Search Results for: Delainey Bowers

“Paradoxically in Death:” The Poetry of Jim Wayne Miller

The only sounds: pages turning softly. This is the quietness of bottomland where you can hear only the young corn growing, where a little breeze stirs the blades and then breathes in again. I mark my place. I listen like a … Continue reading

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Filed under Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

8th of August Emancipation Celebration

On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln placed pen to paper and wrote the following executive order, “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves … Continue reading

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Measure Twice, Cut Once: Quilting, Community, and Tradition

On the backside of a quilt, a panel reads I have named this quilt “My Dear Jane” which is a reproduction of Jane A. Steckle’s quilt she made during the Civil War titled “In War Time 1863”. I, Donna Patterson, … Continue reading

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Hex and the City: Encounters with the Extramundane

The Folklife Archives is certainly no stranger to the supernatural, and while the rustling sheaves of onion-skin paper or sudden burst of cold air may find a culprit in the questionable HVAC system, there’s still something slightly sinister stirring inside … Continue reading

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Lil Yachty Is to Mumble Rap as Roy Butler Is to Auctioneering

In his paper titled “Notes and Speculations on Country Auctioneering as It Is Practiced in North Central Kentucky,” former Western folk studies student Joseph King attempts to frame auctioneering as an expressive lyrical performance similar to folk singing or folk … Continue reading

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“And, daddy, won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County?”

Whether you have a taste for Serial, My Favorite Murder, Last Podcast on the Left, Making a Murderer, Wormwood, The Keepers, The Jinx, or the trusted ol’ standby—Unsolved Mysteries—it comes as no surprise that the true crime market is saturated … Continue reading

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Special Collections Gains Oral History Accreditation

Western Kentucky University’s Manuscripts and Folklife Archives, a part of the Department of Library Special Collections, was recently granted accreditation status by the Kentucky Oral History Commission (KOHC). Archives that receive accreditation serve as “permanent repositories for oral history collections, … Continue reading

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“But when you love the green backed dollar, sorrow always bound to follow”

Bettin’ on the ponies ain’t no easy task, but former folk studies students Robert Sherman and William Adams may have cracked the code. In their 1972 paper titled “Kentucky Horseracing and Horse-Betting: Various Gambling Patterns and Techniques of the Kentucky … Continue reading

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“An’ it harm none, do what ye will”

In his 1929 publication titled Witchcraft in Old and New England, famed literary studies folklorist George Lyman Kittredge paints witches—specifically, women—as harbingers of maleficium when he writes, …she is hunted down like a wolf because she is an enemy to … Continue reading

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Within the All of It: Trigg County African-American Oral History Project

“What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” … Continue reading

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