the Oregon Trail to write both Lead Me Home and Forever Mine, I didn’t learn many new facts at the museum, but I am always intrigued by the details of the emigrants’ journey west.

The Kansas Museum of History had a nice display of a covered wagon and of the goods emigrants took with them on their trek. The curators also depicted the goods left behind when the weight became too much for the oxen or mules. In particular, I was struck that some poor emigrant family abandoned their clock—a clock very much like the one that sits in my home now.

The log cabin in the museum was similar to other models I have seen. This is the type of house I envision the settlers living in once they reached Oregon.

I thought the museum was well-balanced in its treatment of pioneers and Native Americans. The curators depicted the courage of the emigrants and settlers but also showed how whites broke treaty after treaty with the tribes and later removed Native American children from their homes and culture. The Native Americans were forced to move time and time again, fought back, and sometimes committed atrocities themselves.

The museum also depicted both Kansans’ free state status and support of the Union during the Civil War, as well as segregation in the post-Civil War era that culminated in the Supreme Court's famous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

We are a complicated people, as any museum worth visiting should show us. And the Kansas Museum of History was definitely worth my time.

P.S. I also went to see Mary Poppins Returns on my free afternoon in Topeka. Emily Blunt was perhaps more nanny-like than Julie Andrews, but her voice is not as strong. All in all, my nine-year-old self was more enamored of the original movie than my sixty-something self was of the sequel.