When students ask me if I am from Kentucky, I say “no, but I got here as quickly as I could.” I chose to make the state my home and raise my family here, and I have studied its history for nearly three decades. I am drawn to Kentucky’s story and the paradox it represents: on one hand, you have the Derby, rolling hills and pastures, and fine bourbon, but set against that polished, sophisticated image are the stereotypes of a lawless, illiterate, poor state. As a borderland, not quite north or south, east or west, Kentucky offers a fascinating lens through which to view the nation’s history.
I wrote...
A Simple Justice: Kentucky Women Fight for the Vote
ByMelanie Beals Goan,
What is my book about?
When the Declaration of Independence was signed by a group of wealthy white men in 1776, poor white men, African Americans, and women quickly discovered that the unalienable rights it promised were not truly for all. The Nineteenth Amendment eventually gave women the right to vote in 1920, but the change was not welcomed by people of all genders in politically and religiously conservative Kentucky. As a result, the suffrage movement in the Commonwealth involved a tangled web of stakeholders, entrenched interest groups, unyielding constitutional barriers, and activists with competing strategies.
In A Simple Justice, Melanie Beals Goan offers a new and deeper understanding of the women's suffrage movement in Kentucky by following the people who labored long and hard to see the battle won.
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The books I picked & why
How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay
ByStephen Aron,
Why did I love this book?
Ever since John Filson wrote the first history of the state in 1784, the Kentucky frontier has captured the public’s imagination.Aron goes beyond heroic accounts and stories of triumph to understand how egalitarian aims and the sense that the West could become a “good poor man’s country” failed to pan out for so many.The west did not become the land of opportunity for Native Americans or slaves, nor did it provide a fresh start for many poor white men and women.Two iconic figures, Boone and Clay, serve as familiar bookends, neatly framing Aron’s story and tying their worlds to the one we recognize today.
How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay
ByStephen Aron,
Why should I read it?
1author pickedHow the West Was Lostas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.
What is this book about?
Eighteenth-century Kentucky was a place where Indian and European cultures collided-and, surprisingly, coincided. But this mixed world did not last, and it eventually gave way to nineteenth-century commercial and industrial development. How the West Was Lost tracks the overlapping conquest, colonization, and consolidation of the trans-Appalachian frontier. Not a story of paradise lost, this is a book about possibilities lost. It focuses on the common ground between Indians and backcountry settlers which was not found, the frontier customs that were not perpetuated, the lands that were not distributed equally, the slaves who were not emancipated, the agrarian democracy that was…
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American Indians
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Home Rule: Households, Manhood, and National Expansion on the Eighteenth-Century Kentucky Frontier
ByHonor Sachs,
Why did I love this book?
Following in the footsteps of scholars, such as Kristen Hoganson, who have put a new gender spin on well-chronicled events, Sachs takes a familiar story—the story of America’s first frontier—and tells it in a fresh and compelling way by emphasizing how manliness and mastery shaped public policy and household relationships. Life in the west was risky and chaotic.Settlers coped by celebrating domestic order and by demanding the right for men to rule their own households.This patriarchal ideal, however, often led to violence, both outside the home and within.The individuals Sachs spotlights like, widow and powerful businesswomen Annie Christian, and outcast criminal and murderer Bartholomew Fenton, provide a totally new perspective on frontier life.
Home Rule: Households, Manhood, and National Expansion on the Eighteenth-Century Kentucky Frontier
ByHonor Sachs,
Why should I read it?
1author pickedHome Ruleas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.
What is this book about?
On America's western frontier, myths of prosperity concealed the brutal conditions endured by women, slaves, orphans, and the poor. As poverty and unrest took root in eighteenth-century Kentucky, western lawmakers championed ideas about whiteness, manhood, and patriarchal authority to help stabilize a politically fractious frontier. Honor Sachs combines rigorous scholarship with an engaging narrative to examine how conditions in Kentucky facilitated the expansion of rights for white men in ways that would become a model for citizenship in the country as a whole. Endorsed by many prominent western historians, this groundbreaking work is a major contribution to frontier scholarship.
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How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders
ByMaryjean Wall,
Why did I love this book?
As a journalist, Wall reported on horse racing in Kentucky for many years before becoming a serious student of history, which makes her writing really readable. Today, most people classify Kentucky as a southern state, but before and immediately following the Civil War it was considered the west. This book explains the switch, giving horsem*n credit for rehabbing the Bluegrass State’s tarnished image, albeit to serve their own financial interests. Besides introducing readers to the post-war history of Kentucky, it provides a useful introduction to horse culture. After reading it, you will understand why the Kentucky Derby is so steeped in tradition and why black jockeys, once so plentiful in the sport, are rare.
