Author Archives: Lynn Niedermeier

by | June 21, 2012 · 2:39 pm

War of 1812 Bicentennial

Volunteer roll, 25th Regiment, Kentucky militia, Sept. 1813

Volunteer roll, 25th Regiment, Kentucky militia, Sept. 1813

For the United States, the War of 1812 was a “second war of independence” against the British.  For Canada, the war was an important step on the road to Confederation, as the British provinces of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) turned back numerous attempts at invasion, and possibly annexation, by the Americans.  Who came out the winner?  The answer largely depends on which side of the border you’re on.  One thing is certain: Kentuckians played a significant role in the war, volunteering in disproportionately large numbers and accounting for more than 60% of the troops killed in battle.

However it may be remembered this bicentennial year (heads up: the Canadians are spending $28 million to celebrate), the War of 1812, like all U. S. conflicts, is represented in the holdings of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  For example, the Lewis-Starling Collection contains a letter relating news of the disastrous defeat of American troops (including 900 Kentucky militiamen) by British and Indian forces at the Battle of the River Raisin.  The Dickerson-Venable Collection includes a copy of William Dickerson’s commission as a lieutenant in the Kentucky militia, and a furlough authorization issued from a camp at Moraviantown (near Chatham, Ontario) on October 7, 1813.  Two days earlier, sitting Kentucky governor Isaac Shelby had led troops there in a key American victory at what would become known as the Battle of the Thames.

In the Hines Collection are letters from James Hines of Warren County, written to his wife in 1814-15 while stationed at Camp Holly near Richmond, Virginia.  Though struggling with illness, Hines was not optimistic about obtaining a furlough.  Rumors were swirling that the Duke of Wellington’s trusted officer, Lieutenant-General Rowland Hill, was sailing to America with fresh troops.  While this proved untrue, it caused “considerable agitation” and the cancellation of all leaves of absence until the enemy’s movements along the east coast could be ascertained.

Click on the links to download finding aids for the collections containing these materials.  For more on our extensive war collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | June 14, 2012 · 2:18 pm

The Thousand-Dollar-A-Year Man

Michael Rodgers, Princeton, Kentucky printer

Michael Rodgers, Princeton, Kentucky printer

“I cannot say that I like the place all together.  It appears to be almost out of the world, but after I become better acquainted with the people I hope I will be better satisfied.”

Like many young men starting a new job in a strange town, Michael Rodgers wondered if he had made the right move.  In May 1846, the Pennsylvania native arrived in Princeton, Kentucky to take over a struggling newspaper.  He found five investors with no printing experience, some broken-down equipment, and an office in “wretched condition.”

For the next year, Rodgers worked hard and pinched pennies, upgrading the equipment and saving $350 out of his $600 salary.  But he could not overcome the tough economic times, and his employers decided to close the paper.  Some of Princeton’s 300 citizens, however, urged him to take the business over on his own account, and after issuing a prospectus he set an ambitious goal of 500 subscriptions.  Between the paper and other printing jobs, he hoped to make $1,000 a year (about $24,000 worth of purchasing power today).

During the next few years, Rodgers stayed afloat but remained conscious of his economic vulnerability.  One thousand dollars a year was still within reach, but he was spending $500 for room and board, which included responsibility for two young printer’s apprentices and the occasional journeyman.  True, he could save money by trading in his bachelor’s life and setting up housekeeping with a good woman, but Rodgers found his longings for a wife thwarted.  “Kentucky girls has not got the right sort of raising for me,” he wrote his mother.  “They have all been raised among slaves, and know nothing about taking care of a house.”

Michael Rodgers’ letters to his family in Pennsylvania are available in WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | June 7, 2012 · 1:10 pm

The Path to Citizenship

Warren County naturalization papers

Warren County naturalization papers

As Warren County becomes more diverse in ethnicity and language, a collection of naturalization papers in WKU’s Special Collections Library reminds us that for more than a century and a half, immigrants have sought homes in southcentral Kentucky.

