Scope and Contents The Great Tichborne Case Collection is housed in the LaBudde Special Collections of the UMKC Miller Nichols Library. It is a lean but significant collection of ephemera and other items documenting the celebrated 19th-century legal case in the United Kingdom of Arthur Orton, an impostor who claimed to be missing heir Sir Roger Tichborne. Orton’s conduct was so outrageous that it was the target for much fodder in newspapers and other publications. The collection highlights the vast notoriety...

Scope and Contents The Theodore Lawrence Painting Company Collection was a gift from Barbara Millman, granddaughter of Lawrence, to LaBudde Special Collections in February 2009. Although the collection is scant, it contains significant insight into Lawrence and the successful painting business he developed in Kansas City, Missouri, beginning in 1903. Included is biographical information, correspondence, promotional material, periodicals containing articles on Lawrence, news clippings, photographs and other...

Scope and Contents The Theodore (Ted) Dreher Collection was donated to the UMKC Miller Nichols Library in December 2007 by David Paul Dreher (grandson) and Ted Dreher (son). The manuscript collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections, while the sound recordings are held in the Marr Sound Archives. The collection, which includes material from the 1910s to the 1990s, is contained in 21 manuscript boxes and is divided into series: Manuscript Scores, Musicals, Music Notebooks, Correspondence, and...

Scope and Contents The Thomas Weaver Collection was donated to LaBudde Special Collections by Thomas Weaver’s wife, Dera Weaver, in November 2014. It consists almost entirely of musical scores in the classical tradition. These scores have been separated by title, and stored with all related materials (parts, sketches, pre-composition, notes) in their own unique folder. Box 1, folder 6 contains Weaver’s only published score, Seven Dialogues: For Flute and Bb Clarinet. The remainder of Weaver’s scores are...

Scope and Contents The U.S. Epperson Collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The collection consists of material related to Kansas City businessman and philanthropist Uriah Spray Epperson and his wife Mary Elizabeth Weaver Epperson, whose palatial home at 5200 Cherry Street was willed to the University after Mrs. Epperson’s death in 1939. The Epperson House has served as a number of different types of offices, classrooms and spaces at UMKC over the years,...

Scope and Contents The Universal Underwriters Group Collection was the gift of Pat Fischer at Zurich in North America (formerly Universal Underwriters Group). Contained in the collection are a wide variety of documents that represent both the history of the company as well as more day-to-day business matters. A great many magazine advertisements and brochures are here as well, along with some awards (certificates, plaques). The collection boasts a large collection of various newsletters and publications, as...

Scope and Contents The Vic Damon Collection was donated to LaBudde Special Collections by his son, George Damon, in the 1990s.The manuscripts collection consists of the handwritten logbook kept by Damon documenting recording sessions produced by his Kansas City studio; related correspondence and notes; 17 photographs; and a trophy awarded by Cash Box for the success of the 1948 song My Happiness, produced by Damon. Mounted captions used for a Vic Damon exhibit previously on display in the UMKC Miller...

Scope and Contents Photos in UMKC Digital Special CollectionsThe collection comprises 229 Victorian and vintage original photographic prints dating from the mid 19th Century to the early 20th Century. Formats include Cartes-de-Visite, Cabinet Cards and Tintype. The bulk of the collection represents studios in Missouri and Kansas, while the remaining span throughout the United States with a few in Europe. Within the...

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The Vince Giordano Collection was gifted by Giordano to LaBudde Special Collections in 2014. The collection relates to the noted New York bandleader and film/TV consultant specializing in 1920s and 1930s music. It comprises parts for over 2000 dance band arrangements of the era and consists of 34 boxes, each identified by title range. A complete list of tunes that includes title, composer, lyricist, arranger, publisher, and publishing date is also available.

Scope and Contents The Virgil Thomson Collection in the LaBudde Special Collections is one of two locations which house the Virgil Thomson’s Papers. The bulk of Thomson’s Papers is located at the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library at Yale University. The collection located at UMKC was a gift of John Obetz, originally given to the UMKC Conservatory of Music Library, formerly located in Grant Hall. The collection contains portions of Thomson’s career and personal life. Correspondence between Thomson,...

Scope and Contents The manuscripts collection dates from 1950 to 2012. Having been in the broadcasting business for seven decades, Walt Bodine produced a wealth of resources for those researchers interested in the study of communications or in the history of Kansas City, Missouri. Within the collection there are radio scripts, correspondence, research tools, numerous awards, book manuscripts, ephemera, memorabilia, news clippings and photographs. The radio scripts range in date from 1957-2010, representing...

