Book ownership in Chautauqua County, Kansas, 1875 Cherié L. Weible

Problem Statement What can we learn from the 1875 Kansas State Census? Statistics collected for public and private (individual) libraries and the number of books owned in each Does composition of population affect book ownership? Do economic factors affect book ownership? 2

Methodology 1875 Kansas State Census Handwritten Microfilmed; some digitized at Ancestry.com Schedule 5 for Libraries not always present Data collected and recorded in inconsistently among the counties reporting Transcription of information Data set building from different data points 3

Analysis 1: Books and Literacy Thirty-five of 275 households were reported as owning books Thirty adults (over age 21) were recorded as illiterate (reading and writing) – Total population 1,369 Four public libraries in the county 87 private libraries in the county – 5,9145 volumes 4

Analysis 2: Community Economic factors obvious impact – The higher the values reported for real estate and personal property the more likely the population are to be to be literate and book owners No railroads, no banks in the county One church, Baptist, 303 members One newspaper: The Sedan Weekly Journal Chautauqua County split from Howard and Elk – Political implications / redistribution of population 5

Next Steps Full paper being written January 2014 at Phi Alpha Theta – History Honor Society Build similar data sets for other counties and other townships where available Compare to data for public libraries Compare to data for