Rural Sociology 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.

Ua1c2/18 Felts Log House Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images of Felts Log House, includes images of the move to WKU campus.

Ua100/1/1 Rural Training School Administration, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

No abstract provided.

Smith, Jerry W. (Fa 1162), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1162. Student folk studies project titled “Home Remedies of Butler County” which includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of folk remedies in Butler County, Kentucky. Sheets may include a remedy, brief description, informant’s name,

address and text classification.

Marcum, Joe (Fa 1161), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1161. Student folk studies project titled “Folklore Collection Project: [Old Recipes and Remedies]” which includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of recipes or remedies in Logan County and Warren County, Kentucky. Sheets may include a recipe, remedy, brief description, informant’s name, address and text classification.

Molden, Roy (Fa 963), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 963. Project titled: “The Chestnut Farmstead.” Includes survey sheets with brief descriptions ofbuildings and implements on the Chestnut family farm in Pulaski County, Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description and photo.

Montell, William Lynwood, 1931-2023 (Fa 962), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 962. Project titled: [Student Collections: Dinner Bells] Includes survey sheets from student collections with brief descriptions of dinner bells in the Pennyroyal Region of Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, terms, and a photo of the dinner bell.

Watson, Betty Lou (Fa 959), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 959. Paper titled: “Under the Waves.” Includes survey sheets with brief descriptions of the valley and its farm life to be flooded by the Green River Reservoir in the Pennyroyal Region of Kentucky. Sheets include a brief description, informant’s name, illustrations, and photos of the area.

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 …

Ua1c11/47 Mae Pedigo Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs removed from Mae Pedigo scrapbook of Rural Training School.

From Within The Abyss: Drug Users In Areas Of Rural Poverty, G. Eric Latham, Jr.

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This research was completed to deal with many unanswered questions regarding drug use, specifically drug use in areas of rural poverty. Look at any "Faces of Meth" billboard or listen to any corporate-news program and one might assume there is a drug epidemic in rural areas. Without research, this allows the viewer to assume that poverty is the fault of the drug user who happens to live in rural places. This study sought to take a qualitative and ethnographic methodology to "embed" the researcher in this setting to see for himself whether these views were valid or invalid. The questions …

Warren County Kentucky Homemakers Project (Fa 82), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 82. These interviews examine the lives of rural women through their membership in the Warren County Homemakers Extension Program. Former extension agents and members recall their experiences in the organization and the significance of the education programs in preparing them to adapt to new technologies and to move from farm life to public work.

Browning, Jimmy D. (Fa 157), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 157. This collection includes cassette tapes of interviews with eight women used as research for Jimmy D. Browning’s paper “A Tie That Binds: Contemporary Funeral Foodways In A Rural, Central Kentucky Community.” Two copies of the paper are also included in the collection.

Scarborough, John Arne, 1916-1995 (Fa 50), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 50. “Growing Up in Blue Springs, Alabama” Lecture by Dr. John A. Scarborough to Lynwood Montell’s class on rural adolescence at Western Kentucky University. Includes a copy of Scarborough’s obituary.

Job Skills, Tolerance, And Positive Interactions: The Gendered Experiences Of Appalachian Migrants, Kelli Brooke Alford

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The following study examines gendered learning experiences of a population of Appalachian migrants surveyed from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The respondents who participated in the survey used for this study began their lives in Appalachia. These respondents then left Appalachia for various other areas in the country and even around the world only to ultimately return to the mountainous region later in their lives. To begin, theory will be introduced concerning the stratification of gender in the Appalachian economic landscape, as well as a theoretical framework placing Appalachian women in an interlocking web of oppression with other …

Warren County Citizens For Managed Growth (Mss 355), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Collection 355. By-laws, minutes, newsletters, correspondence and other material related to WCCMG, an organization founded to deter development of the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark, located near the rural community of Oakland in Warren County, Kentucky. Also includes information about Oakland, Kentucky. A bibliography of newspaper articles about the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark is included. To access the bibliography click on "Additional File" below.

