Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Embattled Learning: Education And Emancipation In The Post-Civil War Upper South, Lucas Somers

Dissertations

This dissertation examines the establishment of schools for and by formerly enslaved African Americans in Kentucky and Tennessee in the decade after the Civil War, analyzing the different individuals and organizations that supported or opposed those efforts. Members of Black communities strove to secure an education for children and adults while doing everything in their power to maintain control of those schools. Widespread poverty, racism, and uncertain political status necessitated that African Americans accept help from outsiders, especially from teachers and agents sent by the federal government and northern benevolent associations. The central argument is that the ultimate failure to …

"The Only Prize Worth Contending For": A History Of Eckstein Norton University And The Industrial Model Of Education In Kentucky., Samuel Dunn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Under the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow, white politicians in Kentucky limited African American access to higher education. This practice resulted in a shortage of African American teachers and severely inhibited Black education across the state. Despite frequent criticism of the industrial model of education, African American educators in the region viewed the approach as an opportunity to gain white support for Black education. Two prominent educators, William J. Simmons and C.H. Parrish, gained the support of white elites and opened Eckstein Norton University in 1890. Their close association with prominent whites provided a degree of anonymity, enabling them to …

The Work Of Freedom: African American Child Exploitation In Reconstruction Kentucky, Ashlea Hope Fishburn-Moore

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

On May 23, 1866, two African American children in Christian County, Kentucky, were taken from their parents and apprenticed to a white planter, Elijah Simmons. The two children, Fannie, age eight, and Robert, age four, were expected to serve Simmons for the next thirteen and fourteen years respectively. Fannie was disabled. Denoted in her apprenticeship paper as “deaf and dumb,” the Simmonses did not have to provide for her the way they would a non-disabled child, meaning that they did not have to pay her or provide her with anything upon her release from servitude. Although her story seems in …

Building Public Health In A Rural State: Strategies For Preventing Disease In Kentucky, 1883-1914, Abigail Stephens

Theses and Dissertations--History

During the period from 1883-1914, the Kentucky State Board of Health developed strategies for preventing disease in the state by enforcing hard power measures of vaccination, quarantine, and isolation of disease suspects, and through the soft power measures of written and spoken communication. Throughout this period their efforts to prevent and contain disease were limited by inadequate funding as well as opposition from the public, local authorities, and the state legislature, demonstrating that while hard power measures can be effective in combating disease, they cannot be fully successful without support from the people they aim to protect.

A Call To Arms: A Comparative Study Of Mississippi And Kentucky Citizens During The Secession Crisis, 1859-1861, Amy Myers

Master's Theses

Many studies of the American Civil War have considered why Mississippi leaders voted to secede, while Kentucky politicians remained in the Union. Scholars have previously focused on political elites to understand the underlying motivations behind each state’s decision. These same scholars have often confined their studies to a synthesis of why secession occurred nationally or at the state level. The question remains as to what the common citizen saw and believed when faced with secession and if their views matched their delegates.

This study utilizes the governors’ papers of John J. Pettus and Beriah Magoffin, the Jefferson Davis papers, and …

A Forgotten Shade Of Blue: Support For The Union And The Constitutional Republic In Southeastern Kentucky During The Civil War Era., Howard Muncy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Southeastern Kentucky’s political and military support for the Union during the Civil War era. In the decades prior to the 1860 election, Kentucky developed deep social and economic ties with all sections of the country. After the secession winter that followed Abraham Lincoln’s presidential election, the statewide population divided and pockets of significant Confederate sympathies emerged. Kentucky’s southeastern counties aligned with the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War because of a strong national identity and the absence of a large slave population. As the war unfolded, Southeastern Kentuckians played an important role in the disruption …

Patronage Politics In Eastern Kentucky: The Turner Family Of Breathitt County, Frank Allen Fletcher Ii

Theses and Dissertations--History

From the 1930s to the 1970s, the Turner family of Breathitt County held a political and economic monopoly over their rural county in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. They were emblematic of the patronage, clientele, and kinship politics that characterized twentieth century eastern Kentucky. The family rewarded their supporters with jobs and other economic benefits in exchange for continued political support. Ervine Turner served as a state senator during the Great Depression and was later appointed circuit judge over a three-county district, his wife Marie served 38 years as superintendent of Breathitt County schools, and their children later emerged as …

