Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Page, Tate Cromwell "Piney," 1908-1984 (Fa 1397), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1397. Papers of Page, former Dean of the College of Education at Western Kentucky University, primarily concerning his work documenting the people, places, history and folklore of the Ozarks region in Arkansas where he was raised. Also includes his photographs of historic structures, made mostly in western Kentucky.

United Way Of Southern Kentucky - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 687), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 687. Minutes, financial documents, correspondence, promotional material, and committee reports related to United Way of Southern Kentucky, a re-granting agency that supports a number of social, educational and charitable organizations in south central Kentucky.

American Association Of University Women - Danville, Kentucky (Mss 681), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 687. Records of the Danville branch of the American Association of University Women, including minutes, president’s reports, newsletters, historical information, programming materials and other miscellaneous items. Also includes more limited material about the state and regional divisions of the AAUW.

West Kentucky Coal Company - Sturgis, Kentucky (Mss 670), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 570. Accounting records, chiefly accounts payable, for West Kentucky Coal Company headquartered in Sturgis, Kentucky. Most transactions include receipts from a given vendor along with a summary voucher from West Kentucky Coal. Also includes some payroll records.

Guthrie, Charles Snow, 1922-2000 (Mss 668), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 668. Research, correspondence and manuscripts of WKU English faculty member Charles Snow Guthrie regarding the history of Freemasonry in Kentucky. Includes some business records relating to Guthrie’s farm in Cumberland County, Kentucky.

Loving, Frances (Hoover), 1906-1982 (Sc 3339), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3339. Letter, 19 August 1968, of Frances (Hoover) Loving, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to the editor of the Park City Daily News, Bowling Green, Kentucky. The former resident of Bowling Green deplores the recent bombing of a rural African-American church near the city and expresses the hope that law enforcement will solve the crime, stated in an attached clipping to be the sixth in the county in the past eighteen months. Copied to several state and national politicians, pastors, and Western Kentucky University faculty, the letter was published in the Daily News on …

Elections And Election Campaigns - Magoffin County, Kentucky (Sc 3334), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3334. Letter, 3 June 1993, to WKU faculty member John Parker from Jim Kelly, Flat Gap, Kentucky in reference to a recent article in a Lexington, Kentucky newspaper on the use of nicknames by political candidates. He encloses a copy of a paid political advertisement from “a few years ago,” placed in the Salyersville (Kentucky) Independent by magistrate candidate James “N----r” Howard (the racial epithet being spelled in full). Kelly also encloses a more recent clipping reporting on election fraud in Magoffin County.

Camp Paradise - Calloway County, Kentucky (Sc 3322), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3322. Letter, 7 June 1957, to a Mr. Hicks from Sid and Florence Jobs, owners and operators of Camp Paradise at Kentucky Lake, Calloway County, Kentucky, with suggestions on timely scheduling of a reservation. Includes a two-page mimeograph describing the Camp’s location, amenities, lodging facilities and rates; a color postcard of the camp, and black and white photographs of fishermen and of the Camp’s cottages.

Cowan, Gilbert, 1903-1969 (Sc 3316), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3316. Letters, 28 July and 18 November 1931, of Gilbert Cowan, written to his brother Finley Cowan in Cannons Mill, Clinton County, Kentucky, while Gilbert was an inmate at the Kentucky State Reformatory in Frankfort, Kentucky. He asks Finley to help arrange a recommendation for him to the superintendent of the prison school, and doubts that he, unlike other inmates, will be able to apply for a reduced sentence. He also wishes he could attend church with Finley in order to “get me a gal.” The institutional letterhead includes rules governing inmate letter-writing …

Donerail, Kentucky Grange No. 44 (Sc 3267), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3267. Minute book of Donerail Grange No. 44, Fayette County, Kentucky. Includes rolls of members as of 1 January 1875.

Maffenbeier, John, 1905-1978 (Sc 3199), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3199. Correspondence of John Maffenbeier, Newark, New Jersey, relating to collecting and selling Native American artifacts. Some of the correspondence is related to Lost City, an archaeological tourist site in Logan County, Kentucky.

Farley, Seth Thomas, Jr., 1917-1999 (Mss 617), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 617. Correspondence, documents, news clippings and ephemera from Seth Thomas Farley, Jr., a life-long educator. This collection includes a good deal of information about Farley’s teaching career prior to his work as a professor at WKU, his involvement in organizations that fought alcoholism and gambling (particularly the lottery in Kentucky), his church work, and his service on a committee to choose a federal magistrate for the western district of Kentucky. The collection includes an entire box of assessment related material related to Fort Knox Dependent Schools in the mid-1960s.

Bowling Green Woman's Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 601), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 601. Minutes, membership lists, publications, press books, event programs, and other records of the Bowling Green Woman’s Club, a civic organization in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Includes some materials relating to its affiliation with the Kentucky Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Walker, Edith (Fa 870), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 870. Project titled: "Joe Coleman: A Local Legend." Includes typescripts of interviews and survey sheets collected by Edith Walker about Joe Coleman, an accused murderer in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Survey sheets includes lines of a ballad about Coleman and various informant's memories of the ballad or the veracity of the incident in Adair County, Kentucky.

Owens, Nellie, 1912-2007 (Sc 3051), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3051. W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) sewing notebook of Nellie Owens, Louisville, Kentucky, containing fabric swatches and sewing samples.

