Daily Archives: May 26, 2010

by | May 26, 2010 · 8:46 am

Settling Schweizer: Scenes of an Immigrant Community

Oswald Kummer and Fido

Oswald Kummer sits in a haystack with the faithful family dog, Fido.

Schweizer, located in southwest Simpson County, Kentucky, was chiefly settled by German immigrants in the mid-1890s. Christian and Friederike Kummer emigrated from Germany to Minnesota in 1882, and permanently settled in Schweizer in 1889. The families of the area were particularly close, bound by language, religion, and customs.

Oswald Kummer, the son of Christian and Friederike, was two years old when his family immigrated to the United States. Only nine when his family settled in Schweizer, Oswald remained there until his death. In 1906, Oswald, then 24, acquired a camera and unofficially became the community chronicler. His glass plate negatives became part of the Kentucky Library & Museum collection in 1989.

An exhibit of 87 photographs and artifacts from the Kummer collection will be on display in the Kentucky Library and Museum from May 26 through August 31, 2010.

Photo Album

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by | · 7:10 am

The Southern Educator

Before there was WKU, there was the Southern Normal. A school that evolved from the Glasgow Normal, which moved to Bowling Green and changed hands several times before the Cherry brothers took over. The Southern Normal existed between 1893 and 1906 when it split into WKU and the Bowling Green Business University.

The Southern Educator serves as a journal of pedagogy, alumni magazine, advertisement for the Southern Normal, course listings and gives an overall look into the daily life of the Southern Normal.  Published more or less quarterly from 1897 to 1906, the newspaper is being digitized and made available online to researchers.  A name index available at: http://www.wku.edu/Library/dlsc/ua/bgbu-a.htm.

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