Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf – serie

This informative book shows how the influence of Kentucky Standard breeding spread across the nation and finally around the world. Here is the story of the horses and farms, the men and women who made it possible. Rich with anecdote and founded on a unique store of learning, it will delight both the newcomer to the sport and the lifelong devotee.

Kentucky attracted an amazing variety of would-be settlers in pioneer days, but none with brighter talent than John James Audubon. Although his years in the state came long before publication of the monumental Birds of America, he was already painting the scenes from nature that were to make him famous.Audubon: The Kentucky Years is the captivating account of Audubon's sojourn in Kentucky from his arrival in in 1807 as a gregarious twenty-two-year-old storekeeper to his departure in 1819, when his failure in business was about to force him to seek a livelihood from his skill as an artist.

The Big Sandy River and its two main tributaries, the Tug and Levisa forks, drain nearly two million mountainous acres in the easternmost part of Kentucky. For generations, the only practical means of transportation and contact with the outside world was the river, and, as The Big Sandy demonstrates, steamboats did much to shape the culture of the region. Carol Crowe-Carraco offers an intriguing and readable account of this region's history from the days of the venturesome Long Hunters of the eighteenth century, through the bitter struggles of the Civil War and its aftermath, up to the 1970s, with their uncertain promise of a new prosperity. The Big Sandy pictures these changes vividly while showing how the turbulent past of the valley lives on in the region's present.

As an outpost of the advancing frontier, Kentucky played a crucial military role. Kentucky's state militia, which, under federal law, enrolled every able-bodied male citizen aged eighteen to forty-five, helped to secure the West for white settlers during the bloody Indian wars. Its members suffered defeat, capture, and death in the War of 1812, but also contributed to victories in the battles of the Thames and New Orleans. Though some Kentucky volunteers campaigned in the Mexican-American War, the general militia was moribund by the middle of the nineteenth century. Its infrequent musters had degenerated into sometimes mirthful and sometimes tragic frolics.A Brittle Sword provides a lively interpretation of Kentucky's citizen-soldiers and their role in the military history of both the state and the nation.

From the 1780s, when Louisville and Lexington were tiny clusters of houses in the wilderness, to the 1980s, when more than half of all Kentuckians live in urban areas, the growth of cities has affected nearly all aspects of life in the Commonwealth. These urban centers have led the state in economic, social, and cultural change.Cities in the Commonwealth examines the crises that have shaped the history of Kentucky's cities and sheds light on such continuing concerns as urban competition, provision of essential services, the importance of the arts, and the struggle for racial justice.By allowing contemporaries to tell much of the story in their own words, Allen J. Share conveys a sense of the exuberance and dynamism of urban life and thought in Kentucky.

In the nineteenth century, Kentucky was one of the nation's leading producers of racehorses, whiskey, tobacco -- and new counties. By 1886 the three original Kentucky counties had been carved into 119 (belated 120th was to be formed in 1912). These small divisions commanded the fierce loyalty of their citizens and for most Kentuckians formed the center of political and community life.The County in Kentucky History shows the bitter strife of countywide feuds and the conviviality of court day, the sporadic outbreaks of ill-feeling between town and country and the high-spirited brawls that regularly accompanied elections. Robert M. Ireland traces the structural changes in county government from the days when justices of the peace made up a self-perpetuating county court to the more democratic period when the buying of votes replaced the buying of offices. The most beneficial change that could come to local government -- consolidation into fewer units -- Ireland sees as unlikely where the tradition of county loyalties and rivalries remains as strong as it does in Kentucky.

Outspoken Appalachian writer Harry M. Caudill analyzes the exploitation and decline of the eastern Kentucky mountain lands, which have rendered "no people in the nation...more forlorn than the Appalachian highlanders in our time." Frontier attitudes, a strong attachment to the land, and isolation have produced in Appalachia a backwoods culture which made its people susceptible to an outside exploitation of their resources that has perpetrated on them a passive society largely dependant on relief.But the times, says Mr. Caudill, are changing. A growing world population and global industrialization have created a drastically altered situation in eastern Kentucky. The area's resources of energy are essential to the progress and well-being not only of the nation but also of the world; and the world is prepared to court the favor of the people who control these resources and is prepared to pay the price demanded by those owners. Mr. Caudill makes an eloquent plea for Kentuckians to reclaim the resources that lie in their mountains and to demand their fair share of the wealth generated by those resources. If they are willing to do this, the state and especially the people in eastern Kentucky can have a bright and prosperous future. But they can delay no longer. They must break the mold of passivity and take destiny into their own hands.An attorney in Whitesburg, Kentucky, Harry M. Caudill is the author of such well-known books as Night Comes to the Cumberlands, Dark Hills to Westward, and My Land is Dying.The Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf is a celebration of two centuries of the history and culture of the Commonwealth.

