WKU Libraries Blog

Mazie Lee Thomas

Among the students at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial University (now Tennessee State) in 1953 was a 47-year-old resident of Adairville, Kentucky named Mazie Lee Thomas.  Born in Georgia, Thomas (1906-2001) had begun teaching herself to draw and paint at an early age.  One day, having grown tired of “piddling around” with her skills, she took a bus to Nashville to show some of her paintings to one of Tennessee A&I’s art teachers.  After the teacher made a personal trip to Adairville to secure her husband’s cooperation, she enrolled at the school for a year’s training.

In addition to painting in oil, watercolor and acrylic, Thomas fashioned greeting cards and craft items such as corn shuck dolls and paper mache figures.  Today, some of her paintings are held in the collections of Morehead’s Kentucky Folk Art Center and at WKU’s Special Collections Library.

The Library also holds manuscript materials documenting the work of this African-American folk artist.  Included are clippings and artwork collected by her niece into a scrapbook, slides of her paintings, and a short video of Thomas discussing her work.

Click here to download a finding aid for the Mazie Lee Thomas Collection.  For more on African Americans and folk artists, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

Mazie Thomas’s artwork

John H. Brown’s drugstore accounts

The question of how to streamline, share and protect medical records in an electronic age is high on the agenda for health care reform.  In the mid-nineteenth century, however, record keeping was far less complex and more likely to reflect the idiosyncracies of the health care providers of the day.  Take, for example, the account book of physician-druggist John H. Brown.  Born in Greensburg, Kentucky in 1832, Brown was raised in Illinois, where he took up his profession in the Mississippi River town of Cairo.  His account book, dating from 1856-1862 and now held by WKU’s Special Collections Library, offers a unique look at his trade with the local population, and how he kept track of a rather curious pageant of customers.

In particular, names were not always a necessity for Brown.  His book tallied charges for a “Little Scotchman” who purchased unspecified “Pills and powds.”  There was the “Old Gentleman who lived beyond Mr. Givins” and his modest account for “Tonic Powds.”  Brown sold some “medicine” to “Pastry Cook John” and similarly dosed the daughter of the “Dutch sausage maker.”  The aforesaid Little Scotchman must have provided a good recommendation, because soon afterward Brown sold a toothbrush, pills and “solution for mouth” to the “Big Irishman who stays with little Scotchman.”  No doubt the “Sore mouth gentleman at Mr. Hanes” required the same relief, although his account also included a bottle of “sherry wine.”  Sales to various customers “on boats” provided evidence of Brown’s ongoing trade as a riverside pharmacist.

But Brown’s account book was not as chaotic as it might seem, for at the front was an index allowing one to easily find “Gentleman, Old who lives beyond Mr. Givins” on page 59, “Boy at King’s brickyard” on page 62, or “Irishman, Big who stays with little Scotchman” on page 61.

A finding aid for John H. Brown’s account book can be downloaded here.  For other collections on medicine and medical-related topics, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

Letter of W. H. Smith, 1840

Bowling Green has many unique aspects, but its name is not one of them.  In addition to the Kentucky city, there are “Bowling Greens” in Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Indiana and South Carolina, as well as the famous park in Lower Manhattan.  Accordingly, when the Special Collections Library acquired an 1840 letter written from “Bowling Green,” our first task was to confirm that it was indeed a local product.

Finding clues in the letter was made more difficult by the fact that it was written in the crosshatch method–filling a page, then turning it 90 degrees and writing over the completed text, in order to save paper and postage.  The author, W. H. Smith, was writing to his brother Joseph in Warrenton, Virginia.  His main topic was the illness of several family members.  One was “taken with a severe chill and burning fever” so extreme, he reported, that she became deranged and begged their slaves to throw water on her.  Others succumbed to similar symptoms, requiring the application of “heated salt red pepper & whiskey” on their arms and legs, as well as repeated doses of quinine, to break their chills.  Turning to other matters, Smith discussed his efforts to “buy a negro boy” at a reasonable price, and his mother’s distress at the prospect of unruly slaves being whipped.

Interesting, but not indicative of any particular location.  But then there was this: “We are to have a large & grand whig festival here on 5 Oct[obe]r to celebrate the Battle of the Thames,” wrote Smith, referring to a political event commemorating an American victory in the War of 1812.  Did Bowling Green, Kentucky host such a festival?  An internet search revealed a broadside in the collections of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio, announcing the very same event, sponsored by the “Whigs of Warren.”  This could have referred to Warren County, Ohio, were it not for the fact that among the individual sponsors of the event were men named Grider, Quigley, Covington, and Wilkins–easily recognizable as prominent citizens of Warren County, Kentucky.  Mystery solved!

Click here to download a finding aid and typescript of W. H. Smith’s letter.  For more collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.