Author Archives: Jonathan Jeffrey

My name is Steve Goddard and I am a second-year graduate student in the Folk Studies Department at WKU.  I came back to school after a long hiatus because I wanted to create a gift for the people I love.  I’m not talking about my wife, kids or grandson (though I do love them) but the Kurds.  This Indo-European group from the Middle East, numbering 30-40 million, have long been marginalized and brutalized by strongmen.  As a result, they have emigrated in large numbers to the West, the largest population in the U.S. (10,000) settling in Nashville.  So, I return to the gift.

Though I had worked among Kurdish refugees for the majority of my adult life, I wanted to offer something new to them.  I wanted to conduct research and write a thesis about  Kurdish life, which could then be added to the comparatively small collection of scholarly work concerning them.  The greatest preponderance of what has been written speaks of their political life; conversely not much has been written of their folk life and that is what I want to offer.  Folk studies is grounded in fieldwork, moving beside and among a group of interest and my two years at WKU have prepared me well for that aspect of folkloric work.  However, as a thesis track student, there has been a professional void.  Gratefully, my work with the Manuscripts and Folklife Archives this semester has helped to fill it.

I have spent the last sixteen weeks processing individual collections of the Kentucky Folklife Program, which came to WKU from Frankfort in the fall of 2012.  I have organized and numbered and accessioned papers, slides, photographs and negatives, audio and video cassettes from fourteen collections, with subject matter as diverse as Burgoo festivals and Indian refugees and locations as disparate as Boyd County in the east and Union County in the west.  I have learned how to create finding aids and post them to Top Scholar, KenCat and Pass the Word.  And in the process, something more has been gained (i.e. filled the void). 

I’ve come to understand that prominent folklorists of our day were once just novice fieldworkers, cutting their teeth as they gathered the treasures of Kentucky’s rich traditional culture.  I’ve learned that the bond between fieldworker and archivist must be strong if the body of work produced by the former is to be preserved and presented by the latter.  A detail as simple as a missing birthdate in fieldnotes can greatly encumber those accessing the archival material in the future.  Lastly, I’ve gained a great respect for those on the other side of fieldwork, the archivists, who take what is gathered in face to face interaction and labor with boxes, folders and pencils to preserve that ethos for generations to come.

Spratte-Lennington

My name is Curtis Spratte-Lennington and I have worked as an intern in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives unit of the Special Collections Library at WKU for the spring of 2013.  I learned various new things.  I learned how to accession items, something that requires a little more concentration and focus than what I had previously thought.  I also learned about a noble and dedicated man who spent a great majority of his life ensuring he did not miss a single vote in the House of Representatives: Congressman William Natcher.  Even on his dying deathbed, he did not want to miss a vote in the House.  I wrote a biography for the William Natcher collection. I also organized, cataloged, and created accession numbers for the Natcher finding aid that will help future students to conduct research about this dedicated man.  Surprisingly there has never been a single book released that deals with the life of Congressman Natcher and I hope that with the use of these finding aids someone would be able to tell the story of this man and what he did for the state of Kentucky.

I also learned how to catalogue and file small collections within Manuscripts. One of the most interesting aspects of going through manuscripts is that they cover individual histories with photographs, family memorabilia, etc… and for me the chance to go through material is almost like conducting an archeological excavation through a person’s life and to learn the individual stories from individual people was like taking a journey through time.  By cataloging historical material I was able to understand what it means to be an archivist; it literally means to not only organize historical material but to ensure the collection’s integrity for generations to come.  Understanding historical material is literally understanding the individual who wrote or contributed it and understanding the time period where it came from.

Reward Poster for Stolen Mule

Recently while cleaning and organizing Commonwealth Court Cases in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives unit of the Special Collections Library, workers came across an 1876 indictment from the Warren County Grand Jury in which Burwell Jackson was accused of “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” stealing a mule, the property of Frank W. Jackson.  Included with the file is a carefully worded, but terse, broadside describing the mule.  Jackson presents the animal’s appearance in great detail, providing color, age, height, and other defining features:  “low carriage, heavy head, quick motioned, and marked by the harness; barefooted, and main (mane) and tail considerably grown out.”

