Very few single men worked on a farm alone. Farmers understood the need for a hard-working wife and many children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, feeding the hired hands, and handling the paperwork and financial details (especially after the 1930s). In the late 19th century, farm women were important in keeping the family going by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women started leaving the fields. This changed their roles within the family. New technology such as sewing and washing machines made women play domestic roles. The scientific housekeeping movement was promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents. It was also promoted by county fairs which showed achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm newspapers, and home economics courses in the schools.
There was an idea that farm life on the prairies was lonely, but rural people had a social life. They often had activities that combined work, food, and entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, quilting bees, Grange meeting, church activities, and school functions. The women organized shared meals and potluck events. They also had visits between families.
In 1947, Lyle Yost created the Hesston Manufacturing Company. The company specialized in farm equipment. The type of equipment included self-propelled windrowers and the StakHand hay harvester. In 1974, Hesston Company commissioned its first belt buckles, which became popular on the rodeo circuit and with collectors. In 1991, the American-based equipment manufacturer, AGCO Corporation, bought Hesston Corporation. Farm equipment is still manufactured in the city.
In 1896 William Allen White, editor of the "Emporia Gazette", got national attention after criticizing William Jennings Bryan, the Democrats, and the Populists. He did that by writing an article called "What's the Matter With Kansas?" White criticized Populist leaders for letting Kansas go into economic stagnation. He also criticized them for not keeping Kansas up economically with nearby states. he said the reason was because their policies were anti-business, and that it scared away economic capital from the state. The Republicans sent out hundreds of thousands of copies of the article. They did this to support William McKinley during the 1896 United States presidential election. McKinley won the small towns and cities of the state. However, Bryan won the wheat farms and won the electoral vote, even though McKinley won the national vote.
Kansas was a big part of the progressive movement. It has a lot of support from the middle classes, editors such as William Allen White of the "Emporia Gazette", and the prohibitionists of the WCTU and the Methodist Church.
In 1915, the El Dorado Oil Field was the first oil field that was found using science/geologic mapping. It was around the city of El Dorado. It was part of the Mid-Continent oil province. By 1918, the El Dorado Oil Field was the largest single field producer in the United States. It was responsible for 12.8% of national oil production and 9% of the world production. Some said it was as "the oil field that won World War I".
Between 1922 and 1927, there were many legal battles with the KKK. This led to the KKK no longer being in Kansas.
The Flag of Kansas was created in 1925.
The Dust Bowl was a lot of dust storms that happened from 1930 to 1941. This was caused by a drought. The price of wheat lowered a lot, which cause a lot of farmers to leave. Because this was during the Great Depression, many unemployed men from the cities came to Kansas to work on farms.
Kansas was part of New Deal programs like Civil Works Administration, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration. These programs helped employ many Kansas men. The most important were New Deal farm programs. Those programs raised the price of wheat, and it allowed economic growth by 1936. Republican Governor Alf Landon also did emergency programs. It included a balanced budget goal. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration succeeded in raising wheat prices after 1933. This helped get rid of the biggest problems economically.
The most important things Kansas did to help the war effort was provide a lot of grain and send tens of thousands of men to fight. Farmers didn't like the price ceilings and quotas for wheat, and their workers moved to factories. Farmers asked Congress to not draft young farmers.
Wichita became an important place for making airplanes. They got tens of thousands of unemployed people from around the state to come work there.
The Women's Land Army of America (WLA) was a women's labor pool during World War II. It was organized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It did not get many women from cities to do farm work. However, it did train hundreds of farm wives on how to handle machines, safety, proper clothing, time-saving methods, and nutrition.
Kansas allowed segregation in public schools, and they were in Topeka and other cities. On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court said in "Brown v. Board of Education" that segregation was not protected by the United States Constitution.
During the 1950s and 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles were kept in some Kansas buildings. They were stored to prepare for a possible attack. The buildings were closed in the 1980s.
On June 6, 1966, Topeka was hit by an F5 tornado. The "1966 Topeka tornado" started in southwest Topeka, moving northeast, hitting many buildings. The tornado caused $100 million in damage.
The Kansas Sports Hall of Fame tells the history of sports in Kansas.
The first college football game played in Kansas was the 1890 Kansas vs. Baker football game in Baldwin City. Baker won 22–9. The first night football game west of the Mississippi River was played in Wichita, Kansas. The game was the 1905 between Cooper College (now called Sterling College) and Fairmount College (now Wichita State University). Also in 1905, Fairmount also played an experimental game against the Washburn Ichabods. This game was used to test new rules designed to make football safer.
In 1911, the Kansas Jayhawks went to play against the Missouri Tigers for the first homecoming game ever. The first college football homecoming game ever on television was played in Manhattan. It was between the Kansas State Wildcats and the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
In the 1951 season, the Southwestern head coach Harold Hunt got national recognition for rejecting a touchdown in a game against Central Missouri. Hunt told the officials that his player had stepped out of bounds. This would undo long touchdown run. Not a single one of the referees seen this happen, but they agreed to undo the touchdown. They put the ball back to the point where Coach Hunt said Johnson had stepped out. A photo of the run later showed that Coach Hunt was correct.
On October 2, 1970, a plane crashed. The plane had about half of the football team for Wichita State. They were going to play a game against Utah State University. 31 people were killed. The game was canceled. The Utah State football team had a memorial service at the stadium where the game would have been played.
The history of professional sports in Kansas starts from the creation of the Minor League Baseball Topeka Capitals and Leavenworth Soldiers in 1886 in the Western League. The African-American Bud Fowler played on the Topeka team that season. This was one year before the "color line" happened in professional baseball.