“I Have Prayed And Prayed: I Have Labored And Labored”: Ethnic Catholicism In Daviess Country Kentucky, 1850-1900., Edward A. Wilson Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development of the German and Irish Catholic communities of Daviess County, Kentucky. The primary focus of the work is the church building process and the separation of Catholic ethnic communities. Although they shared the same faith, American Catholics were divided by nationalism and ethnic hostility. Already isolated in the United States, immigrant Catholics formed cultural communities that adapted their foreign identity to their new surroundings. Scholars often analyze Catholics in the United States during this period as a unified group, but this approach is flawed. Catholics developed hostilities against members of their own faith along ethnic …

"Model And Patriarch" Of Southern Settlements : Neighborhood House In Louisville, Kentucky, 1896-1939., Kalie Ann Gipson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the workings of Neighborhood House, a social settlement in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1896 to 1939. It argues that Neighborhood House represented a typical settlement house that operated during the Progressive Era in the United States. From its beginnings under its founder, Archibald A. Hill, through the tenure of Frances Ingram, Neighborhood House served as an Americanizing institution for urban, European immigrants in Louisville by offering clubs and classes to both immigrant children and adults. Neighborhood House residents also mitigated between immigrant children and parents, pushed for child labor reform, and battled vice in the area. Furthermore, this …

Conquerors Or Cowards: The Role Of The Kentucky Mounted Militia In The Indian Wars From 1768 To 1841., Joel Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis argues that Kentuckians developed the myth that the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers were the most effective troops to fight Native American warriors in the Northwest Indian War of 1790 to 1794 and the War of 1812. The idea that these troops were the best fighters originated in the decades following the War of 1812 as Kentuckians generated a communal history. Residents of the state listened to orators mythologize the successes of mounted Kentuckians in battle, while remembering the foot militia for their sacrifices rather than their shortcomings.

All You Knew: Twentieth Century Southern Appalachian Coal Miners And Their Experience With Death And Danger, Steven M. Malachowski 2978994

History Theses

Nineteenth century coal miners' oral interviews from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia convey their experiences as individuals and of a general community. Southern Appalachian coal miners experienced nearly constant dangers and threats to their lives underground which helped shape their relationships between other miners and industry controls. Added to coal miners’ occupational hazards, the long term emphysemic effects of coal mining and the physical prevalence of coal dust in the coal miner’s life created a life defined by danger. Miners reconciled this dehumanizing lifestyle through readily predictable methods, such as spirituality and camaraderie but also seemingly paradoxical methods, including carelessness …

Settlement In The Old Northwest Frontier And The Merging Of Culture, 1750 -1790, Sandra K. Ellefsen

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

SETTLEMENT IN THE OLD NORTHWEST FRONTIER

AND THE MERGING OF CULTURE, 1750 -1790

An Abstract of the Thesis by Sandra Ellefsen

During the late 1700s, the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountain Chain became the main corridor that precipitated settlement into Kentucky. Along this frontier line, settlers had to contend with various Native American tribes, and settlement on the frontier from the beginning of colonization irrevocably altered the Native American way of life. Warfare, encroachment, and disease caused the Native American population to decline drastically in the process of contact; often as a result, Native tribes chose to adopt many …

Forging A Bluegrass Commonwealth: The Kentucky Statehood Movement And The Politics Of The Trans-Appalachian West, 1783–1792, Christopher L. Leadingham

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

In 1893 historian Frederick Jackson Turner first presented his frontier thesis to a group of historians at the World’s Columbian Exposition, a fair honoring the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ expedition, in Chicago, Illinois. Since then, scholars have long debated the role that the frontier played in shaping the development of the United States. The Kentucky statehood movement emerged at a critical juncture in the early republic’s history, and, when viewed in a transatlantic context, becomes much more important to the development of the United States and larger Atlantic world than what has generally been recognized. Kentuckians found themselves at …

Bluegrass Capital: An Environmental History Of Central Kentucky To 1860, Andrew P. Patrick

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation traces the long-term evolution of the Inner Bluegrass region of central Kentucky with a focus on the period between the first Euro-American incursions into the area and the Civil War era. Utilizing an agroecological perspective that analyzes cultivated landscapes for their ecological features, it explores the ever-shifting mix of cultural and natural influences that shaped the local environment. Most prominently, it reveals the extent to which intertwined strands of capitalism and slavery mingled with biology to produce the celebrated Bluegrass agricultural system.

