In 1905, the University of Kansas School of Medicine opened in the basement of a building in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. By 1991 it occupied 2.3 million square feet of space in Kansas City and many thousands more in Wichita and area health education centers; it had an annual budget of over $235 million and a staff of over 5,000.

A lot has happened in the last eighty-seven years.

In 385 black-and-white photographs, historians Lawrence Larsen and Nancy Hulston portray the tremendous changes that have taken place and illustrate a story of dramatic institutional growth from the humblest of beginnings.

From its opening in the fall of 1905, the University of Kansas School of Medicine grew in fits and starts. Progress depended on legislative and public support, which was often unreliable, especially at first. Larsen and Hulston chronicle the development of the school in a brief text, in quotations from contemporary sources, and in carefully chosen photographs. "Photographic evidence was so complete," the authors note in their introduction, "that had we wanted to, we could have devoted an entire chapter to the development of the Medical Center power plant."

Instead, they focused on the changes in the physical facilities at 39th and Rainbow and the accompanying evolution of medical education there. Action shots show buildings under construction, as well as doctors and students in settings that range from primitive, turn-of-the-century laboratories to the gleaming present-day facilities. Many photographs portray doctors, nurses, and students going about their daily activities-conducting clinical examinations, performing nursing demonstrations, rehabilitating children, and caring for patients. Others depict social life, fraternal activities, and fun. One fascinating set of photographs documents the changes in operating rooms through the years.

Larsen and Hulston also place the development of the school in its larger social context, exploring programs like the Murphy Plan, designed to bring medical care to outlying areas of Kansas, and the effect of the two world wars on the school.

"This is a good bit more than a 'coffee table' book It should do well in its institutional role, but should also attract attention from historians of medicine and education more generally."--Charles E. Rosenberg, coauthor (with Janet Golden) of "Pictures of Health: A Photographic History of Health Care in Philadelphia" and president of the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Historians have largely ignored the western city; although a number of specialized studies have appeared in recent years, this volume is the first to assess the importance of the urban frontier in broad fashion. Lawrence H. Larsen studies the process of urbanization as it occurred in twenty-four major frontier towns. Cities examined are Kansas City, St. Joseph, Lincoln, Omaha, Atchison, Lawrence, Leavenworth, Topeka, Austin, Dallas, Galveston, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Leadville, Salt Lake city, Virginia City, Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Stockton. Larsen bases his analysis of western cities and their problems on social statistics obtained from the 1880 United States Census. This census is particularly important because it represents the first time that the federal government regarded the United States as an urban nation. The author is the first scholar to do a comprehensive investigation of this important source. This volume gives an accurate portrayal of western urban life. Here are promoters and urban planners crowding as many lots as possible into tracts in the middle of vast, uninhabited valleys. Here are streets clogged with filth because of inadequate sanitation systems; people crowded together in packed quarters with only fledgling police and fire services. Here, too, is the advance of nineteenth-century technology: gaslights, telephones, interurbans. Most important, this study dispels the misconceptions concerning the process of exploration, settlement, and growth of the urban west. City building in the American West, despite popular mythology, was not a response to geographic or climatic conditions. It was the extension of a process perfected earlier, the promotion and building of sites-no matter how undesirable-into successful localities. Uncontrolled capitalism led to disorderly development that reflected the abilities of individual entrepreneurs rather than most other factors. The result was the establishment of a society that mirrored and made the same mistakes as those made earlier in the rest of the country.