Taken from county court records and processed by manuscripts technician Taryn Rice, the papers date from 1837-1907.  Sometimes issued in other states, the documents were required to be deposited at the courthouse in the individual’s county of residence.  Most contain full details of the immigrant’s name, country and city of origin, and length of residence in the United States.

The countries of western Europe–England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany–as well as Russia, Poland, Italy, Austria and Scandinavia–are well represented by 125 immigrants with names such as O’Sullivan, Blumm, Rausher, Unkleman, Maguire and Duff.  Each declares his or her intention to “renounce and forever abjure all allegiance to any foreign prince or potentate” on the way to becoming an American citizen.  For good measure, the most recent claimant on the immigrant’s loyalty–whether Queen Victoria, Emperor Napoleon, Nicholas of Russia, the King of Bavaria or the Grand Duke of Oldenburg–is also named.

A finding aid for Warren County Court Records–Naturalization Papers can be downloaded by clicking here.  For more on our collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | May 24, 2012 · 2:25 pm

A 19th-Century Tweet

R. S. Griffith's American eagle, 1859

R. S. Griffith’s American eagle, 1859

What employee of a mercantile establishment hasn’t passed the time on slow days behind the counter by indulging in small diversions?  At first glance, it wouldn’t seem like the Stubbins & Lucas Pork House had any time to spare in 1859.  The Bowling Green firm maintained a high-volume business, supplying sides and shoulders of pork, bacon and ham, both to individuals and to the steady flow of steamboat traffic on the Barren River.

Nevertheless, clerk R. S. Griffith had a few moments to daydream between transactions.  With web surfing, e-mail and social media still 150 years away, his expressions took the form of some elaborate doodles in his account book.  One in particular showed his patriotic sentiments.  His representation of our national emblem came out looking more like a chicken than a bald eagle, but the message was sincere.  “E pluribus unum” declared the wingspread creature.  Beside it, Griffith wrote, “Where is the man in this land of freedom would see the feathers stripted [sic] from the American eagle”?  Not here, we presume.  And then, back to work.

A finding aid for the Stubbins & Lucas Pork House account book can be downloaded here.  For other collections in WKU’s Special Collections Library relating to Bowling Green businesses, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | May 17, 2012 · 2:11 pm

Preserving a Family’s Legacy

Louise Sauerland with LaVega & Maggie Clements

Louise Sauerland with LaVega & Maggie Clements

In the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Special Collections Library, volunteers provide invaluable assistance in helping us organize and process collections.  After we received a donation of approximately 14 boxes of papers, letters, photos and other memorabilia of the Clements family of Owensboro, the task of sorting, arranging and foldering some of this material was taken up by one of our longtime volunteers, Louise Sauerland.

When LaVega Clements, the patriarch of the family, died in 1938, he had practiced law in Owensboro for almost 50 years and was a respected public office holder and real estate investor.  Remembered by all as a “larger-than-life” figure, he furnished his spacious mansion, “Highland,” with hand-carved furniture, china and silver.  He and his wife Maggie, who he married in 1890, became the parents of nine children.  Although three of them died young and one fell victim to the World War I influenza epidemic, the Clements name was certain to live on through LaVega and Maggie’s descendants.

And the family’s history, through both good times and bad, has been preserved in the documents Louise is now sorting.  Not only are letters from all surviving children represented in the collection, Louise reports, but it includes love letters LaVega and Maggie wrote each other in the 1880s.  A detailed genealogy and history prepared by a granddaughter helps her keep track of the members of this devoutly Catholic family, and the lengthy date span of the correspondence has allowed her to experience the march of time–in the aging penmanship, for example, of two aunts as they progress from young women to centenarians.

When the Clements family papers are fully organized and processed and made available to researchers, it will be in no small part due to Louise’s patient efforts.  The Special Collections Library appreciates the contributions of all of our volunteers!

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by | May 10, 2012 · 2:27 pm

“I read thirteen hours every day”

Arthur Fox Wood, Philadelphia medical student

Arthur Fox Wood, Philadelphia medical student

In July 1851, Mason County, Kentucky native Arthur Fox Wood (1829-1878) was trying to decompress after a summer of medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania.  Writing to a friend, his thoughts dwelled on topics common to all students: the relative benefits of life at home and at school, recreation, and his academic prospects.

