Business Commons^™

Elkton Motor Company - Elkton, Kentucky (Sc 3526), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3526. Letter, December 1939, from Elkton Motor Company, Elkton, Kentucky, wishing the recipient a Merry Christmas and suggesting the purchase of a new 1940 Ford V-8 as a family gift. The letterhead features a car wrapped as a Christmas present.

Cassidy, Paul S., 1908-1998 (Sc 3497), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3497. Letters written by Paul S. Cassidy--likely in the 1950s--soliciting for the purchase of small rental houses for a company called "The Rental Pool" in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Reppert, Charles Kramer, 1842-1921 (Sc 3456), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3456. Letter, 24 July 1864, of Charles K. Reppert, Louisville, Kentucky, to his brother William E. Reppert, then serving with a Pennsylvania cavalry company at Nashville, Tennessee. He reports on the progress of their business making and marketing “Silver Pearl Soap,” the difficulty of trade in Kentucky without proof of loyalty to the Union, and his hopes to eventually sell the business. He also remarks on an upcoming military draft and that “the Negro Enlistments have cleared Kentucky.”

Gilliam Candy Company - Paducah, Kentucky (Sc 3387), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3387. Letters of Cleve Gilliam of the Gilliam Candy Company, “Manufacturers of ‘Blue Grass’ Brand Candies,” Paducah, Kentucky, to Edwin Larrance, Indianapolis, Indiana, whose health problems are inhibiting his work as the company’s Indiana sales representative. Gilliam complains of the decline in business and of the further difficulty of maintaining profits while supplying free sample boxes of candy. The final letter praises Larrance but terminates the company’s arrangement with him.

Standard Oil Company Of Kentucky (Sc 3331), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3331. Receipts, promotional material, and a photograph of a sign documenting the operation of the Standard Oil Company service station at the corner of College and Seventh streets in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Also includes a paper by Michael Mathews for a museum internship in which he examined the items in the collection. Because of the deteriorated condition of many of the originals, they could not be kept without causing damage to other material. A month of inventory sheets were kept from December 1922 to show a typical month’s operation for the station.

Spalding Laundry & Dry Cleaning Company - Louisville, Kentucky (Sc 3272), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3272. Undated solicitation letter (ca. 1933) from Spalding Laundry & Dry Cleaning Co., Louisville, Kentucky, for its Daily Infant Laundry Service. Includes a booklet for recording infant weight and height and providing diet guidelines for the first twelve months. The letter bears the National Recovery Administration’s “blue eagle” symbol.

Gunther, L. W., B. 1822? (Sc 3075), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3075. Letter, 12 March 1848, of L. W. Gunther, Cadiz, Kentucky, to Charles H. Blake, Blandville, Kentucky. He refers to Blake taking delivery of goods from the steamboat Tennessee, reports correspondence from England and France concerning their stave business, and discusses the specifications for the English customer. He also makes reference to a “shipbuilding enterprise.”

Garvin, David Berry, 1943-2014 (Mss 547), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 547. Limited correspondence, calendars, photos, news clippings, and reports that document the life of Warren County, Kentucky, businessman David Berry Garvin. Includes information about Beech Bench Park, Camping World, Sugar Maple Square and an unrealized land development project near Franklin, Kentucky. Includes several memorial books from Garvin’s funeral

as well as a large number of sympathy cards.

Bowman, Johnston & Company - New York, New York (Sc 2853), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2853. Letter, 1 July 1840, of Bowman, Johnston & Company, New York, to P. W. Vaughan and Son, Greensburg, Kentucky commenting on the tobacco market; also letter, 20 November 1840 with particulars of a recent sale of 35 hogsheads of tobacco on account.

Park City Hotel Company - Bowling Green, Kentucky (Sc 1015), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scans for Manuscripts Small Collection 1015. Promotional letter written by Park City Hotel owner, W. G. Thomas, related to the hotel and a listing of hotel guests for 1940.

Hines, Duncan, 1880-1959 (Sc 2711), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2711. Envelope, postmarked 1 July 1947, printed “From Duncan Hines To” and addressed to Manager, The Elms Guest House, Jessup, Maryland. Includes Hines’s printed return address of P.O. Box 548, Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Fletcher And Company - Covington, Kentucky (Sc 662), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 662. Advertising letter mailed from the office of Fletcher and Company, general lottery agents, Covington, Kentucky, offering 16 tickets on the “Royal Havana or Cuba Plan Lottery” for $10.00.

Shannon, Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1895 (Sc 561), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and typescript (click on Additional Files) for Manuscripts Small Collection 561. Journal of a voyage from South Union, Kentucky to New Orleans, Louisiana, which was kept by Thomas Jefferson Shannon, a selling agent for and a member of the South Union Colony of Shakers. The pagination refers to the typed copy of the journal which is also indexed mainly by names and places.