"Lawrence Larsen and his wife Barbara Cottrell have written a marvelous urban biography. They have done what other historians often fail to do--relate local happenings to the larger regional and national picture. And Larsen and Cottrell have skillfully used sophisticated historical works and concepts, incorporating them in an understandable fashion. Throughout this book the authors write in a delightful manner; they make you want to visit Omaha!"--North Dakota History. "[The authors] organize their splendid urban biography around a limited number of events of national magnitude. The husband-wife team take as their story's major units the building of the transcontinental railroad, the penetration of the Great Plains by homesteaders, the establishment of the meat packing industry, and the creation of an elaborate national defense system. They fill in their story with intriguing descriptions of the push-and-pull factors that brought diverse ethnic groups to Omaha in the years since 1854--the years when town promoters first settled at the Missouri River ferry landing in the newly established Nebraska territory. Because their narrative is so well organized, their treatment of political, social, and cultural affairs is clear and cohesive, while their discussion of urban unrest, vice, and crime remains tightly linked to the general outlines of their lively portrait of Omaha's history."--Business History Review. Lawrence H. Larsen is a professor of history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He is the author of The Urban South: A History (1990), Federal Justice in Western Missouri: The Judges, the Cases, the Times (1994), and other books. Barbara J. Cottrell is a historian with the National Archives-Central Plains Region. Harl A. Dalstrom is a professor of history at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

In this panoramic survey of urbanization in the American South from its beginnings in the colonial period through the "Sunbelt" era of today, Lawrence Larsen examines both the ways in which southern urbanization has paralleled that of other regions and the distinctive marks of "southernness" in the historical process. Larsen is the first historian to show that southern cities developed in "layers" spreading ever westward in response to the expanding transportation needs of the Cotton Kingdom. Yet in other respects, southern cities developed in much the same way as cities elsewhere in America, despite the constraints of regional, racial, and agrarian factors. And southern urbanites, far from resisting change, quickly seized upon technological innovations- most recently air conditioning- to improve the quality of urban life. Treating urbanization as an independent variable without an ideological foundation, Larsen demonstrates that focusing on the introduction of certain city services, such as sewerage and professional fire departments, enables the historian to determine points of urban progress. Larsen's landmark study provides a new perspective not only on a much ignored aspect of the history of the South but also on the relationship of the distinctive cities of the Old South to the new concept of the Sunbelt city. Carrying his story down to the present, he concludes that southern cities have gained parity with others throughout America. This important work will be of value to all students of the South as well as to urban historians.

Operating under an outmoded system of urban development and faced by the vicissitudes of the Civil War and Reconstruction, southerners in the nineteenth century built a network of cities that met the needs of their society. In this pioneering exploration of that intricate story, Lawrence H. Larsen shows that in the antebellum period, southern entrepreneurs built cities in layers to facilitate the movement of cotton. First came the colonial cities, followed by those of the piedmont, the New West, the Gulf Coast, and the interior. By the Civil War, cotton could move by a combination of road, rail, and river through a network of cities -- for example, from Jackson to Memphis to New Orleans to Europe. In the Gilded Age, building on past practices, the South continued to make urban gains. Men like Henry Grady of Atlanta and Henry Watterson of Louisville used broader regional objectives to promote their own cities. Grady successfully sold Atlanta, one of the most southern of cities demographically, as a city with a northern outlook; Watterson tied Louisville to national goals in railroad building. The New South movement did not succeed in bringing the region to parity with the rest of the nation, yet the South continued to rise along older lines. By 1900, far from being a failure in terms of the general course of American development, the South had created an urban system suited to its needs, while avoiding the promotional frenzy that characterized the building of cities in the North. Based upon federal and local sources, this book will become the standard work on nineteenth-century southern urbanization, a subject too long unexplored.

From its birth as interdependent towns on the Missouri River frontier to its emergence as a metropolis straddling two states, Omaha-Council Bluffs has been one of the great urban construction projects in the nation's history. "Upstream Metropolis" provides the first comprehensive history of this unique urban region that ranks 60th among the 370 major metropolitan areas in the United States. Drawing on local newspapers and historical archives, the authors deliver an anecdote-rich account of how and why a large metropolitan area developed in this spot. They also explain why it grew so big--and no bigger--but could never have remained two small towns. "Upstream Metropolis" is an urban biography of the highest order, tracing the lives of two cities, which though divided by a river, the problems of a state line, and inevitable rivalry, have always been inextricably linked. This discussion moves from the freewheeling frontier days to the times of farming and railroads, examining influences such as the populist movement, the meatpacking industry, immigration, and ethnicity. The highly readable result is a pioneering contribution to the history of urbanization in America.

