Pinckney School is one of the earliest schools established in the Lawrence, Kansas area and is now part of the Unified School District (USD) 497. The school took its name from the street on which it was built, which like many of the east-west streets that were later numbered, was named after a Revolutionary War hero. What is now known as 6th Street was named after General Charles Coatesworth Pinckney, a proslavery senator from South Carolina who helped write the United States constitution.

The first Pinckney School building with two stories and two classrooms was erected in 1872. After later additions, it was torn down in 1931 and replaced by the current building, which has undergone many renovations and additions over the decades.

Poet and author Langston Hughes attended second grade at the original Pinckney School when it was still segregated, in 1909. In 1991 the school library was named the Langston Hughes Library for Children.

Librarian Janet Reeder prepared a history of the school for the 75th anniversary of the building, celebrated in 2007, and compiled the scrapbooks in this collection, which she donated to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. She retired in 2010 after serving as Pinckney School librarian for 30 years.

[Information retrieved from The Lawrence Journal-World, The Lawrence Times, and collection materials.]