On Thursday October 11, 2007 at 7:00 pm, the Kentucky Live! program, organized by the WKU Libraries, presented “Lincoln the Lawyer” by Anderson University professor Brian Dirck at Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
If you missed out the presentation, you can still view a photo album of the event and listen to Prof. Brian Dirck’s speech. You can event listen to it on the go by subscribing to our Libraries’ Podcast.
“A lot of people forget that Lincoln was a lawyer, and a very good one,†Dirck points out, “in fact, he is the most experienced trial attorney we ever put in the White House.†Despite historians’ focus on the man as president and politician, Abraham Lincoln lived most of his adult life as a practicing lawyer. It was as a lawyer that he fed his family, made his reputation, bonded with Illinois, and began his political career.
Lawyering was also how Lincoln learned to become an expert mediator between angry antagonists, as he applied his knowledge of the law and of human nature to settle one dispute after another. Frontier lawyers worked hard to establish respect for the law and encourage people to resolve their differences without intimidation or violence. These were the very skills Lincoln used so deftly to hold a crumbling nation together during his presidency.
Members of the Bowling Green Community Greeters Newcomers Club are assisting the Manuscripts unit of the Kentucky Library & Museum to celebrate Kentucky Archives Week by working with some of the Warren County court records housed in the Kentucky Building. The group is foldering, identifying and describing Commonwealth court cases, which involve crimes such as larceny, disruption of the peace, road maintenance negligence, swearing, assault and battery, contempt of court, and disorderly conduct. Manuscripts has approximately 3000 of these cases. The Commonwealth cases also contain information about early Grand Juries; this court also issued bail bonds (or recognizance bonds) and peace warrants. An example of the later is found in December 1817 when Abram Lawrence came before John Keel, a justice of the peace, stating that he was “afraid that William Hammett, James Hammett, and Daniel Welch will wound, beat, abuse or kill him or injure and destroy his property†and thus came and “prayed surety of the peace against them.†Each of the feared men appeared before Keel and promised to not injure the said Lawrence or his property and each proffered a bond acknowledging the same. The cases date from 1799 to the 1920s.
Several stories collected by June Baskett in 1965 and archived in the Folklife Archives at Western Kentucky University have been used in a new book by Elizabeth Tucker entitled Haunted Halls: Ghostlore of American College Campuses (University Press of Mississippi, 2007). The stories are from a Folklife Archives project produced by Baskett entitled “Scare Stories Found in Women’s Dormitories.†One story involves a young Bowling Green woman that was supposedly chased and captured by three young men and raped. On the anniversary of the terrible deed, she appears as a “white form†and looks in the cars of unsuspecting young people who are found “necking†on “Lovers Lane.†Another story features an African American woman that was allegedly burned to death; thereafter she was said to haunt the 8th Street neighborhood in Bowling Green.
An enthusiastic group of woodworkers with various levels of expertise spent the morning of Saturday, September 29 working with artist Willie Rascoe at the Kentucky Library & Museum. After carving, sanding, drilling, gluing and painting everyone took home a piece of driftwood art. They all left the workshop very satisfied with his or her creations.
Folk Rock/Country Artist Brigid Kaelin performed at noon at Java City in the WKU Helm Library on October 2, 2007. The performance is part of the WKU Libraries’ Live Entertainment event series. Visit the Java City in Helm Library web site to get a full list of the performances.
On Friday, September 28 at the Kentucky Library & Museum, internationally known food historian, author and “seed saver” of heirloom vegetables, William Woys Weaver, presented “An American Appetite: The Material Culture of Food.”
Have you spent time underground exploring an unknown world and finding water-sculpted stone, crystalline formations and unusual wildlife? Do you enjoy taking photographs under unusual or challenging conditions? Come check out the 
The Works of Charley, Noah & Hazel Kinney, is on exhibit at the Kentucky Library & Museum now through November 17.
Do you love art but find the old masters a bit too high brow for you? Come experience the joy and mystery of the more than 80 paintings, sculptures and drawings in the