Presentation Professor Shortridge will speak at 2 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3, 2000 at the Geary County Historical Society Museum in Junction City. For more information, call Jessica Pigza at (785) 864-9170. Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Contact: James Shortridge, (785) 864-5539

Book highlights Kansas photographer's historical work

LAWRENCE -- In researching for his latest book, University of Kansas geography professor James R. Shortridge looked at photographs from a foreign culture: turn-of-the-century Junction City.

For the book, "Our Town on the Plains," Shortridge wrote text to accompany J.J. Pennell's photographs of Junction City from 1893 to 1922.

"When you are trying to look back a hundred years, it really is like a different culture," Shortridge said.

Pennell's photographs, part of the KU Libraries' Kansas Collection for almost 50 years, document the lives of ordinary people during a time of extraordinary change.

"You see a transformation from one way of life, with horses and buggies, to this modern world of movement and increased speed that we live in today," Shortridge said.

At the time the photos were taken, people relied on commercial photographers like Pennell to record important events in their lives. Many of the photos were taken on special occasions, such as parades or business openings. Others document the essence of small-town existence with scenes from cornfields and stockyards.

Shortridge said looking at the photographs was similar to reading a novel, providing a detailed look at small-town life during the turn of the century.

"This is an opportunity to get a fairly intimate view of an experience that is in all of our pasts, captured in a very different way," he said.

In order to provide an accurate and in-depth description of the places and events photographed, Shortridge went to the archives of the Junction City Union newspaper.

"You could really make the picture come alive, because you had a newspaper reporter telling you about the context of the photo," he said. "You were able to get that richness that you might not have otherwise had."

Although Pennell captured a wide range of life in Junction City, Shortridge cautions readers about the limits of the collection.

"Pennell was middle class and male, and the world he photographed was biased toward those kinds of people," he said. "There are aspects of the society that didn't get photographed as often."

The book, published by University Press of Kansas, is available for $29.95 at www.kansaspress.ku.edu.