More than a half-century after the death of Kansas City's notorious political boss, Thomas J. Pendergast, the Pendergast name still evokes great interest and even controversy. Now, in this first full-scale biography of Pendergast, Lawrence H. Larsen and Nancy J. Hulston have successfully provided-through extensive research, including use of recently released prison records and previously unavailable family records-a clear look at the life of Thomas J. Pendergast. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, in 1872, Tom Pendergast moved to Kansas City around 1890 to work for his brother James, founder of the Pendergast "Goat" faction in Kansas City Democratic politics. In 1911, Pendergast became head of the Goats, and over the next fifteen years he created a powerful political machine that used illegal voting and criminal enforcers to gain power. Following a change in the city charter in 1925, Pendergast took control of Kansas City and ran it as his own personal business. In the 1930s, he received over $30 million annually from gambling, prostitution, and narcotics, putting him in the big leagues of American civic corruption. He also wielded great power in the National Democratic Party and started Harry S. Truman on the road to the presidency. In this well-balanced biography, the authors examine Pendergast's rise to power, his successes as a political leader, his compassion for the destitute, and his reputation for keeping his word. They also examine Pendergast's character development and how his methods became more and more ruthless. Pendergast had no use for ideology in his "invisible government"-only votes counted. In 1937 and 1938 the federal government broke the back of Pendergast's machine, convicting 259 of his campaign aides for vote fraud. In 1939 Pendergast, who was believed to be the largest bettor on horse racing in the United States, was jailed for income tax evasion, and he died in disgrace in 1945. An insightful and comprehensive biography, Pendergast! will surely serve for years to come as the most thorough investigation of the life and infamous career of Tom Pendergast.

A History of Missouri: Volume VI is the final volume of A History of Missouri. Beginning at the close of the Truman presidency and ending in 2003, the two hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase agreement and of the organization of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Volume VI explains how modern Missouri bridged the years between the mid-twentieth century and the new millennium. Central to the period was the end of segregation, the demise of bossism in Kansas City and St. Louis, changes in the economy, and the impact of cross-state urbanization. Among other developments were the building of the interstate highways and the marked expansion of higher education. Larsen's overall thesis is that during these years Missouri continued to advance in a restrained manner and at a moderate pace. The Republican party revived, suburbs mushroomed around the central cities, the state government grew and expanded its functions, the population became more diversified, concerns increased for the natural and built environments, higher education was transformed, small towns held their own, and the state declined as a force in national politics. A History of Missouri: Volume VI, 1953 to 2003 is very much a pioneering effort and one that should be welcomed by anyone interested in the history of Missouri, from casual observers to policymakers.

"A History of Missouri: Volume VI" is the final volume of "A History of Missouri." Beginning at the close of the Truman presidency and ending in 2003, the two hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase agreement and of the organization of the Lewis and Clark expedition, "Volume VI" explains how modern Missouri bridged the years between the mid-twentieth century and the new millennium.

Central to the period was the end of segregation, the demise of bossism in Kansas City and St. Louis, changes in the economy, and the impact of cross-state urbanization. Among other developments were the building of the interstate highways and the marked expansion of higher education. Larsen's overall thesis is that during these years Missouri continued to advance in a restrained manner and at a moderate pace. The Republican party revived, suburbs mushroomed around the central cities, the state government grew and expanded its functions, the population became more diversified, concerns increased for the natural and built environments, higher education was transformed, small towns held their own, and the state declined as a force in national politics.

"A History of Missouri: Volume VI, 1953 to 2003" is very much a pioneering effort and one that should be welcomed by anyone interested in the history of Missouri, from casual observers to policymakers.