Philadelphia hadn’t made the grade.  Rather than the “City of Brotherly Love,” Wood termed it the city of “fiends and Hell-hounds.”  The women were the “uglyest” on earth, and the abolitionist political atmosphere reeked of “yankee-land.”  As the summer temperatures rose, however, Wood concluded that it was best to follow “all the fashionables out of the City” to enjoy the sea breezes at Cape May, New Jersey.  “Let’s go down to the Cape,” he urged his friend, but promised not to pick up a glass of wine there until concluding his degree.

As for Wood’s education, the next phase of his studies involved sniffing “the sweet perfume” of sickness in the wards of the Pennsylvania State Hospital, keeping up with thirteen hours of daily reading, and passing the “dread ordeal” of examinations, held in the venerable Green Room of the medical school.  “I expect to pass,” he declared, but “if I fall; down I go forever–the examinations are very strict.”

Oddly enough, given his opinion of the city’s female population, Wood married a Philadelphia girl the following year.  More predictably, after graduation he left “yankee-land” to set up a medical practice in Mississippi.  After serving as a surgeon in the Confederate Army, Wood returned home to Belle Forest, his family’s estate in Mason County.

Arthur Fox Wood’s letter is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid and access a typescript.  For other collections relating to medicine and medical education, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | May 3, 2012 · 2:21 pm

Brothers at War

WWI Sheet Music

“Over There” sheet music with Norman Rockwell illustration, 1918.

Brittany Crowley, a student worker in Manuscripts & Folklife Archives, contributes this item about a recently processed collection:

Upon America’s entry into World War I in 1917 and the implementation of the Selective Service Act that same year, thousands of young men were drafted into military service. A recent addition to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections contains letters of two of these WWI soldiers: brothers John and Andrew Johnson of Wooster, Ohio.

John, the eldest, was stationed at Camp Jackson and Camp Wadsworth, both in South Carolina, and Camp Upton, New York, before being sent to France in late 1918. While at Camp Jackson, John wrote to his mother of the numerous “vaccinations and inoculations” the soldiers must receive. John described that the shots made most of the men sick, but that they did not bother him at all. John also noted the prevalence of both venereal disease and influenza around the camps, thus leading to frequent quarantines.

John was sent to France in October of 1918, just a month before the war was over. Although he did not see any combat, John often wrote to his mother describing the conditions in war-torn France: “The French people here seem to be of the peasant class, the only thing they seem to have a good supply of is Beer and Wine…there is absolutely no candy to be had at any price.” As a farmer, John often compared techniques and equipment used in France to those used “back home.”

The younger brother, Andrew, was a student at Ohio State University before being drafted and sent to Camp Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. While John was proud of his service in the Army, Andrew was far less patriotic; he spent much of his time attempting to get released. While Andrew mostly wrote to his mother of daily life at camp, he also described happenings in Louisville, including the ban on social activities due to the “Spanish flu” and a strike being conducted by the streetcar men (although he didn’t understand why they were striking considering they made “forty seven cents an hour”).  To see a finding aid for this collection click here.  To search for other World War I collections search TopSCHOLAR.

 

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by | April 19, 2012 · 1:54 pm

“Something for the Girls”

 

Pam Elrod, Kentucky Girl Scout

Pam Elrod, Kentucky Girl Scout

“I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all America and all the world,” declared Juliette Gordon Low when she assembled the first Girl Scouts at her Savannah, Georgia home on March 12, 1912.  Here in Bowling Green, the first troop was organized in 1920.  By 1947, there were 22 troops with some 300 girls.  By 1962, the 50th anniversary of the Girl Scouts, there were at least 30 local troops with about 400 members.

