The William H. Avery Papers document a number of his activities in state and national politics during the years 1954-1964. The papers contain personal and business correspondence, speeches, printed material, photographs and scrapbooks. They are housed in six document boxes.
The papers are divided into four areas: 1) campaign materials (1960-1968), 20 congressional newsletters (1956-1964), 3) printed materials (1954-1955; 1965-1966), and 4) literary works. The most significant part of the collection is the campaign material contained in the three and a half document boxes. There are folders of election statistics, news releases announcement of candidacy, printed material concerning Avery's inauguration, and other general material concerning his years in the U. S. Congress and as Governor of Kansas. The correspondence is both personal and official in nature and includes many letters from local supporters and fellow congressmen. There is also a considerable correspondence between the Avery Election Office and national and local press.
The congressional newsletters in the collection are weekly installments describing the activities of the U.S. Congress. They contain no personal information about Avery but provide a good summary of the political issues from 1956 to 1964.
The third group contains printed materials, primarily newspaper clippings. Organized by topic are a variety of newspaper editorials related to subjects of concern to Kansans. Of interest are the newspaper clippings about Avery's governorship in 1966. The clippings are filed chronologically in one document box. Additional newspaper clippings regarding the Tuttle Creek Dam controversy, 1954-1955, are contained in a scrapbook.
A fourth part of the collection consists of two notebooks handwritten by an anonymous author. They appear to document a family history of Czech immigrants to the U.S. who settled in Nebraska in the late 1800's. Included are printed photographs of family members identified only by their first name.
Photographs (26) in the collection were transferred to the photograph cabinet and filed under Avery's name.
William H. Avery was a Kansas politician who served in the U.S. Congress and as Governor of Kansas in the 1960s. Avery received an AB degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas in 1934, after which he worked as a farmer and stockman near his hometown of Wakefield, Kansas for 20 years. In 1950, Avery successfully campaigned to serve in the Kansas House of Representatives, where he served for four years. From 1955 to 1965, he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Kansas’s First Congressional District. Avery was elected Governor of Kansas in 1964 but lost his re-election bid in 1966; he left the Governor’s office in 1967. In 1968, Avery unsuccessfully ran as a candidate to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate. After his defeat, Avery left politics and worked in various capacities in the private sector for many years. This includes working for the Clinton Oil Company from 1967 to 1971, as Congressional liaison to the Department of the Interior from 1973 to 1977, and as director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Wakefield from 1977 to 1980. Avery died in 2009, having lived to the age of 98.