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Full-Text Articles in History
Burley: Kentucky Tobacco In A New Century, Ann Ferrell
Burley: Kentucky Tobacco In A New Century, Ann Ferrell
Folk Studies & Anthropology Faculty Book Gallery
Once iconic American symbols, tobacco farms are gradually disappearing. It is difficult for many people to lament the loss of a crop that has come to symbolize addiction, disease, and corporate deception; yet, in Kentucky, the plant has played an important role in economic development and prosperity. Burley tobacco—a light, air-cured variety used in cigarette production—has long been the Commonwealth’s largest cash crop and an important aspect of regional identity, along with bourbon, bluegrass music, and Thoroughbred horses. In Burley: Kentucky Tobacco in a New Century, Ann K. Ferrell investigates the rapidly transforming process of raising and selling tobacco …
Butler County, Nancy Richey
Butler County, Nancy Richey
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Butler County, located in the south-central part of the state, was the commonwealth’s 53rd county. Settlers moving into the area thought they had found “a little bit of heaven”—a virgin forest of oak, poplar, chestnut, hickory, and walnut and an abundance of wild game. Out of this wilderness developed a county rich in tradition, with many contributions to state and national history. It has been said that, for its population, the county has produced more notable people than any other in the nation. This list including two governors, an attorney general of Kentucky, a chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme …
Bowling Green Stock Car Racing, Jonathan Jeffrey, Larry Upton
Bowling Green Stock Car Racing, Jonathan Jeffrey, Larry Upton
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Bowling Green became the city of speed immediately after World War II as America began its love affair with the automobile. Stock car racing took the city by storm in its inaugural season of 1951, drawing crowds of up to 7,000 in a city of only 18,000. Soon thereafter, the city attracted the Chevrolet Corvette assembly plant followed by the National Corvette Museum. Images of Sports: Bowling Green Stock Car Racing documents the history of stock car racing in Bowling Green and the emergence of the raceway at Beech Bend Park.
Barren County, Nancy Richey
Barren County, Nancy Richey
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Barren County, located in the heart of south central Kentucky, was formed in 1799 and is the commonwealth’s 13th largest county. Pioneers found the land without the usual, extensive wooded areas and so it looked barren to them in comparison. The area is anything but “barren,” as its land and population have been productive in agriculture, commerce, education, medicine, and the military. Voted in 2007 by Progressive Farmer magazine as the “Best Place to Live in Rural America,” the county has also produced one of the South’s first African American mayors, two governors, renowned musicians, a Pulitzer Prize winner, two …
Warren County, Jonathan Jeffrey
Warren County, Jonathan Jeffrey
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Blessed with a landscape of undulating hills, numerous picturesque waterways, and deep stands of native hardwood trees, Warren County, Kentucky, is a beautiful place. Fertile land, a number of significant natural resources, and important transportation routes have helped make it one of Kentucky’s most economically vibrant counties. Besides the county seat of Bowling Green, Warren County boasts several rural hamlets with unique histories and resources, including Smiths Grove, Oakland, Rockfield, Woodburn, Rich Pond, Hadley, Richardsville, and Alvaton. Images of America: Warren County features photographs of this area’s rich culture, including its agriculture, religious and educational institutions, family life, and tourist …
Hillbilly: A Cultural History Of An American Icon, Anthony Harkins
Hillbilly: A Cultural History Of An American Icon, Anthony Harkins
History Faculty Book Gallery
In this pioneering work of cultural history, historian Anthony Harkins argues that the hillbilly-in his various guises of "briar hopper," "brush ape," "ridge runner," and "white trash"-has been viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the modern order and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production, and thus symbolic of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. "Hillbilly" signifies both rugged individualism and stubborn backwardness, strong family and kin networks but also inbreeding and bloody feuds. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from …
Bittersweet: The Louisville And Nashville Railroad And Warren County, Jonathan Jeffrey
Bittersweet: The Louisville And Nashville Railroad And Warren County, Jonathan Jeffrey
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Warren County’s lengthy rail heritage dates from the chartering of a small tramway from the boat landing to central Bowling Green in 1936, to the construction of a magnificent rail station in 1925, to cessation of passenger service in 1979. When private and federal monies enabled Bowling Green depot’s restoration in the mid-1990’s, many citizens professed a renewed interest in Warren County’s rail heritage. Bittersweet briefly discusses rail development in the United States and then explores the love-hate relationship that Bowling Green experienced with the L&N. Of particular significance was the city’s twenty-four year battle for construction of the 1925 …
A Thread Of Evidence: Shaker Textile Industries At South Union, Kentucky, Jonathan Jeffrey, Donna Parker
A Thread Of Evidence: Shaker Textile Industries At South Union, Kentucky, Jonathan Jeffrey, Donna Parker
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
Jonathan Jeffrey and Donna Parker write of the three prevailing textile industries at South Union: flax/linen, wool, and silk. Surprisingly, the Shakers at South Union, Kentucky produced linen and woolen fabric using methods similar to their non-Shaker neighbors. Silk was the exception, as it process was rare in the region even in its day. You do, however, sense a drive and dedication behind the Shakers’ work not always found in that of the “world.” Because the motivation was a spiritual one, an effort to worship through even the most routine of tasks, the Shakers not only provided for their needs, …
A Stroll Around Fountain Square, Jonathan Jeffrey
A Stroll Around Fountain Square, Jonathan Jeffrey
SCL Faculty and Staff Book Gallery
No one familiar with local history can deny that Fountain Square is Bowling Green’s touchstone to its past; it is certainly the community’s most endearing and enduring landmark. Robert Moore, one of the area’s earliest citizens, donated two acres to Warren County for public buildings in 1797. On this site a log courthouse was erected, and shortly thereafter the county added a log jail, a stock and pillory, a log clerk’s office and a log markethouse. The area changed dramatically when the courthouse was moved from Fountain Square to 10th Street, one block over. A consensus was reached to …
Sergeant York: An American Hero, David D. Lee
Sergeant York: An American Hero, David D. Lee
History Faculty Book Gallery
Alvin C. York went out on a routine patrol an ordinary, unknown American doughboy of the First World War. He came back from no-man’s-land a hero. In a brief encounter on October 8, 1918, during the Argonne offensive, York had killed 25 German soldiers and, almost singlehandedly, effected the capture of 132 others. Returning to the United States the following spring, he received a tumultuous public welcome and a flood of offers from businessmen eager to capitalize on his acclaimed feat. But York, true to his character, went quietly back to his home in the Tennessee mountains, where he spent …