Scope and Contents The Walter Brenner Collection, housed in the Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde Department of Special Collections, was donated in the early 1970s to the University of Missouri-Kansas City by Brenner’s spouse, Meta Rika Brenner. The collection is divided into three series: Manuscript Music Scores, Published Music Scores, and Miscellaneous Documents and Ephemera. Manuscript scores form the heart of the collection and date from 1930-1967, with the majority composed between 1941 and 1960. As Brenner was a...

Scope and Contents The Warren Durrett Collection was donated to the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City by Janice Durrett, his widow. The manuscript collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections, while the sound recordings are held in the Marr Sound Archives.The manuscripts collection contains 145 boxes and is divided into nine series, which includes correspondence, contracts, financial logbooks, miscellaneous, photographs, manuscript scores (Books I-XVI),...

Scope and Contents The Wilbur "Buck" Clayton Collection was donated to LaBudde Special Collections by Clayton's wife, Patricia. The collection, which spans from 1928 to Clayton’s death in 1991, contains material related to the jazz composer/arranger/trumpeter’s personal and professional life. The collection was acquired in two parts: August 1997 and August 2000. Both parts (formerly MS15 and MS25) have since been consolidated into one collection (MS15).Materials in the first accession include...

Scope and Contents The Wilder Wylie Collection was donated to the University of Missouri-Kansas City in June 1990.Housed in LaBudde Special Collections, the manuscript materials consist of radio scripts for KIDO-NBC, the Bob Hope Show, various radio plays produced by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), radio commercials for Borden dairy products, as well as scripts for several television shows. Many of these scripts are written by Wilder Wylie. Among the KIDO radio programs are nearly all the...

Scope and Contents The Trumbauer Collection was donated to the UMKC Libraries in June 2006 by drummer Bill M. Trumbauer, son of trumpeter William (Bill) F. Trumbauer and grandson of jazz saxophonist Frank Trumbauer. Included were materials related to Frank and Bill F. An addendum of material was gifted in September 2010 by Bill M. and Mary Trumbauer, widow of Bill F. At that time the collection was separated into two distinct collections: Frank Trumbauer Collection and William F. Trumbauer Collection....

Scope and Contents The William Henry Humiston Collection, housed in the Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde Department of Special Collections, was purchased from the MacDowell Colony by the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the early 1970s. The collection consists of original manuscript scores and fragments by Humiston, arrangements by Humiston of other composers' works, and published scores by Humiston and by others. Also included are items about Humiston's life and career, including biographical sketches, musical...

Scope and Contents The Reverend William Madison Mayfield Collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections, UMKC Miller Nichols Library. The collection consists of log books and other miscellaneous material related to Rev. Mayfield and his ministries in Kansas City, Missouri; Butler, Missouri; Soldier, Kansas; and Oneida, Kansas. Material is divided into two series to reflect two separate acquisitions: Series I, which was purchased from Dan Casavant Rare Books, and Series II, which was a gift of Rev....

Scope and Contents The William Volker & Company Collection is housed in the LaBudde Special Collections at the UMKC Miller Nichols Library. The collection consists of material related to Volker and his Kansas City-based company, a picture-frame/window-shade retail manufacturer that became a successful home-furnishings wholesaler with locations across the country. The collection is divided into three series, Biographical/Historical, Advertisements/Promotions, and Photographs/Graphics; and includes primarily...

Scope and Contents The Willis Sylvester Quant Collection, housed in the Dr. Kenneth J. LaBudde Department of Special Collections, was donated in October of 2017 to the University of Missouri-Kansas City by his sister Dorothy’s caretaker. It contains manuscript copies of over 30 piano, vocal, and string compositions by Quant. It also includes piano technique exercise manuals written by Quant.The manuscript scores include dated (1964-1981) and undated works. The majority of the works are for piano,...

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The Women’s Committee for the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance Collection was gifted by the organization to LaBudde Special Collections in late 2016. The collection includes organizational materials such as officer and board member files, committee papers, and meeting materials; correspondence from various members regarding business; financial documents; scholarship and benefit information; scrapbooks; and photographs from the 1980s to the present.

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The World War II Collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections, UMKC Miller Nichols Library. The assorted collection consists of war-related correspondence, postcards, civil defense ephemera, rationing stamps and ephemera, North American Aviation, uniform and equipment identification literature, war loans, news clippings and other miscellaneous items.

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The Zine Collection was established with the first donation to LaBudde Special Collections in December 2015, after the Kansas City Zine Convention 2015. Comprising multiple individually-named series, the Zine Collection contains hundreds of magazines representing local and national underground/DIY culture, dating 1970s-2020s.