MATTHEW WITT - This is the Crimson and Gold Connection on 89 9 KRPS, I’m Matthew Witt. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Pittsburg State’s Curator of Special Collections and University Archivist Sara DeCaro. Sara was selected last year to present at the 2025 meeting of the National Council on Public History in Montreal. Sara will present Little Blue Books. They were a series of small staple-bound books published from 1919 through 1978 by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company of Girard, Kansas
Sarah tells us how she wants to educate international audiences about this slice of southeast Kansas history.
SARA DECAR- The plan is to bring some plates of the Haldeman Julius Collection with us and we have a small tabletop printing press which the art department is loaning us and it’s small enough to be portable. So we’re going to bring some printing plates and the small press and some paper and some other things and we’re going to print some little blue books at the conference.
MATT - The National Council on Public History meeting has been held annually since 1979. It focuses on community engagement and activism. Sarah explains there was a call out for pop-up presentations and she thought the Blue Books would be an excellent addition.
SARA- The Haldeman Julius Publishing Company was in Girard, KS, which is real close to here. For a while, they were pretty well known. Considered to be actually something of a radical press. They published two things that they were very well known. They published other things, but they published two things that they were famous for. One was a newspaper called the ‘Appeal to Reason’, which for a while was one of the most widely circulated socialist newspapers in the United States. And they also published the Little Blue Book they sold for about $0.05 in the 1920s and 30s for quite some time, which is not very much money. And that was by design the idea was that you could educate yourself. You didn't have to spend very much money. You could buy the Little Blue Book. Read it and carry it with you. They were on all sorts of topics. Were literally thousands of them. Some were literary classics, but others were original writings but some were actually pretty well-known authors.
MATT - The Haldeman Julius Publishing Company is best known for printing the Little Blue Books, however Sara says that it was another individual who published another important piece of Kansas history.
SARA - The ‘Appeal To Reason’ was started by a man named Julius Weyland, the publishing company. It had a different title before it was the Haldeman, Julius Publishing company, but that was Julius Wayland moved it here. I think he was originally from Indiana, but also a free thinker and printed the Appeal To Reason was getting a little on in years when Emmanuel Haldeman Julius moved to Kansas and started working there, and eventually Emmanuel Julius I guess he was before he was he hyphenated his name later on when he got married to include his wife, Marcette. Emmanuel Haldeman bought the company, and took over publishing the ‘Appeal To Reason’ and then also started publishing the Little Blue books.
MATT - Today we can reflect on the history and importance of the Haldeman Julius Publishing Company and what the Little Blue books stand for, not only to readers in Kansas, but across the country. According to Sara, the man who would become best known for printing those books went through a lot of difficulty to reach Giard, KS.
SARA - Emmanuel Julius was his name. He was originally from the Philadelphia, PA area I believe. He was a child of Russian Jewish immigrants and. I think he was an apprentice like a teenager. You know, started learning the printing trade that way and decided to continue to go into printing. And then came out here.
MATT - You may ask yourself if Emmanuel Julius had no connection to Kansas, muchless southeast Kansas and Girard, what encouraged him to move to a place that he had likely never visited previously? Sara tells us more.
Sara - Well, his wife Marcette was from here originally. Her aunt was Jane Addams of Hull House, so I guess she was probably pretty well connected. My history is a little I'm trying to. I want to say that maybe they met in New York City. 'Cause, I know Marcette was studying there for a time. And then they got married and moved back here and had children and ran the publishing company.
MATT - One advantage that Julius Haldeman had is that he purchased the publishing company from Julius Wyland, and with it the ‘Appeal To Reason’ newspaper. Sara says that while Halderman tried to emulate the same formula that Wyland used in printing both the newspaper and Little Blue Books. After a short time it was obvious which was going to have more success.
SARA - He tried doing the ‘Appeal To Reason’ for a while. But he had a lot of success with the Little Blue books. Those started out on some more, some typically socialist topics or things that might be a little more radical. But then the literary classics came later and he started to make money doing that.
MATT - According to Sara, the success that Haldeman had with printing the newspaper and Little Blue Books did not translate into this personal life.
SARA - Yeah, he did drown in his own swimming pool. Yes, well, so he and Marcette did divorce eventually, and she passed away. And I'm sure that that was hard to take. He was remarried. He also in the early 1950s, as you may recall, that's kind of when we're getting into, like, McCarthyism and the Red Scare. His earlier strategy of writing salacious material that sold it was starting to come under fire. It kind of sounded like they really wanted to get him for something. They really did. So they figured out a way to get him for tax evasion. And that was I think, probably not sitting well with him like he was facing maybe some financial difficulties with the publishing company. And I think that that was pretty hard for him.
MATT Pittsburg State’s Curator of Special Collections and University Archivist Sara DeCaro speaking about her presentation titled, titled, ‘Solidarity in Print: Preserving the Printing Plates of a Kansas Freethinker’. Sara will be presenting at the National Council on Public History in Montreal, Canada. The conference's theme this year is Solidarity.
The National Council on Public History meeting takes place in Montreal from March 26 through 29.
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