View of Early Lawrence, Kansas

Clarina Irene Howard Nichols, artist

1810–1885

View of Early Lawrence, Kansas, circa 1854

Where object was made: Lawrence, Kansas, United States

Material/technique: wove paper; graphite

Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 18.7 x 42 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 7 3/8 x 16 9/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 20 x 25 in

Credit line: Gift of the Department of Regional History of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Accession number: 1971.0122

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Windmills to Workshops: Lawrence and the Visual Arts," Jul-2004, Kate Meyer
Clarina Nichols is known today as a pioneering advocate of women’s rights. Joining the wave of New Englanders who settled in Kansas hoping to secure abolitionism in the territory, Nichols wrote about the fledgling city of Lawrence to newspaper readers back east. Her detailed appreciation for local topography in a letter from 1854 complements the keen observation found in this drawing attributed to her. She describes “Capitol Hill” (presumably the area we now know as Mount Oread) as “a noble, but gradually reached elevation in the center of the most beautiful and magnificent scene my eye ever rested upon…Capitol Hill covers an area of many acres, all graded by the hand of nature, a natural wall of limestone peeping through the sods around its entire base.”