The animal was apparently taken right from Jackson’s own stable, ten miles west of Bowling Green on the Gasper River.  Jackson proffered $25 for return of the animal and an additional $25 for “capture and conviction of the thief or thieves.”  To insure that all passersby would see the broadside, Jackson had the printer place at the bottom of the piece:  “Please post in a conspicuous place.” 

In testimony included in the jury’s deliberations, William Tisdale said that he did see “an advertisement of [a] stolen mule” and recognized the description as  being one held by Burrell Jackson of Logan County.  Mr. Jackson was indicted and charged with grand larceny.  Whether he was tried and convicted is still a mystery.  To see other court records held by the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives, search TopSCHOLAR

The Manuscripts & Folklife Archives division of the WKU Special Collections Library recently made its inaugural entry to the Kentucky Oral History Commission’s (KOHC) Pass the Word project; the first of more than 500 collections containing thousands of individual interviews that the library intends to contribute to the project.  The first entry, Donald A. Beisswenger’s folk studies project titled “White Gospel Music in Logan County, Kentucky”, includes five interviews with Jeff and Gwen McKinney and Chester Whitescarver, detailing their memories of “singing schools” in and around Logan County.  The schools usually lasted ten days and were most often sponsored by and held in churches in the rural south, including Kentucky, and culminated in day long gospel singing events, sermons, and dinner-on-the-grounds.  Amateur singing groups often resulted from the schools, and participated in competitions at the community, state and national level; however, the typical result was the personal satisfaction of learning to read music and sing during church services.  People of all ages participated in the singing schools which were usually held in the fall after the harvest and served as both an opportunity for entertainmnet as well as instruction in the basics of reading music and voice.

“Older people such as my parents told me how everybody used to go to singing schools, anxious to go.  It was like that when I was growing up; no entertainment at home.  There was usually a singing school somewhere about every month when I was young.”  Chester Whitescarver

Since 1976, the HOHC has supported the creation of oral history recordings throughout Kentucky.  In an effort to facilitate greater access to Kentucky’s ever expanding oral history colections, the Commission published The Guide to Kentucky Oral History in 1991.  The Guide, which identified 25,000 interviews held at 41 repositories across the Commonwealth, became a searchable online database in 2001.  The latest effort by KOHC to enhance public access to Kentucky’s oral histories has been made possible with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Kentucky Historical Foundation.  “Pass the Word”, http://passtheword.ky.gov/, is an interactive, searchable oral history resource containing information about oral history collections and highlights projects which have grown out of these collections, such as books, documentaions, and school programs.

Whether researching a specific topic for an academic project of researching your family genealogy, Pass the Word, with its collection level and item level search ability, will be a valuable resource.  Other recent WKU additions to the data base include the Robert Penn Warren Oral History Collecton and the African American Heritage in Bowling Green and Warren County project;  upcoming entries will include the Kentucky River Project and the Downtown Henderson Project.

To see finding aids for other oral history collections at WKU click here.

St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral, Bardstown, Kentucky.

An interesting 1827 letter written by Benedict Joseph Flaget to then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Clay was recently discovered while processing the papers of Francis J. Whitaker, a monk who lived at St. Maur’s Priory (South Union, Kentucky) from 1954 to 1988.  Flaget was the first Roman Catholic bishop of Bardstown; his authority stretched from Michigan south to Tennessee and from the Allegheny Mountains to the Mississippi River.  Among his numerous responsibilities, Flaget planned and oversaw construction of the St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown.  Actually, the 1827 letter relates to that building’s construction.

In the letter Flaget asks Clay to use his power to waive the duty fees on a number of items being sent from Europe to adorn the new cathedral, since they “are not and cannot be objects of commerce.”  The items in question were chiefly gifts of the Prince of Naples and consisted of five “large candlesticks the whole of brass sumptously gilt, & executed by the Artists in his kingdom” as well as “fine paintings and many other vestments & ornaments for divine service.”  Flaget appealed to Clay’s friendship and his local attachments, pleading:  “For God’s sake, give me another proof of your generous friendship, & in favour of a town where I have been told, you have partly trained up.”  The bishop ends the epistle by stating his tender feelings for the United States:  “My zeal for the country which I have freely and deliberately adopted is unrelenting; & thanks be to God the good effects of it are sensibly felt not only in Kentucky, but in all the Western country.”