David Wendel Yandell was the most distinguished physician of a family noted for its contributions to the medical profession over a period of generations. Like his father before him, Yandell taught for many years at the Medical Department of the University of Louisville. His years as a Confederate surgeon impressed upon him the horrifying consequences of the inadequate preparation of most physicians. Concerned especially about the need for practical training, Yandell waged a twenty-year campaign to expand clinic facilities and introduce intern programs at his own school and across the nation. He also fought for higher professional standards on a national level as president and active member of the American Medical Association and other organizations.David Wendel Yandell is an illuminating and well-rounded picture of the strengths and weaknesses of nineteenth-century medicine and of the practitioner, teacher, and leader who shaped the modern medical profession in Kentucky and the nation.

Alben Barkley's final words before he was struck down by a heart attack summed up his long, eventful life: "I have served my country and my people for half a century as a Democrat. I went to the House of Representatives in 1913 and served fourteen years. I was a junior Congressman, then I became a senior Congressman, then I went to the Senate and became a junior Senator, and then I became a senior Senator; and then a Majority Leader in the Senate, and then Vice President of the United States, and now I am back again as a junior Senator. And I am willing to be a junior. I'm glad to sit in the back row, for I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than sit in the seats of the mighty."Dear Alben: Mr. Barkley of Kentucky traces Kentucky civil servant Alben Barkley's life from humble beginnings in rural Kentucky to the seats of power in the nation's capital. Barkley is revealed as a Wilsonian liberal before he became an apostle of the New Deal. His support of these Democratic programs was the result not so much of party loyalty as of a social conscience that had been honed during the impoverished years of his youth. James K. Libbey brings into clear focus the role of a forceful Kentuckian in national politics in two eras of rapid change and reform.

Cutting a wide east-west swath from the Appalachian foothills to the heart of the western Kentucky coalfields, the Green River valley extends from below the Tennessee border in the south to the Ohio River in the north. The Green River of Kentucky presents a picture of the unity and diversity of the people living in the Green River valley.Helen Bartter Crocker finds that each generation of its people approached the river in a distinctive way. Early settlers used the river simply as it was -- crooked and narrow with an unpredictable water flow, and navigable only under high-water conditions. The sons of these pioneers were interested in bringing steamboats to the valley; until they succeeded in persuading the state legislature to improve the Green River and its tributary, the Barren, by a series of locks and dams, however, volunteers would work -- often up to their necks in water -- until they cleared the river sufficiently to allow steamers to reach Bowling Green at high water.When the locks and dams were reopened following the Civil War, a local private corporation gained a near-monopoly of the river trade. Public outcry against this private ownership caused the federal government to take control, and through the Corps of Engineers, to undertake extensive river improvements. After the Great Depression, when trade was almost at a standstill, additional federal funds were appropriated for flood-control dams in the upper river and modern locks in the lower river to harness the valley's industrial potential. These opened up coal barging and recreational facilities, which ensured the future economic well being of the Green River valley.

The oral tradition of Kentucky is one of the most rich and interesting in the nation and has attracted a number of outstanding men and women -- scholars and writers, teachers and singers -- who have devoted their energies to Kentucky's folk and their ways. Some have collected examples of the state's unique speech patterns and word usages. Others have recorded local place names and the legends that surround them, or the yarns and tall tales transmitted from one generation to the next. Musicians have sought the authentic mountain folk songs, both old and new, and gifted writers have woven details of their Kentucky upbringing into poems, novels, and stories. The Harvest and the Reapers illuminates the work of those who labor tirelessly to preserve Kentucky's oral history and traditions.

