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?

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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

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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

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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

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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 1885