Kentucky Oral History Commission Grant Recipients
SPRING 2019 (FY19-02)
Presentation Grant: We Grew Our Future
Grant Award: $2,500
Project Director/Institution: Joy B. Morgan, Owen County Historical Society
Repository: Kentucky Historical Society
Project Description: This project will use oral histories from local farmers recorded in 2009 to explain murals that have been painted on tobacco barns throughout our county using a Tobacco Heritage Trail website accessible through smart phone and computer. The website will feature a picture of each mural, Google map, brief text to explain the mural, and an audio link to hear the oral histories explaining the mural. Each mural location will feature a sign directing people to the website. A podcast will be developed to house the complete oral histories of each farmer.
Project Grant: Kung Fu Kentucky
Grant Award: $3,150
Project Director/Institution: Andrew Elliott
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: This project will capture oral histories and video footage of at least 25 prominent Kentucky Shao Lin Do Masters and practitioners. With the participation of Grand Master Sin Kwang The and Elder Master Bill Leonard as well as experiences videographer Jared Hamilton, this project will reveal the unique nature and cultural impact that Shao Lin Do has had on Kentucky since the grand master moved here from Indonesia in 1964. The collection will inform an academic study of the characteristics and qualities that define Shao Lin Do in Kentucky and how it shaped the lives of those that have committed themselves its study.
Project Grant: Mobilizing for Change
Grant Award: $1,620
Project Director/Institution: Ethan Sharp
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: This project will record oral histories with ten leaders of the recovery advocacy movement in Kentucky. Most of the leaders to be interviewed are mothers of people in recovery and mothers who have lost children to the disease of addiction, who have become public voices for substance abuse disorder awareness, combating the stigma of addiction, and promoting recovery pathways in Central and Eastern Kentucky. Interviewees will address how and why they became involved in recovery advocacy, and the growth, achievements, setbacks and future of recovery in Kentucky and the U.S.
Project Grant: African Americans in the Tri-County Area
Grant Award: $ 2,035
Project Director/Institution: Laurel County African American Heritage Center
Repository: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at University of Kentucky
Project Description: This project seeks to explore, document, and share African American experiences in southeastern Kentucky, especially Knox, Laurel, and Whitley Counties. Oral history interviews will give insight into the lives and contributions of African Americans in the Tri-County area. A research team of the project co-directors, community researchers, and project consultants, will work together through the Laurel County African American Heritage Center to conduct oral histories in order to highlight diverse voices in the community and broaden the narrative about the history of the area.
Indexing Grant: Lou Tate and the Little Loomhouse Oral History Project
Grant Award: $653.33
Project Director/Institution: Eleanor Miller
Repository: Kentucky Historical Society
Project Description: This project seeks to index a collection of interviews known as “Lou Tate and the Little Loomhouse Oral History Project,” which is housed at the Kentucky Historical Society. The collection includes interviews with Lou Tate’s colleagues, friends, and students in which they discuss her life and career, her teaching methods, her importance as a weaver in the United States and Canada, the process of weaving, the history of the Little Loomhouse, and the significance of Kentucky in the history of weaving.
Indexing Grant: Hindman Settlement School Oral History Collection
Grant Award: $1,800
Project Director/Institution: Abby Huggins
Repository: Kentucky Historical Society
Project Description: This collection features 60 oral history interviews from people who were a part of Hindman Settlement School’s history. Interviewees include Kentucky writers, musicians, and educators such as James Still, Al Stewart, and Jean Ritchie.
FALL 2019 (FY19-01)
Preservation Grant: Appalachian Oral Histories
Grant Award: $3,500
Project Director/Institution: Cathy Branson
Repository: Hazard Community and Technical College
Project Description: The Appalachian Oral History Project began as a cooperative effort between Alice Lloyd College and Lees Junior College (now the Lees College Campus of Hazard Community and Technical College). A portion of these recording will be sent to a preservation specialist for digitization.
Project Grant: 21st Century Superintendents Project
Grant Award: $3,700
Project Director/Institution: Crystal Allen-Daniels
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: The 21st Century Superintendents Project is a continuation of the Kentucky School Superintendents Project conducted by William Berge and associates between 1977 and 1980. This multi-year project will seek to interview Kentucky school superintendents about issues both within their school districts and education as a whole, updating the previous work, as well as extending the research by addressing current events around education and politics.
Project Grant: Oral Histories of Famers that Plant by the Signs
Grant Award: $941.70
Project Director/Institution: Sarah Hall, Berea College
Repository: Berea College Special Collections and Archives
Project Description: This project aims to interview 25 to 40 farmers/gardeners in central and eastern Kentucky who use the moon phase and/or zodiac signs to plant their crops.
Transcription Grant: Youth Activism in Different Generations in Appalachia
Grant Award: $3,750
Project Director/Institution: Tammy Clemons
Repository: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at University of Kentucky
Project Description: This oral history project considers intergenerational experiences of and reflections on youth, gender, civic engagement and activism, and regional development in Appalachia. Interview participants include different generations, both currently young and ‘formerly young” people, who are and/or have been engaged in different forms of organizing in several mountain counties of Eastern Kentucky. The project explores comparative perspectives on what it means to be young at different times and in different social contexts and what people think is possible for young people in the region.
