Category Archives: Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

by | July 28, 2016 · 8:31 am

“Dearly Beloved. . .”

Bride Mildred Tucker, 1925

Bride Mildred Tucker, 1925

Summer is wedding season, and the collections of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections provide evidence of the pomp and circumstance, excitement and humor with which Kentuckians have tied the knot through history.

To begin with, our collection of more than 7,000 Warren County, Kentucky marriage bonds begins in 1797 and is a gold mine for those researching family history.  In addition, many collections of family papers, such as the Margie Helm Collection, contain wedding invitations and announcements.  Other collections document the unusual; for example, a double wedding that took place inside Mammoth Cave in 1879, inaugurating a custom that lasted until 1941.  Photographs, such as Mildred Tucker‘s before her 1925 wedding, are indispensable to the occasion.  In particular, many a local bride proudly posed in a creation made by the celebrated Bowling Green dressmaker Mrs. A. H. (Carrie) Taylor.

And, of course, there are the diaries and letters of both participants and observers recalling the triumphs and tribulations of the big day.  “This is Birdie’s wedding day,” wrote Russellville’s Fannie Morton Bryan on February 27, 1889.  “Lena and Joe Gill and Mot Williams and myself stood up with them.  That is as near married as I ever expect to be.”  (She was right).  Amid a whirlwind of preparations for her February 16, 1926 wedding, Bowling Green’s Mildred Potter and her mother addressed the “burning question” of attire for the men in the party.  “Agonizing” over cutaways or tuxedos, they settled on “gray trousers and cutaways, with spats,” but a stressed-out Mildred “shed a few tears” when a telegram arrived from her fiance in New York that betrayed his misunderstanding of her diktat.

Marriage of Margie Helm's parents, 1888

Marriage of Margie Helm’s parents, 1888

Some enjoy scrutinizing a wedding and judging it against their own ideal.  Writing to his cousin in 1861, Charles Edmunds of Princeton described the curious ceremony of his family’s domestic servant.  “Mother’s house girl Vic was married,” he reported.  “An old negro preacher officiated, and he made the man promise to do a thing I never heard of before. . . he turned to the man and said, ‘Richard Calvert, do you promise to take this woman to be your lawful wife and be unto her a kind, loving and obedient husband’; if I had been his place I would not have agreed to that because I think that if ever I get married, my wife will have to obey me, and not I obey her, but he assented, and the ceremony was performed, and they were made man and wife upon those terms.”

Search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat for more of our collections that feature weddings.

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by | July 21, 2016 · 8:25 am

“We Are Saved” (Again)

Elijah Hise's celebratory letter

Elijah Hise’s celebratory letter

As the major party conventions kick election season into high gear, and we brace for dark predictions that the ascendancy of one or the other candidate to the presidency will mean the certain destruction of the republic, here is an expression of relief from Elijah Hise (1802-1867) after the 1844 election of Democrat James K. Polk to the Oval Office.  Sharing his elation in a letter to a fellow supporter, Hise, a Kentucky state legislator, diplomat and future U.S. Congressman, dramatically inventoried the disasters averted by Polk’s triumph over Whig opponent Henry Clay.  Among them:

1st We are saved from the Shylock dominion of the money changers.

2nd The Constitution is saved from mutilation . . . .

4th The agricultural and planting classes saved from legal plunder . . . .

7th National debt funding system, British influence and finally a dissolution of the Union all, all prevented by the gallant brave & virtuous democracy of the Union . . .

9th Our prospect is brightened to rescue our beloved state from the extravagant and corrupt rule of modern Whiggery.

Recalling a taunt in the Senate that “the Democrats were like condemned felons upon a cart going to execution,” Hise rejoiced that “this universal proscription has been prevented” and that the speaker’s “insatiate maw . . . will never be filled with the food it so much craves.”

Elijah Hise’s letter is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here for a finding aid.  For more of our political collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | July 13, 2016 · 10:54 am

A Sober Agreement

A Contract for Sobriety?

A Contract for Sobriety?

“He lived to a good old age, three score and ten.  He was an honest man and a good citizen.  May the sod rest lightly upon him.”  So was the blessing of an old friend on hearing of the death of James William “Gee” Pool in 1907.

A member of one of the oldest families of Metcalfe (formerly Barren) County, Kentucky, Gee wore several hats during his life, one of them being, as we have seen, that of a hotel-keeper in Horse Cave.  In addition to having a wide circle of lady friends (one of whom referred to her rivals as his “sugar plums”), in his youth Gee appears to have enjoyed raising a glass or two with his cousin and contemporary, John I. Pool.

Feigning regret at such indulgence (and possibly under the influence at the time), the two entered into an agreement.  “It is highly necessary that we should curtail the use of ardent spirits,” read their contract.  Therefore, under penalty of one gallon of “good rye whisky,” they covenanted “not to get drunk but three times in the next twelve months,” said times being July 4, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.

