The Road to Statehood

January 2026 Adult Book List

Twenty-Five Years among the Indians and Buffalo by William D. Street
This memoir recounts frontier life, including buffalo hunts, military service, and dramatic encounters that shaped the American West.
Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri by Jonathan Earle (Editor); Diane Mutti Burke (Editor)
A scholarly collection examines Kansas-Missouri border conflicts before and during the Civil War and their impact on liberty, citizenship, and freedom.
Abolitionist of the Most Dangerous Kind by Todd Mildfelt, David D. Schafer
This recounts James Montgomery’s fight against slavery, leading Black troops and aiding enslaved people to freedom during Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War.
Soldiers in the Army of Freedom by Ian Michael Spurgeon
The story of the First Kansas Colored Infantry, the first Black regiment from a northern state to fight, highlighting their courage and role in the Civil War.
Revolutionary Heart by Diane Eickhoff
The story of Clarina Nichols, a pioneering women’s rights activist who left Vermont to fight for equality in Bleeding Kansas, highlighting her courage, humor, and determination.

Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas, Robert K. DeArment
The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homeland, 1846-1873, Ronald D. Parks
The Diaries of Reuben Smith, Kansas Settler and Civil War Soldier, Reuben Smith, edited by Lana Wirt Myers
Edmund G. Ross: Soldier, Senator, Abolitionist, Richard A. Ruddy
Frontier Manhattan: Yankee Settlement to Kansas Town, 1854-1894, Kevin G. W. Olson
Ioway Life: Reservation and Reform, 1837-1860, Greg Olson
John Brown, Abolitionist, David S. Reynolds
Seeding Civil War: Kansas in the National News, 1854-1858, Craig Miner
Stark Mad Abolitionists: Lawrence, Kansas, and the Battle over Slavery in the Civil War Era, Robert Kent Sutton
The Tie that Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill by Andrea Warren
This book tells the story of Billy Cody’s youth in Kansas, from homesteading and Pony Express rides to joining the Jayhawkers, shaping the boy who became a legend.

Visit Your Public Library
Provides a directory of Kansas public libraries where you can find titles from this month's reading list or request a book through interlibrary loan.

registration to receive Zoom link will open nearer to event

Kansas History, 1854-1865

Access a variety of documents about a pivotal period in history, Kansas as a territory through the Civil War. Learn about the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas Constitution of 1857, antislavery literature, Native Americans in Kansas, John Brown and more.

Americans: Smithsonian Exhibit
Humanities Kansas is bringing Americans, a traveling Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition to Kansas August 2025 – July 2026. Americans is based on the exhibitioncurrently on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)
Kansas State Symbols
Visit the Kansas Museum of History
Visit the Statehouse
Statehouse Virtual Tour
Statehouse Architecture and Art

Bleeding Kansas Series
Starting on the last Sunday in January, the Bleeding Kansas program series begins at Constitution Hall in Lecompton Kansas.
319 Elmore Street, Lecompton KS 66050
First Territorial Capitol
In 1855, Governor Andrew Reeder and the territorial legislature met, away from the proslavery influence of Missouri, to choose a permanent seat of government, create a constitution, and decide if Kansas would be a free or slave state.
Building 693 Huebner Road, Fort Riley KS 66442
Lane University & Territorial Capitol Museum
This capitol building construction was halted when the Lecompton Constitution, making Kansas a slave state, was defeated. Lecompton lost the capital when Kansas entered the union, as a free state, in 1861.
640 E Woodson, Lecompton KS 66050
Kansas Events

As Kansas and America 250 events, exhibits and ideas grow, this page will as well.