Maddox Brothers Tobacco Company - Mayfield, Kentucky (Sc 2586), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2586. Letter, 1920, from Maddox Brothers Tobacco company, Mayfield, Kentucky, soliciting orders for tobacco.

Hines, Duncan, 1880-1959 (Mss 410), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 410. Materials relating to Duncan Hines and the marketing of the “Duncan Hines” brand of food products. Includes obituary notices for Duncan Hines, ice cream franchise agreement, stock certificate books for related companies, and a study on marketing the brand to consumers, especially women.

B. Douglass And Company - Louisville, Kentucky (Sc 497), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 497. Business letter, Louisville, Kentucky to customer of B. Douglass & Co., a mercantile agency, asking for information which will help the agency serve the merchants more efficiently.

Lindeman, E. G. (Sc 610), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collecction 610. Letter written to Bethel Oakley, of Bowling Green, Kentucky, from E.G. Lindeman, giving information as requested about the Green River Chair Company of Livermore, Kentucky, of which Lindeman was treasurer.

Webb, Benedict Joseph, 1814-1897 (Sc 429), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 429. Statement and cover letter, 1871, to Richard Durbin, Big Reedy, Kentucky from Benedict Joseph Webb, assignee of J.C. Webb & Company, Louisville, Kentucky. Also, circular letter, 1872, from J.C. Webb announcing the opening of his wholesale and retail business in books and stationery.

Shakers (Sc 356), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 356. Letters, 1834-1851 (6), of the Shakers, chiefly of South Union, Kentucky, concerning the seed industry, religious affairs, economic conditions, wagon blueprint, etc., and receipts, 1868, 1870 (2).

Helm, Margie May, 1894-1991 (Sc 355), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 355. An incident related by Margie Helm, Bowling Green, Kentucky, regarding her grandfather, Churchill H. Blakey, and the boyhood experience he had while selling Bibles in Logan County, Kentucky, with friends, David Morton and Eckstein (Ex) Norton.

Volkerding Family Papers (Mss 385), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 385. Letters written chiefly by Herman Frederick Wilhelm Volkerding, of Louisville, Kentucky, to his wife Mary Elizabeth (Hauber) Volkerding while traveling as a salesman for the John T. Barbee distillers. Volkerding pines for home and describes the scenery, hotels, amusements and rail travel in the western United States.

Hester, Elizabeth Allen, B. 1956 (Fa 43), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 43. [Flea markets] Collection of typescripts, photographs and cassette tapes concerning the family/personal history and current occupation (flea market seller) of Margie Hawks. Collectioncontains a detailed account of the family history of Mrs. Hawks and their subsistence farming. Project completed by Elizabeth (Beth) Hester for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Shorts, Roberta (Fa 520), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 520. Material collected by Roberta Shorts for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class. Included are recordings and fieldnotes for interviews with six individuals on personal experience narratives, ghost stories, and jokes and photographs, fieldnotes, and a PowerPoint presentation on material culture and of a 2004 String Cheese Incident concert at the Louisville Palace Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky.

Baird, Henry Herring, 1902-1991 - Collector (Mss 279), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 279. Account books and other financial records related to Jenkins-Ryan Tobacco Company of Adairville, Kentucky. Also includes financial records associated with the farms and businesses operated by Thomas Henry Baird, Jr., as well as the 1941 monthly financial reports and a label from Scott Tobacco Company of Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Sugar Creek Creamery Company - Louisville, Kentucky (Sc 1976), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1976. Letter from Sugar Creek Creamery Company, Louisville, Kentucky, soliciting cream for manufacture of Sugar Creek butter.

Walker, Marion (Kumler), B. 1864 (Sc 1948), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1948. Letter to prospective sales agents and promotional material for a beauty aid product produced and distributed by Mrs. Marion Walker of Louisville, Kentucky.

Harp, Deborah Ann, B. 1956 (Fa 231), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 231. Paper: "Dime Store Narratives" written by Deborah Ann Harp for a Western Kentucky University class.

Dunbar, Elijah, 1821-1911 (Sc 1335), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1335. Letter written by Elijah Dunbar from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to his brother in Canton, Massachusetts. Evidently he and an associate were traveling piano salesmen. Dunbar vividly describes the terrible road conditions between Bowling Green and Elkton, Kentucky.

Read, Emily Jane, 1839-1916 (Sc 1497), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1497. Letter from Emily J. Read, Rich Pond, Kentucky, to an unnamed friend. she discusses peoplein the neighboring region and her husband's mercantile operation in Rich Pond.

Wilcher, Joda, 1905-1971 (Mss 155), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 155. Chiefly business papers of Joda Wilcher, Bradfordsville, Kentucky, pertaining to his work as an agent that bought trees, especially walnut trees, for various lumber companies. Also a few family items, including his memorial book and other items relating to his funeral.