Ua1c11/89 Jim Burton Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs and negatives taken by Jim Burton documenting life in western Kentucky primarily between the years 1975 and 1980. Venues include Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Madisonville, Cumberland County and Scott County.

Band Formations - Burton was hired by WKU band director to photograph half time performances. It was a freelance job paying $250 per winter semester which allowed him to pay his car insurance.

Bobby Sandige - Bobby was from Burton's hometown of Madisonville and was married in college. Besides being a full-time student, he worked full-time at an underground coal mine. Burton did a feature story on …

Hines, Clara Ursula (Wright) Nahm, 1904-1983 (Mss 561), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 561. Personal diaries of Clara (Wright) Hines, Bowling Green, Kentucky, kept during her marriage to food critic Duncan Hines and after his death. Includes some correspondence, travel itineraries, and miscellaneous papers.

Girls Club Of Bowling Green - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 2933), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding Aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2933. Clippings from the Park City Daily News (Bowling Green, Kentucky) and Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) relating to the history and activities of the Girls Club of Bowling Green. Includes a letter of Elaine (Eakles) Goad outlining her involvement with the Club as a member and Director, and a clipping describing her wedding held at the Club.

Wilson, Jewell Gladys (Benedict), 1908-1996 (Sc 2930), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2930. Correspondence of Gladys B. Wilson, Glasgow, Kentucky. Includes personal letters of Wilson, but many also relate to her genealogical and local history research and her work on behalf of the Barren County (South Central Kentucky) Historical Society.

Martin, Jerry W. (Sc 2871), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2871. “A Dark and Bloody Ground: A Synopsis of the Lives of Micajah and Wiley Harpe,” by Dr. Jerry W. Martin. The illustrated paper, the basis for a presentation to the E.Q.B. Club of Bowling Green, Kentucky, recounts the lives of Kentucky outlaws Micajah and Wiley Harpe.

Foster, Richard Wesley, 1879-1969 (Sc 2858), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2858. Letter, 2 February 1906, written by Wesley Foster, Shelbyville, Kentucky, to his mother Mrs. J. R. Foster, Matthews. Virginia, in which he expresses his disappointment in Mammoth Cave after a tour. Includes original envelope illustrated with an H.C. Ganter photograph of the Cave's "Olives Bower."

Spiller, Cora Jane (Morningstar), 1928-2020 - Collector (Sc 2852), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2852. Letter to Cora Jane Spiller, 29 April 2014, from Ronnie Doyle, Park City, Kentucky, with reminiscences about Ford's Farm and Ford's Farm Cave in Barren County, Kentucky.

Bundles For America - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 2813), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2813. Meeting minutes of Bundles for America, Bowling Green, Kentucky, from 24 January to 14 March 1945. Includes a draft thank-you letter to a sponsor summarizing the organization’s accomplishments since 1941; also includes a 1943 clipping outlining the history and work of the organization in knitting garments, salvaging metal and clothing, and making up toiletry kits for British and American soldiers and their families.

Bowling Green Music Club - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Mss 457), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 457. Minutes, governing documents, yearbooks, programs for public concerts, membership information, various reports, and news clippings for the Woman’s Music Club, the Bowling Green Music Club and the Bowling Green Junior Music Club.

Bowling Green, Kentucky Musical Fund Society (Mss 460), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 460. Minutes, financial records, governing documents and miscellaneous items of the Bowling Green Musical Fund Society, which was established in 1872 for “the cultivation of music and the social enjoyment of its members.”

Webster, Pauline (Martin) Tabor, 1905-1992 (Sc 1192), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1192. Card from former Bowling Green, Kentucky madam Pauline Tabor Webster to David Helm in Bowling Green, promising to look for a catalog of her 1973 antiques sale and offering to send him an antique item as a gift.

Webster, Pauline (Martin) Tabor, 1905-1992 (Sc 1180), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1180. Cards and letters, 1984-1991 (10), from Pauline Tabor Webster, Universal City, Texas, to Mitchell Leichhardt, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Originally from Bowling Green, Webster discusses mutual friends, family affairs, and past and present events. Also related data.

Minton, Stella (Phelps), 1892-1986, Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text (click on "Additional Files") for Manuscripts Small Collection 2773. Commemorative material about Butler County, Kentucky native Stella (Phleps) Minton, which includes remembrances by relatives and excerpts from Stella’s letters to her daughter, Elizabeth “Betty” Allen (Minton) Upton. Much of this material was included in a book titled Memory is a Wonderful Thing: The Life and Letters of Stella Minton by Larry Upton and Judy McDonald and presented at the Upton Family Reunion, Phoenix, Arizona, 27-28 September 2013. Includes commemorative bookmark from the reunion.

Street, James William, 1858-1944 (Mss 478), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 478. Account books and journals of James William Street, recording his activities and local events, primarily in Henderson and Lyon counties in Kentucky. He also records the 1908-1909 activities of the Night Riders in the region.

New Matriarchs: Louisville, Kentucky (Fa 768), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and representative photographs for Folklife Archives Project 768. The collection details the lives of seven women from around the globe (India, Syria, Mexico, Uganda, Russia, Argentina, and Somalia),all recent immigrants to Louisville, Kentucky.