Events

Jackson Purchase Historical Society Publishes 2022 Journal

The Jackson Purchase Historical Society is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 49 of its Journal. The society was founded in 1958. During the last sixty plus years, it has played an important role in the life of the Jackson Purchase region due to the diligent efforts of its members to preserve the area’s past. The award-winning Journal of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society is part of this mission and continues to be the primary vehicle through which knowledge of the Jackson Purchase is disseminated and preserved.

The 2022 issue contains five articles. George G. Humphreys discusses the political career of Henry Ward (1909-2002) from Paducah. Ward served as a member of the state legislature and in a number of administrative posts in state government. As chairman of the State Parks Board he played a central role in the establishment of the Kentucky State Park system. As Highway Commissioner he oversaw the development of the state parkways and the Interstate Highway system in Kentucky. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor, losing to Louie Nunn.

Jonathan Byrn examines the activated of the Night Riders in Calloway County during the tumultuous period of the Black Patch Wars. This was a dramatic period of conflict across the region in the early twentieth century. Byrn brings new research to the subject and offers some new insights into Night Riders movement and life in the Black Patch during the period.

David Ramey looks at the legislative career of Freed Curd (1933-2007), who after his legislative service was Mayor of Murray. An educator, Curd was at the center of a number of important educational reforms in Kentucky: playing a leading role in KERA, the separation of the community colleges from the University of Kentucky, and the formation of the Council on Post-Secondary Education. The article is based on interviews with people who worked with Curd over the course of his career.

Combined with Humphrey’s article on Ward, the two look at the role of state legislators and commissioners in shaping the history of the state. While much more attention is usually given to governors, the two essays make a case for the value of a different perspective.

Danielle Neilson approaches Kentucky political history through a different lens. Her essay looks at the effort by Kentucky women to gain the right to vote. Kentucky women were part of a national movement and faced much the same criticism as their sisters in other states. Voting and engagement in politics would, among other things, take them out of the kitchen and subject their families to starvation. The response was to publish suffrage cookbooks asserting the lack of conflict between more tradition female roles and political engagement. Some of cookbooks include recipes by men who supported the cause.

The final article-length essay examines education in Calloway County by discussing “moonlight schools.” While often associated with eastern Kentucky, especially Appalachia, Bobbie Smith Bryant has uncovered a rich history of such schools in Calloway County. The schools dealt with the dilemma of providing education for a dispersed rural population that worked from sunup to sundown. The moonlights schools, organized and taught by women brought basic education to rural areas, adults as well as children.

Last year we added a section for shorter, more focused pieces, Purchase People and Places. Gregg Andrews discusses the life of Josie May (Carman) Black who was born on a shanty boat at Wickliffe, Kentucky and left for Chicago during the Great Migration of African Americans in the 1920s. She returned to the Purchase and worked as a nurse/midwife delivering hundreds of African American babies in Fulton.

The Journal also includes several book reviews, a report on the year’s activities, and a look ahead to 2023. All members receive the Journal as part of their membership. Individual copies are available from JPHS at PO Box 531 Murray KY 42071 for $15.90, including postage and sales tax. We are offering a special membership for 2022 and 2023 for $25. Receive this year’s Journal and next year’s as well as member email notices of programs.

Articles are welcome for next year’s Journal, which will be the Fiftieth, and can be sent to the editor Jim Humphreys at jhumphreys@murraystate.edu. Jim would also welcome inquiries about topics, books for review, or offers to review a book. The society plans a full schedule of events for 2023, its 65th Anniversary Year! Information about the society is available at its website: jacksonpurchasehistoricalsociety.org and on its Facebook page. Back issues of the Journal through 2016 are available through the Murray State University libraries at https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/jphs/. Back issues from 2017 forward are available from the Society at the address above, $15.90 each with postage and sales tax included.