But there was a mile-wide loophole in the contract.  Given the obvious benefit of spirits to “our health, morals & good name,” the cousins also agreed to “get gentlemanly tight on all Election days, horse races, shows, Temperance celebrations and on all irreligious and religious occasions”. . . and, for good measure, on January 8, February 19 and March 4, dates having a significance known only to these two drinking buddies.

Gee and John Pool’s “contract” is part of the Howard and Anne Doll Collection in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here for a finding aid.  For more of our collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | July 1, 2016 · 8:13 am

“All the King’s Men” Recommended

An early edition of ATKM with dust jacket.

An early edition of ATKM with dust jacket.

For its 75th anniversary, the editors at Parade Magazine asked author and Nashville bookstore owner Ann Patchett to compile a list of the 75 best books from the past 75 years.  One of the books she recommended from the 1940s-era was Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men.  Published in 1946, ATKM chronicles demagogue Willie Stark’s election and subsequent governorship in the deep south; Warren always minimized comparisons to Louisiana’s own Huey Long, but the similarities are strong.  The story is told through Jack Burden, a political reporter who becomes Governor Stark’s assistant.  Burden, a man of ethical and moral scruples, must wrestle in the mire of politics throughout the novel.  Response from the public and critics was positive. George Mayberry, in the New Republic, compared the book to such classics as Moby Dick and The Great Gatsby.  He ended his review with high praise:  “All together it is the finest American novel in more years than one would like to have to remember.”  Warren received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for ATKM.  Hollywood adapted the book into film in 1949 and 2006.  The 1949 version won the Academy Award for Best Picture.  The novel is rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library and Time magazine chose it as one of the best 100 novels since 1923.

The Robert Penn Warren Library housed in the WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections includes Warren’s own personal copies of ATKM as well as numerous editions, printings, and foreign language editions collected by Warren’s bibliographer Dr. James A. “Bo” Grimshaw, Jr.  The bibliographer’s collection contains 94 copies of ATKM, including copies of the first edition and many printings of paperbacks that have been used by high school and college students in literature classes for decades.  Bibliographers of literary figures are often engrossed with locating every edition and printing of an author’s works.

Numerous copies of ATKM found in the RPW Library.

Numerous copies of ATKM found in the RPW Library.

Ann Patchett’s novels include Bel Canto, The Magician’s Assistant and Commonwealth (due out in September). She is the co-owner of Parnasus Books in Nashville with Karen Hayes.

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by | June 23, 2016 · 8:14 am

A Historic “Hotel Impossible”?

Albert Shirley's hotels

Albert Shirley’s hotels

After the Civil War, the Pool and Shirley families of Metcalfe County, Kentucky added hotel-keeping to their many commercial ventures.  Albert H. Shirley (1842-1895) operated the Garnett House in Richmond, Kentucky, and later the Hotel Shirley in Glasgow.  In 1876, when his cousin James W. Pool (known as “Gee”) and his father William C. Pool leased a hotel property in Hart County, Albert drew on his own experience to offer advice to this new family enterprise.

As the risk of being “officious,” Albert wrote Gee, he had thought “a great deal” about the business and believed it would be a success if managed properly.  His greatest concern, however, was that his cousin would be too soft-hearted: “Your entire patronage almost will be acquaintances and friends, . . . & I have feared you would pass too many without charging them any bill.”  Only friends paying a “special visit” should expect a complimentary stay; the rest, Albert believed, should not look for such indulgences and ought to be charged the same as any other business.

Albert had another suggestion: When a drummer (that is, a traveling salesman) stopped in, he should get “the very best room.”  Able to spread the word quickly about a bad experience, these customers were the equivalent of a hotels.com review.  “I have often heard your predecessor, Mr. Biggerstaff,” wrote Albert of the hotel’s previous proprietor, “abused for his dirty rooms and especially mean beds.”  Albert also urged his cousin to drive a hard bargain with food suppliers, for it was at the dining table that he could make a good profit from his hungry guests.

Finally, in what sounded like the pilot for a 19th-century reality show, Albert told Gee of his wish to make an on-site visit and “be with you for about half a day, I could then say a good many things to you that would be of service to you.”

Albert Shirley’s letter is part of the Howard and Anne Doll Collection in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives unit of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more of our family collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

 

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by | June 16, 2016 · 11:17 am

Land of Contrasts

Iceland 5 krona banknote (Frank Chelf Collection)

Iceland 5 krona banknote (Frank Chelf Collection)

June 17 marks the official anniversary of the 1944 founding of Iceland as a republic independent of Denmark.  Two Kentuckians had the opportunity to experience this nation of “extreme contrasts” (to quote its web site) both before and after its independence, and their impressions are recorded in the collections of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.