It begins with an appraisal of the landscape before white men like Daniel Boone arrived, emphasizing …

"A Part Of, Rather Than Apart From" : Louisville's Black Arts Scene In The Mid-Twentieth Century., Wesley Sawyer Cunningham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role that three predominantly black art organizations – Gallery Enterprises, the Louisville Arts Workshop, and the West Side Players – played in Louisville, Kentucky’s black community during the mid-twentieth century. Working from the integrated and cooperative nature of the long Black Freedom Struggle in Louisville, Kentucky, local black artists formed integrated organizations around the arts and promoted black identity, inclusivity and creativity through community-building and consciousness-raising. Furthermore, by defining the varying uses of the term “political” in reference to black art, this work shows that the politicization of artwork can best be understood using a spectrum …

Kentucky's First Statesman : George Nicholas And The Founding Of The Commonwealth., Benjamin Michael Gies

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In late 1789, Colonel George Nicholas arrived in the Kentucky District from eastern Virginia. Nicholas’s political astuteness prompted his swift rise to prominence in the Kentucky District’s political affairs. In 1792 Nicholas asserted himself as the Kentucky Constitution of 1792’s primary author. Nicholas’s Kentucky Constitution of 1792 mirrored the federal Constitution of 1787 that had earlier been rejected by Kentuckians in the 1788 Virginia Ratifying Convention. The Kentucky Constitution of 1792 placed the Kentucky District square within the ethos of the Anglo – American constitutional tradition and secured the proposed Commonwealth of Kentucky’s separation from the district’s “parent-state,” the Commonwealth …

Bluegrass, Bildung, And Blueprints: The Little Shepherd Of Kingdom Come As An Appalachian Bildungsroman, Leona Shoemaker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come takes as its backdrop the American Civil War, as the author, John Fox, Jr., champions Kentucky's social development during the Progressive Era. Although often criticized for capitalizing on his propagation of regional stereotypes, I argue that the structure of The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come is much more problematic than that. Recognizing the Bildungsroman as a vehicle for cultural and social critique in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century writing, this project offers an in-depth literary analysis of John Fox, Jr.'s novel, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, in which I contend the story itself is, …

The Persistence Of Place In Appalachia: The Phenomena Of Post-Death Migration, 1930-1970, Marjorie Fey Farris

Online Theses and Dissertations

The research for this paper has been over forty years in the making as I first read the obituaries of deceased Kentuckians in state and local newspapers beginning in 1972. A pattern became clear that Kentuckians who had left their mountains and moved to northern industrial cities in order to find work as the coal fields played out and after the Great Depression often returned, or were returned after death, to their birthplaces for burial. Further investigation revealed that the religious beliefs that were deeply embedded in so many mountaineers' lives played a large part in their desire to have …

Southern Injustice And Radical Discontent: The Black Panther Party In The Post-Civil Rights South, Adam Nolan

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper looks at the efforts, obstacles, and outcomes of attempts to organize Black Panther Party chapters in four southern states – Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas - using a variety of sources, including the The Black Panther and Southern Patriot newspapers. Organized in 1966, the BPP mobilized against police brutality and injustices inflicted upon African Americans throughout American history. While successfully establishing various popular community survival programs to help uplift local communities, the BPP’s revolutionary rhetoric and imagery instantly attracted state-sponsored repression that exacted a heavy toll on the organization on local and national levels.

Local Color's Finest Hour: Kentucky Literature At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Brian Clay Johnson

Online Theses and Dissertations

This thesis takes into consideration literature created by various authors during the period 1890 to 1910, the turn of the twentieth century. This thesis looks specifically at the works produced during that time period by authors from Kentucky, living in Kentucky, or with strong ties to the state. The texts themselves illustrated these ties, as they all focused on or related to Kentucky at the time.

The data that was gathered for this thesis came directly from the writings themselves. In order to research the appropriate authors and the works they produced, the author read all of the materials discussed …

Bill Lowe And The Music Of Eastern Appalachia, Heidi Mckee

All Theses

As the twentieth century progressed with radio and communications technology, the culture of the Appalachian mountains became an unexplored resource of vast cultural proportions. The Old Regular Baptist faith of the mountains had influenced creative thinkers in the area for generations, and the coming of settlement schools brought secular evaluation from outside the culture. As the people living in the mountains began to understand the uniqueness of their musical heritage, radio technology was becoming available on a much larger scale than ever before. Singers and songwriters from the mountains found eager audiences on a national level.
One of these musicians …

Fulcrum Of The Union: The Border South And The Secession Crisis, 1859-1861, Michael Dudley Robinson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Border South states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri spurned secession in 1860-61, which has led scholars to conclude that these four slaveholding states were safely ensconced in the Union column from the beginning of the crisis that drew the other slaveholding states into the Confederacy. Historians have often simplified the secession crisis in the Border South, minimizing the likelihood that these states with smaller concentrations of enslaved persons and a more diversified economy and society than the Upper and Lower South would ever leave the Union. This work seeks to add contingency to the story of the Border …

“The Pastime Of Millions”: James B. Haggin’S Elmendorf Farm And The Commercialization Of Pedigree Animal Breeding, 1897-1920, Amber Fogle Sergent