When John Wesley Hunt came to Kentucky in 1794, his plan was to open a general store in Lexington. A canny judge of business opportunity, he soon expanded his activities and became one of the responsible figures of Kentucky banking and finance. In another kind of venture, he imported fine stallions from the East, significantly improving the bloodlines of thoroughbreds and trotters in the Bluegrass. John Wesley Hunt tells the story of Hunt's business exploits against the background of life in frontier Lexington. James A. Ramage reveals how his innovative solutions to the financial problems of the frontier gave rise to the prosperity and culture of Lexington in the nineteenth century

Alarmed by infringements upon American commerce during the Napoleonic Wars, Kentuckians were early proponents of war with Great Britain. As a frontier state, Kentucky feared exposure to raids by British troops and their Indian allies. And so, when President Madison finally obtained a declaration of war, patriotic Kentuckians rushed to arms. Kentucky's involvement in the agitation for war and in the war itself had political, social, and psychological consequences for the Commonwealth. In this compelling narrative, author James Wallace Hammack, Jr., traces those consequences and Kentucky's role in the developments of the war, which Kentuckians viewed as an effort to secure the American victory won in the Revolution.

Kentuckians by the thousands have fought in all of the American wars of the industrial age. Fathers, sons, and brothers from the Bluegrass State spilled each other's blood in countless Civil War battles and skirmishes. Over the next century their descendants bore arms on the seven seas, the Far Western frontier, in the Caribbean and Philippine islands, and in China. Kentuckians took part in both world wars of the twentieth century in every capacity. Kentucky Fighting Men, 1861--1945 features individual Kentuckians who represent the overall context of the American military experience from the Civil War through World War II. Richard G. Stone, Jr. presents accounts that illuminate the heroism, ennui, tragedy, ghastly horror, absurdity, and the infinite variety of warfare and military life.

Although Kentucky was not subject to reconstruction as such, the period of readjustment following the Civil War was a troubled one for the Commonwealth. Violence begun by guerillas continued for years. In addition, white "Regulators" tried to cow the new freedmen and keep them in a perpetual state of fearful submission that would assure the agricultural labor supply.Their attacks produced exactly the effects whites least desired: the blacks became all the more determined to leave the countryside, and the federal government imposed the Freedmen's Bureau to protect the former slaves. Kentucky in the Reconstruction Era shows how this and other forms of federal intervention angered even the most loyal white citizens, leading to Kentucky's hostility to the national administration and consequent reputation as a state dominated by ex-Confederates.Gradually, however, things began to change, as hopes for future prosperity outweighed past disappointments. While the old feuds were not healed during this period, many of the state's leaders shifted their attention to more productive matters, and the way was opened to eventual reconciliation.

The old tools and wooden objects illustrated in this book are homely reminders of a time when the majestic forests of the frontier were the source not only of the pioneer's house, barn, and fences, but of his children's toys, his wife's egg basket, and a hundred other necessities and pleasures. More than fifty delicate line drawings by Ira Kohn and the clear, nontechnical discussion by Kenneth Clarke of the making and uses of these humble objects -- many of them unfamiliar to the eyes of the current generation of Kentuckians -- give the reader new insight into the life of the pioneer.

Deadly epidemics of yellow fever and Asiatic cholera plagued the South throughout the nineteenth century, yet doctors had few effective weapons against the diseases. Luke Pryor Blackburn, a Kentucky-born physician, worked with more success than most to save the lives of those who were stricken and to prevent the spread of infection. He aided towns throughout Kentucky and the Deep South where resident doctors had fled or had fallen ill themselves.Blackburn's reputation as a humanitarian soared following his aid to Western Kentucky during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. A year later he was easily elected governor of Kentucky in spite of his political inexperience and the revelation that he had practiced germ warfare during the Civil War. While in office, he sought prison reform and the relief of the unbelievable overcrowding at the state penitentiary, pardoning hundreds of inmates and drawing bitter criticism from across the Commonwealth. Yet his continued efforts to improve prison conditions set Kentucky on the slow road to penal reform.His contemporaries labeled Blackburn a philanthropist, a mass-murderer, a good Samaritan, and an "old loon." Nancy Disher Baird portrays him as a man who stood by his convictions, whether they required strict enforcement of innovative public health measures or unpopular expenditures on behalf of convicts.