Morgan, John, B. 1944 (Fa 476), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 476. Fieldwork--including oral interviews, videotapes, and secondary information--compiled by John Morgan primarily pertaining to dark-fire tobacco barns in Calloway County, Kentucky and North Carolina. Also includes interviews relating to tugboats, basket making, and ghost stories and supernatural tales from western Kentucky.

Analysis Of Mammoth Cave Pre-Park Communities, Matthew Brunt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Before the creation of Mammoth Cave National Park, this area was home to numerous communities, each with a sense of identity. To prepare for the creation of the National Park, all residents living within these communities were relocated, and many of these communities were lost to the passage of time. Today, public memory of these lost communities is being fostered by the descendents of the pre-park area.

Through the use of a Historical Geographic Information System, 1920 Edmonson County manuscript census data, and statistical analysis, the demographic composition of these lost communities was explored. This project not only brought to …

Edmonson County, Kentucky - New Deal Program Files (Mss 95), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and list of Civilian Conservation Corps applicants (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Collection 95. Administrative files, chiefly applications and correspondence, for three Edmonson County, Kentucky New Deal programs: the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration, and the Works Progress Administration.

Neagle, Sue (Fa 242), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 242. Paper: "Then and Now" written by Sue Neagle for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Thigpen, Lorna Moore (Sc 1581), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1581. Transcription of a taped interview with Gale Hudnall, Riverside, Warren County, Kentucky conducted as part of the oral history project "Riverside Remembrances." Hudnall discusses his family and the social life and history of Riverside and Richardsville, Kentucky. Interview conducted by Lorna Moore Thigpen.

Gang And Gang Activity In A Non-Metropolitan Community: The Perceptions Of Students, Teachers, And Police Officers, Joshua Swetnam

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In recent years, both the media and the research literature have noted an increased presence of street gangs in non-metropolitan and rural communities. An initial step in the investigation of this phenomenon is to gauge how the members of these communities react to increases in gang activity. This study was conducted in a small (approximately 20,000 citizens) Kentucky town identified by its police force as having a sizable gang population. Individuals from three groups within the community who have frequent, direct contact with gang members (police officers, teachers, and students) look part in the study. Participants completed questionnaires designed to …

The Cedar Grove Community In Oral Folk History, Ada Parker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The thesis was originally done for the Center for Intercultural & Folk Studies which no longer exists.

The Beeson Farmstead: A Study Of The Functional Aspects Of A Black Farm In The Richland Community, Annelen Archbold

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study documents the lifestyle on a small, prosperous black farmstead in the Richland community of Butler County, Kentucky. It is based on extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted with Percy Beeson, owner of the farm for aver fifty years. The result of the fieldwork and interviews was the documentation of how this farmstead, maintained without mechanical farm equipment, worked as a functional unit on a year-round basis.

As a functional unit, the Beeson farmstead is described in terms of the Beeson family and their ownership of the farm and the breakdown of the property into two dependent units. In the …

A History Of Baptists In Clinton County, Timothy Cantrell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study is to present some of the history of the Baptist Church in Clinton County, Kentucky. A detailed study of the early church in the county also presents a picture of the county's social history as well because of the very close association between the individual and his church.

The scope of this study does not lend itself to presentation of the individual histories of all the Baptist churches in the county. It is, rather, the purpose of the author to cover the history of Baptists in the county by tracing the history of their two …

Ua100/1/1 Visitor Roll, Wku Rural Training School

WKU Archives Records

List of visitors to the WKU Rural Training School, includes clippings and photographs.

Ua12/2/1 Normal Heights, Vol. 2, No. 4, Western Kentucky University

WKU Archives Records

Newsletter and course catalog promoting Western Kentucky University. This issue focuses on rural education and military training.

Ua12/2/1 Normal Heights, Vol. 2, No. 2, Western Kentucky University

WKU Archives Records

Newsletter and course catalog promoting Western Kentucky University. This issue focuses on the Rural Life & Rural School Conference.