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The Julius T. Willard papers include records related to his tenure at Kansas State University, personal records, the Students' Army Training Corps, financial documents, statistics related to the university, literary works, and various reports and printed materials. The correspondence series, 1894–1926, includes letters from the chief of the United States Department of Agriculture, the Riley County Treasurer, Kansas Attorney General Aretas Allen Gotard, professors at other universities, and many others. Correspondence also includes letters from the Agricultural Experiment Stations throughout Kansas, the United States, and Cuba, as well as correspondence related to reports of the Agricultural Experiment Stations. Subjects in the correspondence series relate to Willard’s travels abroad, personal purchases, character references, normal schools, articles by Willard submitted to Farm Life, subscriptions to various publications, chemistry coursework, etc. Correspondence relates both to Willard’s work at Kansas State College (KSC) as well as personal matters.

The subject file series includes both K-State and personal files. The K-State subject files are extensive, including academic calendars, applications for employment, correspondence about the selection of the official K-State college color, and information about various campus departments. The subject files also include information about various campus organizations, as well as biographical information about various faculty members, including Nellie Kedzie Jones and Mary Van Zile. Personal subject files contain financial documents pertaining to the Tacoma Company and the Portland Cement Company, as well as various organizations with which Willard was a member.

Materials in the estate series include correspondence related to the Willard farm and estate, expenditures, and receipts. The literary works series contains history of KSC in newspapers and in letters, drafts of works, and autobiographical reminiscences. The history of KSC in newspapers includes copies of articles printed in newspapers connected to K-State. The history of KSC in letters contains letters and newspaper correspondence pertaining to acts by the Board of Regents from 1897 to 1899. Additionally, there is a chapter omitted from Willard’s 1940 book, History of Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, titled “Discussion of the Controversy of the Seventies" [1870s]. The literary works series includes drafts of his 1940 book and Willard’s autobiographical reminiscences.

The military file series includes business files related to the Students' Army Training Corps and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, as well as materials connected to training camp at Fort Sheridan. The bulk of the materials dates from 1918 and 1919. The financial documents series of Willard’s papers contains receipts, vouchers, and other materials related to K-State expenses including laboratory charges. The statistics series contains materials related to grade distribution, attendance, and enrollment. The report series includes reports for American Universities and Colleges, the Department of the Interior Bureau of Education, the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, as well as other reports such as the cost of attending K-State.

The final series includes a variety of printed materials including invitations, programs, a speech class syllabus, articles, and quotations. Also included are card files with lecture notes, names and positions of numerous faculty and students, and notes on various pieces of history related to K-State.

This collection consists of correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, prints, postage stamps, journal and typescript articles pertaining to poultry breeder Leonora C. Hering (1898-1983). A member of the World’s Poultry Science Association and a former co-director of the American Partridge Plymouth Rock Club, Hering raised Houdans in Los Altos, California. Beginning as early as 1950, she sought to create a comprehensive poultry publication collection for Kansas State College by consulting with librarian William Behr and Department of Poultry Husbandry chairperson Loyal F. Payne. Her monograph collection – consisting of nearly 1000 titles – was cataloged for the Libraries as the “Leonora Hering Memorial Poultry Collection.”
Sporadic copies of journals interleaved with correspondence, newspaper clippings, and ephemeral materials form the basis of this archival collection. They document Hering’s research, the international community of breeders, book dealers, and agriculture librarians with whom she corresponded. They cover issues related to poultry, including, but not limited to, farming and production, diseases, specific breeds and breeding associations, recipes, legal restrictions, marketing, rationing, incubation technologies, vocalizations, and children’s folk stories and postage stamps featuring poultry.
Publications are international in scope, with representative examples in multiple languages (1849-1973). All of the children’s stories are in Russian. Correspondence from England, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, New Zealand, and Russia is included (1952-1980), and some of those letters contain photographic images and postcards. A secondary interest in poultry philately is represented in correspondence with and acquisitions from stamp dealers. Poultry advertisements, the earliest of which originates from postbellum Ohio, also feature prominently.

Note: A photostat of Basics of Industrial Poultry Production by D. I. Gerasimov (in Russian), along with correspondence
The Nora Hering Collection of taxidermy specimens and poultry art reside in Call Hall, which was home to the Department of Dairy Science and the Department of Poultry Science at the time of her gift.