Tag Archives: Mammoth Cave

“Dearly Beloved. . .”

Bride Mildred Tucker, 1925

Bride Mildred Tucker, 1925

Summer is wedding season, and the collections of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections provide evidence of the pomp and circumstance, excitement and humor with which Kentuckians have tied the knot through history.

To begin with, our collection of more than 7,000 Warren County, Kentucky marriage bonds begins in 1797 and is a gold mine for those researching family history.  In addition, many collections of family papers, such as the Margie Helm Collection, contain wedding invitations and announcements.  Other collections document the unusual; for example, a double wedding that took place inside Mammoth Cave in 1879, inaugurating a custom that lasted until 1941.  Photographs, such as Mildred Tucker‘s before her 1925 wedding, are indispensable to the occasion.  In particular, many a local bride proudly posed in a creation made by the celebrated Bowling Green dressmaker Mrs. A. H. (Carrie) Taylor.

And, of course, there are the diaries and letters of both participants and observers recalling the triumphs and tribulations of the big day.  “This is Birdie’s wedding day,” wrote Russellville’s Fannie Morton Bryan on February 27, 1889.  “Lena and Joe Gill and Mot Williams and myself stood up with them.  That is as near married as I ever expect to be.”  (She was right).  Amid a whirlwind of preparations for her February 16, 1926 wedding, Bowling Green’s Mildred Potter and her mother addressed the “burning question” of attire for the men in the party.  “Agonizing” over cutaways or tuxedos, they settled on “gray trousers and cutaways, with spats,” but a stressed-out Mildred “shed a few tears” when a telegram arrived from her fiance in New York that betrayed his misunderstanding of her diktat.

Marriage of Margie Helm's parents, 1888

Marriage of Margie Helm’s parents, 1888

Some enjoy scrutinizing a wedding and judging it against their own ideal.  Writing to his cousin in 1861, Charles Edmunds of Princeton described the curious ceremony of his family’s domestic servant.  “Mother’s house girl Vic was married,” he reported.  “An old negro preacher officiated, and he made the man promise to do a thing I never heard of before. . . he turned to the man and said, ‘Richard Calvert, do you promise to take this woman to be your lawful wife and be unto her a kind, loving and obedient husband’; if I had been his place I would not have agreed to that because I think that if ever I get married, my wife will have to obey me, and not I obey her, but he assented, and the ceremony was performed, and they were made man and wife upon those terms.”

Search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat for more of our collections that feature weddings.

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Upper and Lower Worlds

Paris; Mammoth Cave cottages

Paris; Mammoth Cave cottages

A recent donation to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections widens our perspective on the brief life of Oliver Hazard Perry Anderson, a Frankfort, Kentucky native and successful merchant.

In July 1841, Anderson arrived in southern France after a lengthy sea voyage from parts unknown.  In a letter to his sister Penelope, he described in detail the Straits of Gibraltar, whale sightings, and his landing at the ancient city of Marseilles, followed by a 4-day ride to Paris.  Anderson then took Penelope on an epistolary tour of the palaces, churches and historical monuments of this “magnificent city,” but then claimed, surprisingly, that “I cannot see Paris, I am not well enough” and expressed an intense anxiety to continue on his way home.  The reason: Anderson was dogged by a debilitating tubercular cough, and his travels in search of a remedial climate had given him only occasional relief.

Anderson’s time in the City of Light contrasted remarkably with his experience 15 months later, when he became, literally, a cave dweller.  In the winter of 1842-43, he resided with a handful of other tuberculosis patients in stone cottages inside Mammoth Cave in hopes that the pure, cool air would help his lungs.  Dr. John Croghan, who specialized in the disease and also happened to own the Cave, had constructed the underground sanatorium as an experimental treatment center.

As shown, however, in letters already in our collection dated in December 1842 and January 1843, Anderson found any improvement in his condition to be little more than a mirage.  The darkness and dampness of the Cave and the constant smoke from cooking stoves convinced him, when he finally emerged, that “I would be better out than in.”  Whether in the “upper world” or below it, he struggled with alternating periods of strength and good appetite, then fatigue, cold symptoms, and always, the cough.  He finally succumbed to the disease in 1845 at the age of 32.

Click on the links to access finding aids for Anderson’s letters from Paris and Mammoth Cave.  For more of our collections about Mammoth Cave, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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Mammoth Cave Stereoviews 1866

The Department of Library Special Collections at WKU already has an impressive collection of illustrative material related to Mammoth Cave. These items include glass plate negatives, post cards, guide books, etc. A recent acquisition of a complete set Charles L. Waldack’s 1866 stereo views will greatly enhance these materials as Waldack is the first photographer of the cave. The 42 “Magnesium Light Views in Mammoth Cave” were published by E. & H.T. Anthony & Co. and include scenes of the Hotel, guests, the African American cave guides and many interior shots of cave formations. Waldack, origimage015inally from Belgium came to the United States in 1857. It was noted that he brought “sunlight” to the interior of the cave by the use of magnesium, so that one of the greatest natural wonders of the world could be seen by many. His biography from a special edition of the “Journal of Speleological History” (2000) notes: “These were the first high quality photographs produced underground in any cave. Waldack was naturalized as an American citizen after his marriage to Mary Tanner (born about 1849) of Kentucky, who was also a photographer. He set up a photography shop at 31 West 3rd Street in Cincinnati and made many excellent views of buildings, streets, and bridges between 1857 and 1873. Most important was his 42 stereo cards of Mammoth Cave. The Anthony series was continuously printed until about 1872, and 12 of the photographs were printed as engravings in the 1870 book, “A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky” by William S. Forwood.

