For more than four years, I have been working on a collection of essays about the depression decade in eastern Kentucky. That work has intensified my interest in Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. With a presidential election imminent, I thought my readers [...]
Education was a calling for Jesse Stuart. In his books he portrays the teacher as a devoted nurturer, an advocate, and a liberator, rescuing children and their families from decline, illiteracy, social decay, or economic instability. “We educate our people or we perish,” he often [...]
In October of 1945, Janice Holt married Henry Giles in Louisville just after he returned from service in World War II. After four years in Louisville, she and Henry moved to a forty-acre farm on Giles Ridge, an area where they would live until [...]
JSF's CEO & Senior Editor remains very much active in 50-year career Dr. James M. Gifford, the CEO & Senior Editor of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, has an article on Donald Davidson’s mentorship of Jesse Stuart in the current issue of the Tennessee Historical [...]
This article was originally published in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly and is republished on this website with permission. Jesse Stuart (1906–1984), one of Appalachia’s most famous native sons, published more than 2,000 poems, 460 short stories, hundreds of essays, and sixty-four books [...]
As a writer, teacher, and lecturer, Jesse Stuart extended his life to the far corners of the world. He traveled to all but one of the United States and to ninety countries on six continents. His global life began in the 1930s with a [...]
Janice Holt Giles (1909-79) was a prolific and successful writer of historical fiction and autobiographical non-fiction. She was born in Arkansas, the second of four children of educators John Albert Holt and Lucy Elizabeth McGraw Holt. She didn’t begin her first novel until 1946, [...]
This beautiful 144-page National Geographic hardcover book was painstakingly written and illustrated by Cheryl Harness for children aged 10-14 in grades 5-9. Daniel Boone’s story is every young adventurer’s fantasy: A childhood in Pennsylvania spent hunting on lands shared with native Americans; a coming [...]
As my tribute to Women’s History Month, I present a book written by my friend—and JSF Board Member—Edwina Pendarvis, a great scholar and a great person. Edwina was born in Floyd County, Kentucky. She has lived much of her life in eastern Kentucky and [...]
Because I have managed a non-profit publishing organization for almost forty years, I have had some strange encounters with the general public. People often simply do not understand what a publishing house does, and they confuse printing with publishing. I calmly explain that “We [...]
