A selection of toys, games and fringed holiday cards are now on loan to Historic Riverview at Hobson Grove as part of its Victorian Holiday tour. During the tour which runs from now until the Friday before Christmas, visitors to Riverview are transported back in time to Christmas 1890 in the setting of Atwood and Julia Hobson’s three-story Italianate home, including a parlor outfitted with the 19th century holiday rage: the quaint and breath-taking Christmas tree, complete with antique decorations and toys.
Monthly Archives: December 2009
Kentucky Library & Museum toys & cards now on exhibit at Historic Riverview
County Delegation Presidents Club
The County Delegation Presidents Club was formed in February 1932. It was an outgrowth of the older county clubs that students were placed in upon arrival at WKU. These county clubs were formed to help students connect with their peers. A county with a large number of students stood on its own. Counties with smaller populations were combined. There was also an “out of state” club.
A faculty sponsor was assigned to several counties. Their role was to encourage attendance at chapel, elect officers and find out the names of local county papers. The secretary-treasurer was to write up press releases to be reviewed by the faculty sponsor and sent to the local papers. In this way, Dr. Cherry kept county constituents in the loop and recruited new students.
The county clubs were also instrumental during summer sessions when county teachers institutes were held throughout the western part of the state. Students were recruited to help organize the institutes. Once the County Delegation Presidents Club was formed it acted as a de facto student government organization. The club spearheaded the 1932 clean up day, ran Senior High School Day events, and over Christmas break that year collected artifacts, books and manuscripts from their respective counties for the Kentucky Library & Museum which was being created.
The few documents related to the County Delegation Presidents Club are available for researchers to use in University Archives. For more information check out the collection inventory:
Filed under University Archives
Gift Ideas Galore
Need the perfect gift? Do all your holiday shopping during the Holiday Open House in the Museum Store at the Kentucky Library & Museum. The Museum Store is stocked with a wide array of Kentucky-crafted items including jewelry, pottery and glassware as well holiday themed gifts such as ornaments. The gourmet on your gift list will appreciate the many specialty food items available at this time of year, and book lovers can choose among numerous titles about Kentucky.
Open house hours are 9 to 4 on December 9 & 10. All shoppers will enjoy 10% OFF STOREWIDE. WKU faculty, staff and students, including WKU retirees, receive an additional 10% off for a total of 20% off!
For more information, call 270-745-6080.
Filed under Events
Christmas in Kentucky this Saturday
This Saturday, December 5 is Christmas in Kentucky at the Kentucky Library & Museum from 11 am to 2 pm. This free family event will be full of fun with ornament making, open hearth cooking, a visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus and Big Red. There will be several children’s activities including a cake walk, a scavenger hunt, and the magician who makes balloon animals. Join us after the Christmas parade to kick off the season.
Filed under Java City Concert
Moore-Mulligan-Brown Collection at Special Collections Library
Gilbert Marshall Mulligan’s Civil War correspondence
The Johns and Moore families of Trigg County and the Mulligan and Brown families of Allen County, Kentucky have left a historical record of more than 400 letters that is now available to researchers at WKU’s Special Collections Library. The families were linked by Gilbert Marshall Mulligan (1821-1877), an attorney who practiced in Allen and Warren Counties. In 1848, Mulligan married Mary Winston Johns and had three daughters; after his wife’s early death, Mulligan married Lucy Tate in 1857. One of Mulligan’s daughters, also named Lucy, married attorney Eugene Scott Brown in 1872.
The correspondence of both Mulligan and his son-in-law, Eugene Scott Brown, is well represented in the collection. In particular, Mulligan’s letters cast light on his law practice and his service as a captain in the Union Army during the Civil War. But the women of the family are also present: Mulligan’s first wife, Mary, and her sister Julia (Johns) Moore; his daughters Mary Frances Mulligan and Lucy Mulligan Brown; and his granddaughters Winston (Winnie) and Fannie Brown. Everyone shared news of health, finances, births and deaths, but as two young women entering adulthood at the turn of the twentieth century, Winnie and Fannie also pondered the mysteries of courtship. Years earlier, in correspondence with schoolmates at various educational institutions in Kentucky, their grandmother Mary Johns did the same.
A finding aid for the Moore-Mulligan-Brown Collection can be downloaded here.
Filed under Manuscripts & Folklife Archives