History Commons^™

Totty Family (Sc 2793), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2793. Correspondence and research materials relating to the genealogy of the Totty family of Kentucky, and related families Carter and Cosby. Includes military records, birth, marriage, will and deed records, and pedigree charts.

Géotropisme De Chamoiseau, Jean-Louis Cornille

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

There seems to be a strange parallel between the vegetable kingdom in which Patrick Chamoiseau sets his Biblique des derniers gestes and the way the narrative is being played out. The mangrove, with its entangled roots and stems, constitutes a perfect image of the novel, whose multiple branches are no longer anchored in any reality or in a centralised system, but seem moved by a principle which we could call “bibliotropic”, since in Biblique one could easily find traces of Perse, García Márquez, Glissant, Césaire and even of Rabelais. But certain “stems” are more difficult to track within this dense …

"To Preserve, Protect, And Pass On:" Shirley Plantation As A Historic House Museum, 1894–2013, Kerry Dahm

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an analysis of Shirley Plantation’s operation as a historic house museum from 1894 to the present period, and the Carter family’s dedication to keeping the estate within the family. The first chapter examines Shirley Plantation’s beginnings as a historic house museum as operated by two Carter women, Alice Carter Bransford and Marion Carter Oliver, who inherited the property in the late nineteenth century. The second chapter explores Shirley Plantation’s development as a popular historic site during the mid-twentieth century to the early part of the twenty-first century, and compares the site’s development to the interpretative changes that …

Guthrie, Margaret, 1800-1892 (Sc 2784), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2784. Essay of Margaret Guthrie, Louisville, Kentucky titled "Treatise on Temperance" in which she explains her reasons for supporting temperance. Originally found in an old store account book, the essay was typescripted in 1939. All original punctuation and spelling was kept intact.

The Alexander Hamilton And Slavery Debate, Jake Sowell

History Class Publications

Alexander Hamilton, one of the original founding fathers, has been under scrutiny by historians for several years over his belief on the issue of slavery. Hamilton was one of the most influential people in the framing of the Constitution. He wrote many letters back and forth to James Madison while they wrote the Federalist Papers. Hamilton’s opinion on the issue of slavery, unlike Madison’s, is somewhat of a mystery. Some historians argue he was against slavery in principle and the presence of it in the United States, others say he supported slavery in its entirety.

Evidences for both sides of …

'Dred Scott V. Sandford' Analysis, Sarah E. Roessler

Student Publications

The Scott v. Sandford decision will forever be known as a dark moment in America's history. The Supreme Court chose to rule on a controversial issue, and they made the wrong decision. Scott v. Sandford is an example of what can happen when the Court chooses to side with personal opinion instead of what is right.

Lincoln And Liberty, Too, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

“The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty,” Abraham Lincoln said in 1864. And surely, from Lincoln of all people, that statement must come as a surprise, and for two reasons. In the first place, no one in American history might be said to have been a more shining example of liberty than Abraham Lincoln. Not only had he exercised liberty to its fullest extent, rising from poverty and obscurity to become the 16th president of the United States, but in the process he became the Great Emancipator of over three million slaves, and if anyone …

Carmichael Family Papers (Mss 467), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 467. Correspondence, legal papers, and miscellaneous material from several related families: Standrod, Campbell, and Carmichael. Includes a claim made after the Civil War for compensation for an enslaved man who joined the Union Army (Click on "Additional Files" below).

Klein, Wilma - Collector (Sc 2766), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2766. Will (1823) of James Bray, Chesterfield County, Virginia, in which he frees his slaves and bequeaths all his property to them; poem (1928) to her parents by Ruthia Chloe Jane Miller, Bowling Green, Kentucky; Beech Grove Missionary Baptist Church ordination minutes, 27 November 1994; and birthday greetings to William H. Howard, Tompkinsville, Kentucky, from Governor Paul E. Patton, 8 April 1996.

Sutherland And Read Family Papers (Mss 468), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 468. Correspondence, business, legal and miscellaneous papers of the Sutherland, Read and associated families of Hardin and Nelson counties in Kentucky. Includes records relating to the Sutherland distillery business, estate papers, and court and other records relating to land titles.