In January 1942, Hopkins County native Jim Wooton, then serving in the U.S. Army, was ordered to Iceland to help staff a transfer station for troops and equipment being sent to England.  He and 1,200 other men experienced a rough, late-winter crossing in a 300-foot United Fruit Company “banana boat,” but arrived in Reykjavik unmolested by German U-boats.  Hunkered down with his fellow soldiers in reinforced Quonset huts, Wooton vividly recalled the howling winds that gusted as high as 120 miles per hour.  He returned from his 9-month tour of duty understanding the reason for the island nation’s high literacy rate: “everyone stays home and reads.”

In August 1977, Bowling Green’s Clara Hines, the widow of cake mix magnate Duncan Hines, visited Iceland as part of a tour of several Nordic countries.  Her experience, needless to say, was starkly different from Wooton’s.  The intrepid 73-year-old hopscotched around the island by bus and small plane, viewing lakes, forests, lava formations, natural hot springs and waterfalls as well as picturesque villages.  The weather was warm and sunny most of the time–she only found the wind “very cold” on the walk from her hotel to the airport.  She spent her krona on a souvenir doll and a figure of the god Thor fashioned from lava, and pronounced herself tired but exhilarated by the sights in this “fantastic country.”

Click on the links to access finding aids for Jim Wooton’s and Clara Hines’s impressions of Iceland.  For more accounts of travels by Kentuckians, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | June 10, 2016 · 2:45 pm

Summertime and the Researchers are Exhilarating!

Summertime for many people marks a time of relaxation, peace and quiet, but not if you are at the Research Assistance Desk for Library Special Collections. In the last five days, I have explored the wealth of information WKU Libraries has collected in the last 90 years with researchers from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Logan County, Simpson and Warren Counties in Kentucky.

On Monday, I taught by phone the Logan County Historical Society’s newsletter editor how to use kencat.wku.edu to fill her research need. To make certain she answered the specific question of the day, I also e-mailed her the link to the appropriate catalog record in KenCat. As a researcher who appreciates online access, she later e-mailed:

Phoebe Ann Pittman Flowers of Logan County, KY

Phoebe Ann Pittman Flowers of Logan County, KY

“Boy, do you know how to ruin a person’s day ! ! ! I’ll be on this site until my eyes give out! Thank you SO VERY MUCH. . . Back to the computer screen ! ! ! Forget the dust and the weeds in the garden ! ! !”  When describing her discovery at our page http://www.wku.edu/library/dlsc/discovery.php , the researcher said she spent the rest of the day looking at various items. Later she sent me an electronic copy of her newsletter using the photograph of Phoebe Ann Pittman Flowers.  Its citation points more  Logan County researchers to kencat.wku.edu.  The second Monday researcher got so excited at finding her information that she hugged me (a first in my 31 years as an archivist and librarian).

Wednesday by phone I taught online research via KenCat to a Floridian seeking to complete her Daughters of the American Revolution application with a family Bible’s genealogical pages that our family surname files.  Our second phone call of the day was from a  researcher who spent his Bowling Green  research day repairing his car’s alternator rather than searching for an obituary of a Bowling Green woman who was run over by a train on a Bell County, Kentucky, railroad bridge in 1919.  His expertise in genealogy had made him hope he could solve a question nagging his neighbor about the death.  The Louisiville Courier-Journal lacked the detail he hoped to find in a local newspaper.  Unfortunately few Warren County newspapers before 1922 were saved; thus far, our holdings search has been in vain.  Perhaps someone will bring us an original from their attic soon.

On Thursday, our Mississippi researcher was on her second trip to Library Special Collections. Three years ago, she learned in Butler County about a family history that WKU has one of six known print copies.  By teaching her to search KenCat, she also made use of Drucilla Jones’ years of genealogical research.  Upon seeing a chart in the Wilbourn file from the Drucilla (Stovall) Jones collection, she exclaimed:  “What a treasure!”

Among our favorite researchers are those who arrive, having found KenCat.wku.edu and TopScholar.wku.edu , to view primary sources.   At 8:55 a.m., a North Carolina couple literally could not wait any longer for our doors to open.  They knew they wanted the Enochs Mine store ledger from MSS 29.  In it they found proof that their ancestor worked and lived in Ohio County, Kentucky from July 1886 to 1891.

Here he is!

Here he is!

We invite you to explore our online catalog for non-book materials. KenCat has a new homepage, navigation, and search system.  You do not have to be interested in genealogy or history to find the “random image” or original item that delights you.

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by | June 2, 2016 · 8:39 am

Looking for a Candidate

Alben W. Barkley (Lincoln, Ill. Evening Courier)

Alben W. Barkley (Lincoln, Ill. Evening Courier)

It was 1952, and his sinking popularity had convinced President Harry S. Truman not to run for reelection.  But Truman disliked and distrusted the front-runner for his party’s nomination, Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and began conspiring with other party leaders to find a more acceptable candidate.  Truman backed Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, but Stevenson hemmed and hawed about jumping into the race.  Frustrated, Truman turned to his own vice-president, Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky.

