Wayne Onkst, Chairman of the JSF Board of Directors, was here today to sign copies of his book, Presidential Visits to Kentucky: 1819-2017, that will be distributed to underserved high school and public libraries throughout Kentucky. The distribution project is made possible by a generous [...]
No small target at six-foot-two, young Sam Houston wasn’t thinking about getting hit. He was thinking about getting even. Running through a hail of musket balls, spears, and arrows, he and his fellow soldiers of the elite 39th U.S. infantry unit sprinted toward an [...]
For those who loved “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek,” author Kim Michele Richardson offers another fine evocation of the often cruel conditions of rural Appalachia in the last century and a powerful portrait of the courageous women there who fought against ignorance, misogyny, [...]
In the spring of 1781, during the American war for independence from Great Britain, redcoat troops arrived in upland Carolina and brought terror to Elizabeth Jackson and her sons. Elizabeth’s youngest son, Andrew, though barely fourteen years of age, hated their presence—and quickly learned [...]
From colonial beginnings until early in the twentieth century, one-room schools played an important role in Eastern Kentucky education. These tiny schools that dotted the hills and valleys were, collectively, a salvation to a region recovering from the Civil War and, later, the Great [...]
Greenup County, located in northeast Kentucky, lies approximately halfway between Ashland, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio. It is a land of wooded hills and clear, fast-moving streams that empty into the Ohio River, which forms the county’s northern border. The land surface ranges from rich [...]
In “The Taking of Jemima Boone: Colonial Settlers, Tribal Nations, And The Kidnap That Shaped America,” Matthew Pearl explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of the daughter of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On [...]
The wisest man I ever knew—we called him Zayde, born 1903, Minsk, Belarus—once told me a story of a man on a train going from coast to coast. The train had no dining car. One stop was planned at a half-way point. There at [...]
Fewer words in the English language are more glibly uttered and more misunderstood than the word “history.” American history rests squarely upon a local base. Thomas Jefferson theorized that what happens at the local level of society is more important to the individual than [...]
In some parts of America, the “intellectual leaders” fancy themselves much too deep to be understood by everyday folks like you and me. Not so in Appalachia! Our intellectual leaders have been kind, loving, accessible men and women who represent, with their own lives, [...]