Coombs Family Collection (Mss 349), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 349. Correspondence, photographs, business records and miscellaneous papers of the Coombs, Robertson and related families of Warren and Simpson counties in Kentucky and of Alabama, Texas and Tennessee. Includes correspondence, personal papers and research of Elizabeth Robertson Coombs, librarian at the Kentucky Library, Western Kentucky University. Several documents from this collection have been scanned are available for viewing by clicking on the "Additional Files" below.

Meanings: Where This Is All Headed, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Human tragedy, human triumph and continuing struggle, each of its own epic proportions. One convoluted war holds inside the tripartate meanings of sorrow for 620,000 lost, joy for 4 million saved and the uneasiness that the struggle for freedom would still continue 150 years later. [excerpt]

''Get Your Asphalt Off My Ancestors!'': Reclaiming Richmond's African Burial Ground, Mai-Linh Hong

Faculty Journal Articles

By treating spatial conflict as one way communities wrestle with the memory and legacy of slavery, this article unites critical landscape analysis, a tool of legal geography, with legal and cultural analysis and recent scholarship on African American reparations. A slave cemetery lay beneath a parking lot in Shockoe Bottom, a neighborhood of downtown Richmond that was once a major slave-trading hub. In recent years, controversy arose over the site’s use, generating racially charged local debate and two failed lawsuits seeking to preserve the site. This article examines the significance of the African Burial Ground controversy by analyzing its symbolic, …

Born In Slavery: One Grave In Chambersburg, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

A simple epitaph with amazing impact: "Born in Slavery, Died Feb 15 1908." Those words speak and speak loudly. Thomas Burl wanted it to be known for eternity that he was a slave. And he wanted it to be known that he wasn't when he died. That label defined his whole life. It defined who he was when he had the name "slave" forced on him when he was born. And it again defined him through its absence after 1863. [excerpt]

From A Place Of Fear: Death, Slavery & Stonewall, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

Earlier this spring, I sat in Gettysburg at the "Future of the Civil War" conference and listened to an intern talk about how he had been scared to interpret. He was afraid of his visitors, afraid to tell them about a place. [excerpt]

John Quincy Adams And Slavery: Revealing The Founders' Contradiction, Kristina Benham

Other Undergraduate Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Matlock Family Papers (Mss 450), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 450. Personal papers, mostly tax receipts and deeds, of the Matlock family of Logan County, Kentucky. Includes some genealogical data and a journal of a trip to London kept by an Englishwoman whose relation to the family is unknown.

Duncan And Hines Family Papers (Mss 447), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 447. Correspondence, accounts, deeds, clippings, and miscellaneous papers, primarily of Joseph Dillard Duncan and Jane (Covington) Duncan of Warren County, Kentucky, and their children and grandchildren in the Duncan and Hines families. Includes notes on the Civil War military service of Edward Ludlow Hines and Hiram Woodford Dulaney (click on "Additional Files" below for scans).

Slavery - Contract, 1818 (Sc 886), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 886. Contract, 18 April 1818, whereby Felix Grundy, Nashville, Tennessee, furnished ten enslaved persons to his son-in-law Ramsay Mayson for five years. Mayson was to take them to the Alabama Territory or to the state of Mississippi. Also data relating to Grundy and the Carnton Plantation, Franklin, Tennessee.

Contested Nation: Freedman And The Cherokee Nation, Dave Watt

Undergraduate Research - History

The Freedmen are, most simply, those individuals that have been freed from bondage. In the United States this term is often used in reference to legally emancipated slaves and consequently, their descendants. The term “Cherokee Freedmen” refers to those freed slaves who joined with the Cherokee Nation, or, men and women who were formerly held in servitude within the Cherokee Nation. This term has also been given to the descendants of marriages involving freed Africans and Cherokee spouses, thus making the network of people labeled Freedmen an expansive group of people. Totaling roughly 3000 people in the present day, Cherokee …

Edmunds Family Papers (Mss 443), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 443. Correspondence, deeds, legal and other personal papers of the Edmunds family of North Carolina and Caldwell County, Kentucky. Includes genealogical data and papers of associated families, primarily the Cameron family of North Carolina.