This fascinating letter’s route to St. Maur’s makes it even more unusual.  In letters to a number of Catholic historians, Brother Whitaker noted that the missive had been used as a bookmark in a tome which had been donated to St. Maur’s library.  Several scholars who corresponded with Whitaker mentioned that Flaget had several instances of “difficulty with the government in reference to exemption from duty on imports of a religious and education nature.”

To see a finding aid for the Whitaker collection click here.  Click TopSCHOLAR to search for other church and religious records housed in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives division of WKU’s Special Collections Library.

A family visiting the original Mammoth Cave Hotel in 1895.

Many researchers over the years have asked to examine the Mammoth Cave Hotel registers housed in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives division of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  The folio-sized, bound volumes contain tangible evidence of the popularity of Kentucky’s biggest tourist destination:  Mammoth Cave.  These original registers capture the signatures of visitors to the attraction from 1858-1866.  The original Mammoth Cave Hotel was built in 1835 and housed visitors from around the world, including Great Britain, France, Germany, India, Peru, and Canada.  Within the United States, visitors came from every state.  The registers detail the visitor’s name, arrival date, residence, and destination.  The majority of the visitors list their destination as “the cave,” but a few unique comments include: “hole in the ground”, “I don’t know”, “all parts of the U.S.A.”, “Dixie”, or “heaven.”  Occasionally, the hotel clerk would comment on the weather for that day, or provide additional information about particular groups at the hotel.  Some interesting groups that passed through the cave and stayed at the hotel included the Associated Press, Orpheus Members, and Union soldiers during the Civil War.  One brave wag actually signed in as Abraham Lincoln on March 12, 1863.  The 1835 hotel was replaced in 1925; the current Mammoth Cave Hotel was erected in 1965 and the 1925-era structure was razed in 1979 after a vociferous effort was made to preserve the venerable building.

A small poem found in the register, memorializes the cave’s dark beauty, stating that “caverns dig as deep as Hell…and from his boat old Charon kicks And builds a bridge on river Styx.”

A finding aid to this collection can be found by clicking here.  To see other matericals related to Mammoth Cave or the Mammoth Cave National Park, search TopSCHOLAR or KenCat.

Book cover features item from WKU collection.

A new geneaology titled Descendants of Revolutionary War Soldier Samuel W. Garrison (1762-1833) and Esther Alexander (1762-1829) features many references to collections housed in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives division of the Special Collections Library at WKU.  The book’s cover features a watermark of a manuscript poem written by Samuel about his ideal wife in the late eighteenth century. The late Ray H. Garrison, who is listed as a co-author of this book, found that WKU owned the original manuscript of this poem and a family geneaology via TopSCHOLAR, WKU’s online digital repository.  After locating the poem and geneaology Ray and fellow author, Ellen Elaine Featherston Boston, utilized other WKU collections via TopSCHOLAR including Warren County marriage records, wills, vital statistics, and military service records.

The book’s cover features a poem titled “Choice” written by Garrison about his future wife.  In it he outlines the type of woman he is interested in marrying:

I first would take a partner to my bed,

One ruled by reason not by passion led,

Whom I my wife most willingly would make,

Of all the joys I knew she should partake,

The better if near twenty years of age,

Of temper mild of understanding sage.

Whether his wife Esther met all his requirements, we do not know, but they did remain married for life.  Garrison was born in Maryland and migrated to Kentucky via Mecklenberg County, North Carolina.  He and Esther settled in southcentral Kentucky on Bay’s Fork Creek.  A monument praising his life and service in the Revolutionary War was dedicated on May 12, 2001 in the Old Scottsville Cemetery.

To see a finding aid for Samuel W. Garrison’s collection, click here.  To search TopSCHOLAR for other family histories click here.