DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Stories of Old Kentucky" by Martha C. Grassham Mrs. Purcell. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky is the authoritative reference on the people, places, history, and rich heritage of the Northern Kentucky region. The encyclopedia defines an overlooked region of more than 450,000 residents and celebrates its contributions to agriculture, art, architecture, commerce, education, entertainment, literature, medicine, military, science, and sports. Often referred to as one of the points of the "Golden Triangle" because of its proximity to Lexington and Louisville, Northern Kentucky is made up of eleven counties along the Ohio River: Boone, Bracken, Campbell, Carroll, Gallatin, Grant, Kenton, Mason, Owen, Pendleton, and Robertson. With more than 2,000 entries, 170 images, and 13 maps, this encyclopedia will help readers appreciate the region's unique history and culture, as well as the role of Northern Kentucky in the larger history of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the nation. • Describes the "Golden Triangle" of Kentucky, an economically prosperous area with high employment, investment, and job-creation rates • Contains entries on institutions of higher learning, including Northern Kentucky University, Thomas More College, and three community and technical colleges • Details the historic cities of Covington, Newport, Bellevue, Dayton, and Ludlow and their renaissance along the shore of the Ohio River • Illustrates the importance of the Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International Airport as well as major corporations such as Ashland, Fidelity Investments, Omnicare, Toyota North America, and United States Playing Card

Long before the official establishment of the Commonwealth, intrepid pioneers ventured west of the Allegheny Mountains into an expansive, alluring wilderness that they began to call Kentucky. After blazing trails, clearing plots, and surviving innumerable challenges, a few adventurers found time to pen celebratory tributes to their new homeland. In the two centuries that followed, many of the world's finest writers, both native Kentuckians and visitors, have paid homage to the Bluegrass State with the written word. In The Kentucky Anthology, acclaimed author and literary historian Wade Hall has assembled an unprecedented and comprehensive compilation of writings pertaining to Kentucky and its land, people, and culture. Hall's introductions to each author frame both popular and lesser-known selections in a historical context. He examines the major cultural and political developments in the history of the Commonwealth, finding both parallels and marked distinctions between Kentucky and the rest of the United States. While honoring the heritage of Kentucky in all its glory, Hall does not blithely turn away from the state's most troubling episodes and institutions such as racism, slavery, and war. Hall also builds the argument, bolstered by the strength and significance of the collected writings, that Kentucky's best writers compare favorably with the finest in the world. Many of the authors presented here remain universally renowned and beloved, while others have faded into the tides of time, waiting for rediscovery. Together, they guide the reader on a literary tour of Kentucky, from the mines to the rivers and from the deepest hollows to the highest peaks. The Kentucky Anthology traces the interests and aspirations, the achievements and failures and the comedies and tragedies that have filled the lives of generations of Kentuckians. These diaries, letters, speeches, essays, poems, and stories bring history brilliantly to life. Jesse Stuart once wrote, "If these United States can be called a body, Kentucky can be called its heart." The Kentucky Anthology captures the rhythm and spirit of that heart in the words of its most remarkable chroniclers.

The Kentucky Encyclopedia's 2,000-plus entries are the work of more than five hundred writers. Their subjects reflect all areas of the commonwealth and span the time from prehistoric settlement to today's headlines, recording Kentuckians' achievements in art, architecture, business, education, politics, religion, science, and sports. Biographical sketches portray all of Kentucky's governors and U.S. senators, as well as note congressmen and state and local politicians. Kentucky's impact on the national scene is registered in the lives of such figures as Carry Nation, Henry Clay, Louis Brandeis, and Alben Barkley. The commonwealth's high range from writers Harriette Arnow and Jesse Stuart, reformers Laura Clay and Mary Breckinridge, and civil rights leaders Whitney Young, Jr., and Georgia Powers, to sports figures Muhammad Ali and Adolph Rupp and entertainers Loretta Lynn, Merle Travis, and the Everly Brothers. Entries describe each county and county seat and each community with a population above 2,500. Broad overview articles examine such topics as agriculture, segregation, transportation, literature, and folklife. Frequently misunderstood aspects of Kentucky's history and culture are clarified and popular misconceptions corrected. The facts on such subjects as mint juleps, Fort Knox, Boone's coonskin cap, the Kentucky hot brown, and Morgan's Raiders will settle many an argument. For both the researcher and the more casual reader, this collection of facts and fancies about Kentucky and Kentuckians will be an invaluable resource.

