Our investigation and discovery methods: We were able to trace hundreds of residents of The Sophian through a few astonishingly fantastic resources.
First, the KC City Directories back in the 1920’s and 1930’s found on Ancestry.com through a free link provided by KC Public Library. They listed people’s phone number by name alphabetically and by address. So we were able to trace every person with a phone over many years.
Second, we relied heavily on the help of two genealogy sites. Familysearch.org and FindAGrave.com Both were fantastically helpful in triangulating stories to assure that we were not confusing individuals with similar names. Familysearch.org includes images of the actual ledger pages of the US decennial census, whose sole purpose is to list every person living in the US, by address. They also post images of immigration and citizenship documents, plus details from marriage certificates, draft registration, vital statistics records and and other marvelous primary sources. It is rich and free genealogy site maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an amazing service to the world. Find-a-Grave seeks to record every tombstone in the US and beyond, with incredibly valuable family information like parent, sibling, spouse, and children info.
FAmilysearch.org
Offered by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter DAy Saints
1930 Census records for The Sophian
Third, it turns out that it was a common practice for newspapers, at least in the 1920s and 1930s, to identify the home address of people mentioned in a news report. We used the Kansas City Star archives and Newspapers.com, which includes newspapers nationwide, including the Kansas City Times. It was especially surprising to see how much the newspapers-of-old operated much like Facebook and other social media today, at least for high society types. The papers reported events like who was having whom for dinner, travel plans across the country or abroad, and social activities (as small as hosting a reading group to large fundraising galas). It was an unexpected bonanza to have access to papers across the country, allowing us to piece together the lives of our Sophian neighbors over time.
Lastly, through some archives held by the State Historic Preservation Office, we happened upon a substantial set of files of Harry Sophian’s attempt to sell in the building in 1943. As part of the negotiation process, he provided the rent roll for each apartment and tenant. Through these sources we built a database for residents in the building.
As we tried to discover the stories of the early tenants, w
A word on newspaper practices and social norms: Many, many, many women went by their married name exclusively --- Mrs. [husband’s first and last name] only, e.g., Mrs. Jack Rieger—whether or not the story had to do with the activities of the woman only, or the two of them as a couple. By the newspaper reports, it was clear that these women were engaged and doing noteworthy work.