Among those enlisted by Truman to promote Barkley at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was Charles W. Sawyer, a delegate-at-large from Ohio.  When Sawyer met with him, Barkley and his wife Jane had just hiked a mile from the railroad station to their hotel in order to demonstrate the 74-year-old’s robust health.  Sawyer urged Barkley not to be shy about his desire for the nomination and to court as much publicity as possible, especially with his attractive wife by his side.

It worked, and soon Barkley was garnering attention as a serious candidate.  Unfortunately, his rivals, Senator Kefauver and diplomat W. Averell Harriman, convinced two prominent union leaders to pronounce Barkley too old for the nomination.  Barkley, a strong labor supporter, was devastated by the betrayal, and despite Sawyer’s urging to stand and fight, prepared to withdraw.

The party, nevertheless, offered Barkley a chance to speak at the convention.  He was tempted to lace his remarks with bitterness, but Sawyer discouraged him.  Barkley followed the advice, charming the convention with a generous speech and even reviving hopes that he could win the nomination.  But it was too late.  Adlai Stevenson had finally agreed to stand as the party’s nominee, only to suffer defeat in the general election at the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Charles Sawyer’s account of his efforts on behalf of Vice-President Barkley at the 1952 Democratic Convention are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For more political collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | May 26, 2016 · 3:41 pm

“They are too many”

Paris at peace; Verdun, 1918

Paris at peace; Verdun, 1918

It was originally called Decoration Day, a time to place flowers on the graves of the war dead.  Now, as Memorial Day, it also marks a long weekend, store sales, and the beginning of summer, and the public is often indifferent to the  solemnity of the occasion.

For James Knox Polk Lambert, its meaning was fresh.  In Paris on May 30, 1919–Decoration Day–the Kentucky native was on duty with the YMCA, ministering to soldiers awaiting repatriation after World War I.  “Delightful weather,” he observed in his diary, “and charming scenes–bright sunshine, a clear sky, soft atmosphere, rich blooming flowers, sweet singing birds and throngs of well dressed people from all parts of the world.”

But the contrast between that lovely spring day, and the past year spent touring a country shattered by war, immediately clouded his thoughts.  Wrenched back to all that he had seen during his time overseas, he continued:

It is not possible to decorate with flowers all the graves of this war’s dead.  They are too many, too widely scattered; in France, Belgium, Italy; in the Balkans, the Gallipoli peninsula, Mesopotamia; in Russia and the Far East; in unmarked graves and in the fathomless ocean, but wherever they are, sleeping in great cemeteries or still in lonely graves hard by their rendezvous with death, they are not forgotten.

James Lambert’s diary is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For other war collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | May 19, 2016 · 8:23 am

Upper and Lower Worlds

Paris; Mammoth Cave cottages

Paris; Mammoth Cave cottages

A recent donation to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections widens our perspective on the brief life of Oliver Hazard Perry Anderson, a Frankfort, Kentucky native and successful merchant.

In July 1841, Anderson arrived in southern France after a lengthy sea voyage from parts unknown.  In a letter to his sister Penelope, he described in detail the Straits of Gibraltar, whale sightings, and his landing at the ancient city of Marseilles, followed by a 4-day ride to Paris.  Anderson then took Penelope on an epistolary tour of the palaces, churches and historical monuments of this “magnificent city,” but then claimed, surprisingly, that “I cannot see Paris, I am not well enough” and expressed an intense anxiety to continue on his way home.  The reason: Anderson was dogged by a debilitating tubercular cough, and his travels in search of a remedial climate had given him only occasional relief.

Anderson’s time in the City of Light contrasted remarkably with his experience 15 months later, when he became, literally, a cave dweller.  In the winter of 1842-43, he resided with a handful of other tuberculosis patients in stone cottages inside Mammoth Cave in hopes that the pure, cool air would help his lungs.  Dr. John Croghan, who specialized in the disease and also happened to own the Cave, had constructed the underground sanatorium as an experimental treatment center.

As shown, however, in letters already in our collection dated in December 1842 and January 1843, Anderson found any improvement in his condition to be little more than a mirage.  The darkness and dampness of the Cave and the constant smoke from cooking stoves convinced him, when he finally emerged, that “I would be better out than in.”  Whether in the “upper world” or below it, he struggled with alternating periods of strength and good appetite, then fatigue, cold symptoms, and always, the cough.  He finally succumbed to the disease in 1845 at the age of 32.

Click on the links to access finding aids for Anderson’s letters from Paris and Mammoth Cave.  For more of our collections about Mammoth Cave, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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