Please join us and encourage your students to attend!
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Author Neil White Featured in SOKY Book Fest Event
SOKY Reads program sponsored by the Southern Kentucky Book Fest partners featured Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts on September 6, 2012 in the WCPL Main Library and the Knicely Conference Center, Bowling Green, KY.
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A Century of Spirit PSA’s
The WKU Archives holds records in a variety of formats. During the 2006 WKU Centennial celebration 26 public service announcements were created as MP4 files. These announcements include ten decade by decade histories of WKU and special topics such as Henry Cherry’s legacy, Coach E.A. Diddle, Big Red, integration and student organizations. The PSA’s and other documentation of A Century of Spirit are available online at: TopScholar, choose the year 2006.
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WKU Libraries Joined Celebration of UK Libraries’ Grant Completion
The WKU group was in the overflow room next to the crowded auditorium.
At the invitation of the University of Kentucky Libraries, a group of WKU Libraries’ faculty and staff attended the UK Libraries’ special program: Works Progress Administration on September, 5, 2012 at the William T. Young Library on the UK campus in Lexington, KY.
The University of Kentucky Libraries was celebrating the completion of a three-year leadership grant awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL). This grant had assisted the UK Libraries in acquiring, preserving, and providing access to historical records and publications produced by the U. S. Works Progress Administration (WPA). Because of these efforts, the UK library is now recognized as a Center of Excellence among southeastern research libraries for its WPA collection.
The celebratory event, “Putting America Back to Work during the Great Depression: Preserving and Improving Access to the Works Progress Administration Records for the Future,” was held in the William T. Young Library. Keynote speaker was David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States. A panel discussion and reception followed.
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Congratulations to Crystal Bowling for Her Enrollment in SLI!
The WKU Staff Council, Human Resources and Continuing Education announced the 2012-2013 class of the Staff Leadership Institute, which included one of our own: Senior Catalog Assistant Crystal Bowling. Congratulations!
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The Lucy Walker
Woodcut of the Lucy Walker explosion
Twice a year, Dr. Charles Henry Webb of Princeton, Kentucky visited his mother in Lexington. In October, 1844 his wife was ill and unable to accompany him, so he departed with only their four daughters and a few servants. After leaving the two older daughters at boarding school in Lexington, Dr. Webb and his younger daughters, 11-year-old Nancy (“Nannie”) and 9-year-old Cassandra (“Cannie”) boarded the steamboat Lucy Walker for the journey home.
Near New Albany, Indiana, disaster struck. The Lucy Walker‘s boilers exploded, and she burst into flames and began to sink. Hurled into the air by the blast, Dr. Webb landed on a piece of floating wreckage. He was taken on board another boat with burns and a gruesome wound to the throat. A rescuer pulled Nannie out of the water when he noticed her hair floating on the surface, but Cannie drowned. No one knew what became of the servants.
Dr. Webb’s brother-in-law, George Washington Williams, rushed to New Albany to find him in the care of two doctors and some kind local citizens, but unfortunately, Webb soon died. In two letters to his wife Winifred, Williams mournfully described what he had learned about the accident, the sufferings of the victims, and the arrangements he made to preserve the bodies of his dead family members pending burial back in Princeton.
As it turned out, Dr. Webb’s wife had been ill because she was in the early stages of pregnancy. The following spring, she bore a daughter and named her Cassandra after the child’s dead sister.
George Williams’ letters, and the reminiscences of a descendant, are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library. Together, they give a vivid account of the effect on a Kentucky family of the Lucy Walker disaster, one of the deadliest in U. S. history. Click here to download a finding aid. For more collections on steamboating, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.
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September Reference Area Book Display
It’s that time of year again! New classes have begun and, as the class of 2016 enters their very first semester, many student have not yet declared a major or already thinking that their chosen major is not right for them. The Reference Area wishes to help those who are lost or unsure with a book display showcasing career information for some of Western’s most popular majors.