In this informed and entertaining essay, John H. Ellis describes the efforts of physicians and laymen to keep illness at bay during Kentucky's first 200 years. Medicine in Kentucky is part of the Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf, "a celebration of two centuries of the history and culture of The Commonwealth." John H. Ellis outlines the practice and development of medicine in Kentucky from the state of medical practices during the colonial era and the paucity of trained practitioners, to the frontier doctors of the early days of Westward expansion, to the founding of the first medical school chartered in the West, Transylvania University.Ellis also details some of the commonly encountered diseases, the various types of practitioners (allopaths, herb doctors, Thomsonians, and homeopaths), and the various, generally short-lived publications and medical societies of nineteenth century Kentucky. He highlights two native Kentuckians, Joseph Nathaniel McCormack, principal architect of the current structure of the AMA, and Abraham Flexner, whose "Medical Education in the United States and Canada" is one of the great landmarks in the field, whether one feels that he laid the foundation for modern scientific medical education or merely set in concrete nineteenth century scientism as the basis for medical education. Although dealing principally with Kentucky medicine, it reflects also on the happenings in medicine across the country.

The story of Kentucky's newspapers is the story of our political, economic, and social life. It is the story of issues and answers, the story of life and death. Newspapers, by their very nature, become sources of historical studies. They recount day by day or week by week the happenings, joyous or sorrowful, humorous or sad, enlightening or dull, experienced by those who live in the communities where they are printed or circulated. In 1787, five years before statehood, John Bradford established Kentucky's first newspaper in Lexington. The Kentucky Gazette was first in a long line of newspapers which, over the years, have served the people of the state. The Newspaper Press in Kentucky, by revered Kentucky journalist Herndon J. Evans, illuminates the early days of Kentucky newspapers and their influence.

In his brief life John C. Breckinridge embraced the roles of lawyer, politician, statesman, soldier, exile, and businessman. An imposing and tactful man, he was exceptional for evoking both loyal devotion from his followers and generous respect from his opponents during a strife-torn era.Breckinridge's meteoric rise to national prominence began with election to the Kentucky legislature in 1849 and to the United States Congress in 1851. His eloquence earned him the Democratic Party's nomination for the vice presidency in 1856, and he became the youngest man ever to hold that office. Nearing the end of his term Breckinridge was elected United States senator by the Kentucky legislature. He was a favorite of the Southern faction during the 1860 Democratic convention. Had the nation and the party not foundered on the divisive issues of slavery, section, and union, Breckinridge might well have reached the White House.With the sundering of the Union, Breckinridge joined the Confederate states, was commissioned a brigadier general, and fought valiantly at Shiloh, Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, and elsewhere before becoming secretary of war. The collapse of the Confederacy drove him into exile in Canada and Europe. But in 1869 he returned to Kentucky to live out his life quietly and industriously as a lawyer and railroad executive.Proud Kentuckian portrays the most illustrious member of one of Kentucky's first families.

The three artists whose lives are the subjects of Three Kentucky Artists -- Joel Tanner Hart, Samuel Woodson Price, and Edward Troye -- enjoyed considerable fame in their own day, though they are now little known outside of Kentucky. Each made a lasting contribution to the social and cultural life of central Kentucky in the nineteenth century. J. Winston Coleman, Jr. sketches the careers and relationships of the artists who played significant roles in the history of the Commonwealth.

For centuries before Europeans came to the New World, tobacco had an important role in the religious and social life of the early peoples of Kentucky. W.F. Axton describes the various forms in which tobacco has been used, its quick adoption by the Old World, and its gradual development into the forms common today, especially the blended cigarette. Little has been written about the place occupied by Burley leaf in the economic life of the Commonwealth, where tobacco is still the most important crop. Tobacco in Kentucky is accompanied by charts and maps illustrating the many aspects of tobacco production.

The turbulent career of William Goebel (1856--1900), which culminated in assassination, marked an end-of-the-century struggle for political control of Kentucky. Although populism had become a strong force in the nation, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and ex-Confederates still dominated the state and its Democratic party. Touting reforms and attaching the railroad monopoly, Goebel challenged this old order.A Yankee in a state that fancied itself southern, Goebel had to depend on a strong organization to win votes. As "The Kenton King" he created a new style of politics. To some he was a progressive reformer; to others, a tyrannical machine boss. His drive for power and his enemies' fierce opposition aroused violent political factionalism. Goebel's fateful duel with a rival, his partisan election law, and his ruthless convention tactics led to the bitterly contested gubernatorial election of 1899 that resulted in his murder.Although the full truth about the murder was never revealed in nearly a decade of trials and the advent of progressive politics was long delayed in Kentucky, Goebel's death did relieve the state's political turmoil and induce some legal reforms. Using new sources and fresh perspectives, James C. Klotter portrays Goebel's tumultuous era and discovers the real man within the obscurity of his conflicting images.