These stereo views can be seen at by visiting WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections or by clicking on the link to access the images at KenCat.

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Kentucky Cave Wars

Since the first tourist tract written by Alexander Clark Bullitt in 1844, it seemed  everyone wanted to visit the “Mammoth Cave.” He considered such a visit an almost spiritual pilgrimage.  “Awe and apprehension soon yield to the influence of the delicious air; and after a time a certain jocund feeling is found mingled with the deepest impressions of sublimity. I recommend all broken-hearted lovers and dyspeptic dandies to carry their complaints to the Mammoth Cave, where they will undoubtedly find themselves ‘translated’ into very buxom and happy persons.”

Mammoth Cave is the country’s 26th national park and contains almost 60,000 acres of land in South Central, KY. But, the entire region, because of our 22545771karst topography is riddled with caves. This push for visitors lead to one of the most interesting parts of Mammoth Cave history. It was the period known as the “Kentucky Cave Wars.” It was a time when local cave owners used devious advertising and other illegal means to lure tourists to their underground treasures and away from the “real” cave.  They did this impersonating rangers and flagging travelers off the road before they could reach the cave and national park. A recent book by David Kem, The Kentucky Cave Wars: The Century That Shaped Mammoth Cave National Park, delves into this time by “telling the story of Mammoth Cave’s greatest competitors in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.   From the death of Dr. Croghan and the first competitors popping up in Cave Country, to the national park’s creation and beyond, more than a century of fighting for tourist dollars shaped the decisions in and around the famous cave.” Kem used several photographs and other illustrative materials from the Kentucky Library Research Collections to illustrate his new book. Find materials about the cave and other subjects in the Department of Library Special Collections by searching TopSCHOLAR and KenCat or request more information from spcol@wku.edu.

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Mammoth Cave National Park Association Collection Now Available

Mammoth Cave National Park Association membership form

Mammoth Cave National Park Association membership form

For those interested in the history of the conception, organization and operation of Mammoth Cave National Park, WKU’s Special Collections Library offers two important collections of primary source material: the Max B. Nahm Collection, about which we have previously blogged, and the Mammoth Cave National Park Association (MCNPA) Collection.

Incorporated in 1925 for the purpose of persuading Congress to pass enabling legislation for a national park at Mammoth Cave, the MCNPA worked closely with the Kentucky National Park Commission to acquire the minimum acreage needed for the park and to raise funds for project expenses.  Prior to 1941, the MCNPA was concerned with managing the caves and associated hotels, building roads and infrastructure, fending off opposition to the project, and convincing politicians at the state and federal level to remain committed to the goal of a national park.  After some 48,000 acres were assembled and the National Park Service took over the park in 1941, the MCNPA assumed a new role as a non-profit advocacy group, providing input on environmental, educational, and preservation issues affecting Mammoth Cave.

The Mammoth Cave National Park Association Collection at WKU’s Special Collections Library includes meeting minutes, correspondence, reports, advertisements, and clippings covering most of the MCNPA’s history.  A detailed finding aid for the collection can be downloaded here.  For other resources on Mammoth Cave, search TopScholar and KenCat.

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A Champion of Mammoth Cave

Max Brunswick Nahm, 1864-1958

Max Brunswick Nahm, 1864-1958

On May 19, 1924, prominent Bowling Green banker Max B. Nahm attended a meeting of citizens interested in the creation of a national park at Mammoth Cave.  Within a year, the Mammoth Cave National Park Association had been formed to raise money, lobby the U.S. Congress for enabling legislation, and negotiate purchase options from private owners of the proposed park lands.  Max Nahm became the Association’s president.

A collection of Max Nahm’s papers at WKU’s Special Collections Library documents his key executive role, over the next two decades, in the creation of the park.  As Association president and chairman of the Kentucky National Park Commission, Nahm was involved in all aspects of the project: assembling land; securing private, state and federal funding (which became increasingly difficult during the Depression); defending the project from public criticism; developing roads and hotels to serve tourists; managing cutthroat competition from private owners of surrounding caves; completing the controversial process of removing residents; and fulfilling all the conditions under which the National Park Service would assume responsibility for the park.

A finding aid for the Max Brunswick Nahm Collection can be downloaded here.  For more information on the Nahm family, search TopScholar and KenCat.

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Clara Ramsey DeWilde Scrapbook

 

Clara Ramsey DeWildeClara Ramsey DeWilde was a pretty typical WKU student in 1945.  Born in Russellville, Kentucky in 1926, she was 19 when she came to Bowling Green.  She lived in West Hall and created a scrapbook of photographs of her time on the Hill.  These include friends on campus, Halloween in the dorm, a trip to Mammoth Cave and family.

This scrapbook was loaned to University Archives for digitization in 2007.  It is now available to researchers via KenCat by searching DeWilde [http://wku.pastperfect-online.com/35749cgi/mweb.exe?request=ks].  This is only one of many examples of Student/Alumni personal papers found in the University Archives.

If you have personal papers documenting life on the Hill please contact the University Archivist at klmref@wku.edu.

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