Books on Display
1. Career opportunities in education / Susan Echaore-McDavid. LB1775.2 .E33 2001
2. College majors and careers : a resource guide for effective life planning / by Paul Phifer. HF5382.5 .U5 P445 1993
3. The top 100 : the fastest-growing careers for the 21st century. HF5382 .T59 2009
4. Sociology : a guide to reference and information sources / Stephen H. Aby. HM585 .A29x 1997
5. Health care careers directory / American Medical Association. R847 .D57
6. A student’s dictionary of psychology / Peter Stratton and Nicky Hayes. BF31 .S69 1993
7. Ferguson career resource guide to apprenticeship programs / edited by Elizabeth H. Oakes. HD4885.U5 F47 2006
8. Career opportunities in journalism / Jennifer Bobrow Burns ; foreword by Janice Castro. PN4797 .B87 2007
9. Career opportunities in theater and the performing arts / Shelly Field. PN1580 .F5 1999
10. Career opportunities in the sports industry / Shelly Field. GV734 .F545 1999
11. Career opportunities in conservation and the environment / Paul R. Greenland and AnnaMarie L. Sheldon. S945 .G74 2008
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Waiting to Cross
Vincent Trago’s letter
As Union troops neared Bowling Green in the wake of the Confederate withdrawal in February 1862, they found that the departing enemy had destroyed foot and railroad bridges leading over the Barren River into the town. Camped on the north side, waiting for their turn either to ford the river or cross on makeshift bridges, some of the soldiers took time to write a line home. Among several such letters in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Special Collections Library is one from Vincent T. Trago, a 24-year-old corporal serving with the 15th Ohio Infantry.
Unbowed by the rigors of military life, Trago assured his correspondent that “I am well as usual [and] can eat my share of rations yet.” During the 20-mile march to Bowling Green he had avoided the fate of some of his comrades, whose “feet got verry sore so that they took off their boots and went bare footed for 6 or 7 miles.” Local reception of the marching men also cheered Trago. The “Kentucky girls were fix up in their Sunday best and were standing by the road side smiling and looking as pleasant as they could,” he wrote, and their African-American counterparts seemed equally delighted with the passing soldiers. The only sour note had come from within the ranks, where some of the men had shot off their pistols and committed other breaches of discipline, and been ordered to carry rails as punishment.
A finding aid and typescript of Vincent Trago’s letter can be downloaded here. For more of our Civil War collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.
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Cakes and the Academy
Duncan Hines and his signature product
Formed in 1949, the Hines-Park Food Company was a joint venture of advertising executive Roy Park and Bowling Green native Duncan Hines (1880-1959). After his first restaurant guidebook, Adventures in Good Eating, was published in 1936, Hines’s reviews became must-reads for Americans seeking quality dining during their travels around the country. The next step for Hines was to capitalize on his reputation by creating his own food label.
The “Duncan Hines” label first appeared on ice cream, but soon became closely associated with packaged cake mixes. In 1955, Hines-Park Foods was pondering a strategy for increasing its sales and, through heightened perceptions of the man himself, making Duncan Hines the most popular product endorser in America.
The Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Special Collections Library has acquired a collection of materials dating from this period of the company’s history. The highlight of the collection is a fascinating market research study, conducted in 1955, which features among its theoretical and survey data a detailed analysis of the company’s target consumers: women.
The study concluded that Hines’s greatest potential appeal lay with “emancipated modern housewives” who no longer submerged their identities in home and kitchen. These women aspired to “gracious and beautiful living,” the authors observed, “but are not secure in their ability to carry out such principles.” With his wise, bachelor-uncle-style, masculine authority, Hines could offer them the confidence that arch-rivals like motherly Betty Crocker could not. In particular, the study argued that college-educated women, despite rejecting the submissive “homebody” label, were actually more receptive to such male authority because of their “years of respectful contact with professors and instructors.”
A finding aid for the Duncan Hines Collection can be downloaded here. For more on Duncan Hines, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.
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WKU Libraries Monday Night ROAR!
WKU Libraries sponsored a photo booth during the new student orientation week called M.A.S.T.E.R. Plan. Students had a great time dressing up as or posing with popular book and movie characters such as Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and the Wizard of Oz clan.
To view all of the fun had on Monday night visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/13303252@N06/sets/72157631208433560/
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