How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of Outlaws, Horse Thieves, Gamblers, and Breeders
ByMaryjean Wall,
Why should I read it?
1author pickedHow Kentucky Became Southernas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.
What is this book about?
The conflicts of the Civil War continued long after the conclusion of the war: jockeys and Thoroughbreds took up the fight on the racetrack. A border state with a shifting identity, Kentucky was scorned for its violence and lawlessness and struggled to keep up with competition from horse breeders and businessmen from New York and New Jersey. As part of this struggle, from 1865 to 1910, the social and physical landscape of Kentucky underwent a remarkable metamorphosis, resulting in the gentile, beautiful, and quintessentially southern Bluegrass region of today. In her debut book, How Kentucky Became Southern: A Tale of…
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Kentucky Justice, Southern Honor, and American Manhood: Understanding the Life and Death of Richard Reid
ByJames C. Klotter,
Why did I love this book?
Jim Klotter, Kentucky’s preeminent historian, takes an obscure nineteenth-century Kentucky Superior Court Judge, Richard Reid, and uses his life and death to understand the tragic ways southern honor forced men to prove themselves.John Jay Cornelison attacked Reid at his law Mount Sterling law office in 1884, setting off an unexpected series of events.Reid’s story reveals the conflicts between old, traditional southern ways, and the new urban, industrial order, and Klotter tells it masterfully. The book is filled with suspense and sharp analysis, but it is also a quick read.
Kentucky Justice, Southern Honor, and American Manhood: Understanding the Life and Death of Richard Reid
ByJames C. Klotter,
Why should I read it?
1author pickedKentucky Justice, Southern Honor, and American Manhoodas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.
What is this book about?
When attorney John Jay Cornelison severely beat Kentucky Superior Court judge Richard Reid in public on April 16, 1884, for allegedly injuring his< honor, the event became front-page news. Would Reid react as a Christian gentleman, a man of the law, and let the legal system take its course, or would he follow the manly dictates of the code of honor and challenge his assailant?
James C. Klotter crafts a detective story, using historical, medical, legal, and psychological clues to piece together answers to the tragedy that followed.
""This book is a gem. . . . Klotter's astute organisation and…
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Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945
ByRonald D Eller,
Why did I love this book?
Uneven Ground is a book about Appalachia, but it is also a story of American economic development and a cautionary tale about the failures of capitalism.Eastern Kentucky lies in the heart of central Appalachia, an area rich in resources but home to some of the nation’s poorest people.Eller knows more about the region’s challenges than anyone and he provides a compelling indictment of development narratives that emphasize industrialization and false promises of “progress.”His book offers hope that out-of-the-box thinking and a new definition of “the good life” can lead to healthy and more equitable communities in the mountains.
Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945
ByRonald D Eller,
Why should I read it?
1author pickedUneven Groundas one of their favorite books, and they sharewhy you should read it.
What is this book about?
Appalachia has played a complex and often contradictory role in the unfolding of American history. Created by urban journalists in the years following the Civil War, the idea of Appalachia provided a counterpoint to emerging definitions of progress. Early-twentieth-century critics of modernity saw the region as a remnant of frontier life, a reflection of simpler times that should be preserved and protected. However, supporters of development and of the growth of material production, consumption, and technology decried what they perceived as the isolation and backwardness of the place and sought to "uplift" the mountain people through education and industrialization. Ronald…
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
ByRebecca Wellington,
New book alert!
Sponsored by Rebecca WellingtonAuthor
Why am I passionate about this?
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
Rebecca's book list onstraight up, real memoirs on motherhood and adoption
What is my book about?
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives about adoption, exposing the fallacy that adoption is always good.
In this story, I reckon with the pain and unanswered questions of my own experience and explore broader issues surrounding adoption in the United States, including changing legal policies, sterilization, and compulsory relinquishment programs, forced assimilation of babies of color and Indigenous babies adopted into white families, and other liabilities affecting women, mothers, and children. Now is the moment we must all hear these stories.
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
ByRebecca Wellington,
What is this book about?
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
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5 book lists we think you will like!
Great American stories from Appalachia
The Hatfield–McCoy feud
Racism in the USA
The world of Daniel Boone
The Civil War and the Lost Cause in Kentucky
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