A Southern historian combs through Kentucky cookbooks from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth to reveal a fascinating cultural narrative. In Kentucky's Cookbook Heritage, John van Willigen explores the Bluegrass State's cultural and culinary history, through the rich material found in regional cookbooks. He begins in 1839, with Lettice Bryan's The Kentucky Housewife, which includes pre-Civil War recipes intended for use by a household staff instead of an individual cook, along with instructions for serving the family. Van Willigen also shares the story of the original Aunt Jemima—the advertising persona of Nancy Green, born in Montgomery County, Kentucky—who was one of many African American voices in Kentucky culinary history. Kentucky's Cookbook Heritage is a journey through the history of the commonwealth, showcasing the shifting attitudes and innovations of the times. Analyzing the historical importance of a wide range of publications, from the nonprofit and charity cookbooks that flourished at the end of the twentieth century to the contemporary cookbook that emphasizes local ingredients, van Willigen provides a valuable perspective on the state's social history.

Kentucky Bluegrass Country by R. Gerald Alvey Horse breeding, the cultures of tobacco and bourbon, the forms of architecture, the codes of the hunt, the traditions of gambling and dueling, convivial celebrations, regional foodways-all of these are ingredients in the folklife of the Inner Bluegrass Region that is the focus of this fascinating book. R. Gerald Alvey (retired) was a professor of folklore and English at the University of Kentucky.

Kentucky and Kentuckians are full of stories, which may be why so many present-day writers have Kentucky roots. Whether they left and returned, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, or adopted Kentucky as home, like James Still and Jim Wayne Miller, or grew up and left for good, like Michael Dorris and Barbara Kingsolver, they have one connection: Kentucky has influenced their writing and their lives. L. Elisabeth Beattie explores this influence in twenty intimate interviews. Conversations with Kentucky Writers was more than three years in the making, as Beattie traveled across the state and beyond to capture oral histories on tape. Her exhaustive knowledge of these authors helped her draw out personal revelations about their work, their lives, and the nature of writing. When Still concludes his interview with "I believe I've told you more than anybody," he could be speaking for any of Beattie's subjects. Aspiring writers will learn that Mason submitted twenty stories to the New Yorker before one was accepted, and that Still wrote articles for Sunday school magazines. There's plenty of advice: Dorris tells budding authors to get real jobs, keep journals, and read everything, even cereal boxes, and Marsha Norman reminds playwrights that "it is not the business of the theater to provide writers with a living." Kingsolver advises, "Read good stuff and write bad stuff until eventually what you're writing begins to approximate what you're reading." Beattie's collection includes striking self-portraits of such writers as Sue Grafton, Leon Driskell, James Baker Hall, Fenton Johnson, George Ella Lyon, Taylor McCafferty, Ed McClanahan, Sena Naslund, Chris Offutt, Lee Pennington, and Betty Layman Receveur. What most distinguishes these moving conversations from other author interviews is their focus on creativity, on the teaching of writing, and on the authors' strong sense of place. As Wade Hall writes in his foreword, all twenty writers recognize that their works have been significantly influenced by their "Kentucky experience." This collection offers insights into Kentucky's rich and flowering literary heritage.

Democracy is a multigenerational project, a haven carved out of tyranny by the liberal and diligent application of the sharp-edge of social networks. Purgatory between Kentucky and Canada: African Americans in Ohio presents the work of several scholars who have researched the micro-tactics of ordinary people who attempted to create a little space of peace in a place that was less heavenly than some might suppose. We present histories of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ohio African American individuals who fought for higher education, voting rights, the right to live where they chose and the right to “secure the blessings of liberty” and equality for themselves and their children. Some were prosperous farmers. Others were masters of print and radio media. Still others dedicated themselves to freeing fellow citizens from the oppression of ignorance. We find that they all used social networks to secure the fulfillment of the promises made in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. We hope that these lessons in social networking and in perfecting democracy from Ohio African Americans’ experiences will inspire ordinary people everywhere, especially in the Mediterranean Rim where people are living through the hell fires of democratic revolutions that are popularly known as the Twitter Revolutions of 2010–2013. While democratic popular uprisings create a tough row to hoe for patriotic demonstrators, the many people and families that you will meet in this volume teach that the fruits of democracy are worthy of diligent and brave efforts by demonstrators and their descendants.