Transcription Grant: Louisville Underground Music Archive Oral Histories
Grant Award: $2,970
Project Director/Institution: Heather Fox
Repository: University of Louisville Oral History Center
Project Description: The University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections will transcribe 33 hours of interviews for the Louisville Underground Music Archive completed in 2017.
SPRING 2018 (FY18-02)
Project Grant: Collecting Oral Histories on Kentucky’s Mountain Horse Culture and Traditions
Grant Award: $4,184.55
Project Director/Institution: Dr. Stephanie McSpirit
Repository: William H. Berge Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: Produce twenty new video oral histories for the Mountain Horse Oral History Collection. Video recordings of these key people representing diverse perspectives within the Kentucky Mountain Horse community will be vital to a documentary production.
Project Grant: Better Luck Than Good
Grant Award: $2,550
Project Director/Institution: Louisville Story Program
Repository: University of Louisville Oral History Center
Project Description: Churchill Downs is the epicenter of Kentucky’ s equine heritage and the most storied racetrack in the world. More than 1000 workers come to the backside daily during a meet to tend to the well-being of the horses and the track. Louisville Story Program is engaging equine workers in conversations that will lead to the most caring, in-depth look into the lives and stories of backstretch workers ever published written-from the inside out, by those who live and work on the backside.
Project Grant: Heath High School Shooting Oral Histories
Grant Award: $4,134.37
Project Director/Institution: Joanna Paxton Federico
Repository: Kentucky Historical Society
Project Description: In 1997, a Heath High School freshman shot eight classmates, killing three. Twenty years later, a sophomore at nearby Marshall County High School shot 16 people, killing two. At the time, the Heath shooting seemed unprecedented, but the Marshall shooting now fits a well-recognized pattern. This oral history will explore how subsequent school and mass shootings have colored the memories of the Heath shooting among survivors, witnesses, family and journalists.
Indexing Grant: Kentucky Development Project
Grant Award: $4,114
Project Director/Institution: Crystal Allen-Daniels
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: The Kentucky Development Project (KDP) is a collection of interviews that focus on the political, social, and economic shifts that have occurred in Kentucky during the last century. Topics include Martha Collins, progressivism, and community changes in the Kentucky foothills. These shifts are further put into context by interviews of Kentucky historians who also discuss how the study of history changed.
Transcription Grant: Immigrants of Bowling Green Oral History Project
Grant Award: $3,060
Project Director/Institution: Nicole Musgrave
Repository: Kentucky Historical Society
Project Description: The Immigrants of Bowling Green Oral History Project will transcribe interviews with immigrants and refugees of Bowling Green, Kentucky. The collection explores the changing demographics of South Central Kentucky, as well as Bowling Green’s beginnings as a refugee resettlement city. Additionally, the collection explores how interviewees adapt to their new home and maintain ties to their home countries’ cultures.
SPRING 2018 (FY18-01)
Transcription Grant: The Sara Holroyd Oral History Project
Grant Award: $2,520
Project Director/Institution: Renee Collins, Room 17 Productions
Repository: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at University of Kentucky
Project Description: Room 17 Productions will transcribe interviews about Sara Holroyd, the retired director of choral activities at the University of Kentucky. Holroyd also served as a nurse at St. Joseph Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. She was one of few females who taught in public school districts and at the university level from 1950-1987, overcame gender-related issues in a tenure battle, and in the 1970s became one of only two female choral directors at the collegiate rank in the country.
Transcription Grant: Appalachian Horse Oral History Project Transcription
Grant Award: $3,133
Project Director/Institution: Dr. Stephanie McSpirit, Eastern Kentucky University
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: Eastern Kentucky University students will transcribe the Mountain Horse Oral History Collection. These histories were collected in 2016-2017 through a previous KOHC grant. The collection includes oral histories with 27 mountain horse persons (37 hours of recordings) and is currently being indexed through the OHMS system at the Berge Oral History Center. The full transcriptions are needed for academic publications that are slated to be completed for various books and journals that are scheduled to be completed through 2018-2019.
Indexing Grant: Mid-Century Kentucky Democrats Project
Grant Award: $4,980
Project Director/Institution: Crystal Allen-Daniels
Repository: William H. Berge Oral History Center, Eastern Kentucky University
Project Description: The Mid-Century Kentucky Democrats Project (MCKDP) is a collection of interviews that focuses on Democratic leaders Carl Perkins, Bert Combs, and Marie Turner. MCKDP offers valuable insight into Kentucky politics in the mid-1900s. The interviews explore the careers of the three politicians and they also present a view of the influential men and women who were their contemporaries.
Transcription Grant: Louisville Story Program’s Young Author Series
Grant Award: $564
Project Director/Institution: Louisville Story Program
Repository: University of Louisville Oral History Center
Project Description: Iroquois High School is the most diverse high school in Kentucky and currently has the lowest test scores in the state. During the 2017-18 school year, Louisville Story Program will work with a group of nine Iroquois students to produce a books that documents South Louisville with unprecedented depth and richness. Through rigorous creative writing workshops and in oral history fieldwork, they will develop ground-breaking portraits of their own communities. The all-female cohort is composed of two African-born students and six immigrant and refugee students from Pakistan, Kenya, Iraq and Cuba.