War Against Slavery Without A Black Soldier In Sight?, John M. Rudy

Interpreting the Civil War: Connecting the Civil War to the American Public

I've been lying to people. OK, not exactly lying, just not telling the whole truth. One of my favorite lines to use when I worked in Washington at the Lincoln Cottage was that the, "most important part of the Emancipation Proclamation came near the end, where it says that black men, the former slaves, can serve in the army and navy, that they can fight for their very own freedom." [excerpt]

Yeager, Josiah Harvey, 1785-1860 (Mss 420), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 420. Chiefly legal and financial papers of Josiah Harvey Yeager, a lawyer, businessman, and minister of Hardin County, Kentucky. Yeager had extensive land holdings, thus the collection includes a number of deeds and survey information. Includes several slave bills of sale, 1817-1859, and a few items related to the Monin family. Also includes a Civil War military pass issued in Hardin County (Click on "Additional Files" below for scan).

Coleman Family Papers (Sc 650), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 650. Photocopies of letters with family news and discussing the settlement of an estate, written by members of the Coleman family of Todd County, Kentucky to Collin and Elizabeth McKinney of Arkansas Territory, 1826-1835. Includes a genealogical chart.

Ritter Daybook (Mss 98), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 98. A photocopy of an account book (432 pages), detailing the activities of a boarding house/tavern and large stable in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, owned by Burwell Clark Ritter.

Wood, Jonathan, 1795-1873 (Sc 824), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 824. Letter, 8 January 1865, from Jonathan Wood, Smithfield, Pennsylvania, to his son, Union soldier Pliny Wood. He writes with sympathy for the soldiers’ hardships, instructs him on saving postage, criticizes the privileges of congressmen, expresses contempt for the treason of Jefferson Davis and the Confederates, and remarks on the suffering of prisoners of war at Andersonville, Georgia; nevertheless, he hopes for reconciliation with ordinary Southerners after their defeat and repentance.

Afterward, Abraham Lincoln, Gabor Boritt, James Daugherty

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Caldecott Honoree and Newbery Medalist James Daugherty's pictorial interpretation of President Abraham Lincoln's famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, was originally published by Albert Whitman & Company in 1947. This book is available again in a fresh new edition just in time for the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address with a new introduction by Lincoln- and Civil War-scholar Gabor S. Boritt.

Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

People have a fundamental need to think of themselves as “good people.” To achieve this we tell each other stories – we create myths – about ourselves and our society. These myths may be true or they may be false. The more discordant a myth is with reality, the more difficult it is to convince people to embrace it. In such cases to sustain the illusion of truth it may be necessary to develop an entire mythology – an integrated web of mutually supporting stories. This paper explores the system of myths that sustained the institution of slavery in the …

Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn

Wilson R. Huhn

People have a fundamental need to think of themselves as “good people.” To achieve this we tell each other stories – we create myths – about ourselves and our society. These myths may be true or they may be false. The more discordant a myth is with reality, the more difficult it is to convince people to embrace it. In such cases to sustain the illusion of truth it may be necessary to develop an entire mythology – an integrated web of mutually supporting stories. This paper explores the system of myths that sustained the institution of slavery in the …

Warts And All: How The Plattsburgh Should Change The Way We Look At The Face Of Baltimore Maritime History, David Seaton

Legal History Publications

In 1820 the Plattsburgh was condemned for violating federal anti-slave trade legislation. This little known, rarely cited Supreme Court decision is important, because it pierces the veneer of romanticism that has been allowed to sugar over our recollection of Baltimore's maritime history. The case indicates that some of the most prominent ship owners and captains at the time, including Thomas Sheppard, John N. D'Arcy, Henry Didier, and Thomas Boyle, have links to the slave trade. This paper explores the cruel realities of the international slave trade, the ineffective federal laws aimed at prohibiting it, and the efforts by merchants to …