Theses and Dissertations--History

Called “The Pride of the Bluegrass,” Elmendorf Farm changed the style and substance of commercial pedigree breeding in early twentieth-century America. Between 1897 and 1914, James B. Haggin readily transformed the Kentucky farm first as a nationally preeminent horse stud, famous for its bloodlines and scales, and second as a premier dairy operation, exceptional for its sanitation, science, and size. Here rested the large-scale production of the world’s fanciest Thoroughbreds and finest milk. At the same time, Haggin’s farm reflected a lifestyle that has come to be celebrated and cherished as the ideal Kentucky landscape. A factory-style plant of large …

Anti-Slavery And Church Schism Among Protestants In Antebellum Central Kentucky, Lance Justin Hale

Online Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of the effects of anti-slavery and church schism among Protestant Christians in the Bluegrass region of antebellum Kentucky. A variety of secondary and primary sources are utilized, including books and journal articles from current scholarship, journals kept by historical actors, books, letters, and articles, written during or some years after the time under consideration, as well as publications of churches and denominations. Throughout the antebellum years, churches and denominations in the United States fractured over disagreements on slavery and theology. Pastors, such as James Pendleton and Peter Cartwright, endeavored to keep Christianity vibrant and relevant …

“Tentative Relations: Secession And War In The Central Ohio River Valley, 1859-1862”, Timothy Max Jenness

Doctoral Dissertations

In the fall of 1859, John Brown launched a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and in so doing arguably fired the first salvo of the Civil War. That his raid occurred in the border area between North and South should come as no surprise because it was in that area where Americans were the most divided. Citizens across the border state region–that area that comprised the lower North and upper South–soon found themselves caught between two hostile sections. Based on an analysis of letters, journals, newspapers, and public documents, this dissertation is a study of one …

Courting Toyota, Selling Kentucky: Conflict And Relationship Building In The Establishment Of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Of Kentucky, 1984-1989, Eric Shea Bailey

Online Theses and Dissertations

This study is an examination of the social, economic, and governmental factors that surrounded the establishment of Toyota Motor Corporation's first wholly owned automobile plant in the United States. After a lengthy negotiation with several states, the plant was built in Scott County, Kentucky, near the city of Georgetown. The collected and archived correspondence of Governor Martha Layne Collins as well as contemporary media accounts and interviews with Governor Collins, Larry Hayes, Jiro Hashimoto, and Bill Londrigan served as the evidentiary basis for the research for this thesis. Previous interpretations have regarded the establishment of the factory as both a …

New Deal Murals In Kentucky Post Offices., Eileen Toutant

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation takes a primarily art historical approach to the murals commissioned from 1934 to 1943 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. This study is confined to the post office murals created for the Commonwealth of Kentucky under the United states Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts. Many of these paintings were lost or deliberately destroyed when the program was dismantled. Today most of the remaining murals are dirty and· faded and little noticed. Many of the artists have been forgotten. During the Depression years, however, these paintings contributed to local pride, optimism for the future, stronger patriotism, and a …

The Irish In Louisville., Stanley Ousley Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A pioneer study of Midwest ethnicity in a medium-sized city, "The Irish in Louisville- is a brief historical survey of Louisville's Irish-American community from about 1800 to 1973. Although some mention is made of individual Irish-Americans who have contributed to the city's life, the study concentrates on institutions (churches, neighborhoods, clubs and an ethnic newspaper) which created and maintained an Irish identity in Louisville. The study presents an account of the development of Limerick (an Irish neighborhood) from the Civil War to World War I, including the religious and social history of this Irish area. Other chapters concentrate upon the …

History Of The King's Daughters Home For Incurables, Louisville, Kentucky, 1909-1948., Clyde H. Van Metre Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study traces the growth and development of The King's Daughters Home for Incurables, Louisville, Kentucky, from its beginning up until the end of 1948 and looks forward to future plans that may seem appropriate. Members of the Board of Directors desired such a study be made as a means of drawing together the past work of their organization. They also looked to the study as being a help in making future plans for the continuation of their work.

Kentucky Autobiography And Kentucky Culture., William F. Keirce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to trace the historical development of autobiographical writing in Kentucky; to analyze the literary and philosophical characteristics of these works and, by this means, to divide these writings into several categories; and, finally, to reveal by an interpretation of these autobiographies, certain cultural aspects of Kentucky life and society. As thus stated, the intentions of this study are several; but, actually, all these aims are inseparably related part. of a single general problem which is to investigate Kentucky autobiographical writing as a whole in order to better understand the individual works in that literature.