As the Girl Scouts celebrate their 100th anniversary, WKU’s Special Collections Library continues to collect material documenting the history of this organization in Warren County and elsewhere in Kentucky.  Our holdings include uniforms, photos, video, membership cards, and a Girl Scouts autograph book.  Scrapbooks of newspaper clippings detail the activities of local troops from 1947-1962.  Included is volume 1, number 1 of Scoutabout, the inaugural 1963 newsletter of Senior Troop 62, offering news of all 23 troops active in the area.  In another collection, a cartoon drawn by a soldier serving in the Persian Gulf War commemorates the support of a troop of Elizabethtown Girl Scouts during his deployment.

With a commitment to honor both past and future and to produce “happy, resourceful, creative citizens willing and able to serve others everywhere,” the Girl Scouts are, of course, about much more than their famous cookies.  Nevertheless, Scoutabout offered a few tips for cookie merchandising success.  Girls were advised to say “thank you” even if they didn’t make a sale, to be knowledgeable about each kind of cookie and its correct price, to wear their pin and uniform if possible, and to be “spic and span from head to toe.”

Search KenCat and TopSCHOLAR to learn more about our Special Collections Library holdings relating to the Girl Scouts.

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by | April 11, 2012 · 1:17 pm

“A Good Captain and a Slow Boat”

Jennie Green and the Titanic

Jennie Green and the Titanic

One hundred years ago this month, 33-year-old Jennie Scott Green was headed home to Grayson County.  The daughter of Colonel Lafayette Green, patriarch of a family lumber, milling and farming empire in Falls of Rough, Kentucky, Jennie had spent her inheritance on an extended stay in Europe and was returning home to manage a household for her three bachelor brothers.

Like many trans-Atlantic travelers, Jennie had heard of the magnificent new White Star liner, the Titanic, then offering luxurious and speedy passage from Southampton to New York.  As tempted as she was to join the world’s business and social elite on the great ship’s maiden voyage, Jennie settled for a ticket on the President Lincoln, a smaller craft scheduled to dock several hours ahead of the Titanic.

The President Lincoln followed the same course as the Titanic through the frigid North Atlantic waters, and Jennie and her fellow passengers were awakened for a glimpse of the iceberg that, unbeknownst to them, would doom the “unsinkable” ship following behind.  As the fog closed in, the ship’s band played the rest of the night to soothe the nervous travelers.  They arrived in New York safely, only to be greeted by the dreadful news about the Titanic.  “I’ve always felt our ship might have had the same fate,” Jennie later remarked, “if we hadn’t had a good captain and a slow boat.”

In this centennial year of the Titanic‘s sinking on April 14-15, 1912, learn more about Jennie and her remarkable family by clicking here and here to download finding aids for relevant collections at WKU’s Special Collections Library.

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by | March 16, 2012 · 1:26 pm

“Andrew Stew”

A recipe for disaster?

A recipe for disaster?

As the season of severe weather approaches, during this Women’s History Month we offer a female perspective on one of the most destructive storms ever to hit the United States.  On August 24, 1992, Hurricane Andrew made landfall at Homestead, Florida.  With sustained winds reaching 165 m.p.h., the storm achieved rare Category 5 status and caused damage in excess of $26 billion.

A month later, Geraldine Hayes wrote from Homestead to her sister-in-law Mildred Gipson in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.  Living amid the hum of generators, she and husband George were still without power or telephone.  For the first time, fatigue had caused her to accept a free meal from the Red Cross of corn beef hash, corn, applesauce, cookies and a drink.  Twice a week, she stood in line for hours to collect her mail at a common delivery point.  Her house had escaped total destruction, but was still in need of substantial repair and drying out.  Nevertheless, Mrs. Hayes had praise for the Red Cross, police, electrical and sanitation workers, and even her insurance company.

And she had not lost her sense of humor.  Enclosed with Mrs. Hayes’ letter was a recipe for “Andrew Stew,” a not-so-tasty concoction that summarized the impact of the storm.  Combine all the ingredients of a household, it read, with a large dose of water, stir at “200 mph for several hours and serve.”  Guaranteed to cause heartburn, this recipe had only one “antidote”: “determination, guts, hard work and lots of money.”

Geraldine Hayes’ letter is part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For other collections about women, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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