Western Kentucky University 1110 The Western Scholar | Fall 2003

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The Chaperon and the Evansville. These steamboats were used by the Evansville and Bowling Green Packet Co. The Chaperon wasbuilt in 1884, the Evansville was built in 1880.

Shaker textile industry, Warren County postcards, archi-tectural history, and the state’s public libraries.

“Because I’m interested in local history, I’m interestedin every little aspect of it,” Jeffrey said. “I’m interested inthe medical history. I’m interested in the architecture, andhow all these things affect our history as a whole, andhow it changed this area, and how we view things.”

Since librarians carry faculty status at Western, Jeffreywas expected to publish. He heeded the advice of JuliaNeal, former head of special collections and a Shakerscholar, and began looking through the vast Shakerholdings in the Kentucky Library. “A lot of research is likethis — someone else gets you interested in it or they seesomething in you that predisposes you to a certain kind ofresearch,” Jeffrey said.

“I just started looking at topics I might be interested inand there were numerous entries about textiles — becausethat was something that all pioneers had to do. So I talkedwith one of my colleagues here who has an interest intextiles and I said, “Why don’t we go through all theShaker records from South Union and pull out all thetextile references?”

They discovered three distinct textiles: linens, silk, andwoolens, which they wrote about in three articles. “Thenwe got really interested in this huge woolen factory thatthey operated,” he said. “We extrapolated a wealth ofinformation because they kept all their receipts of howmuch cloth had come in, what processes they performed,what color they dyed it. There was a tremendous amountof material there.”

That material went into a database and then became abook: A Thread of Evidence: Shaker Textile Industries atSouth Union, Kentucky.

“This was a really interesting project, and we canblame it all on Miss Neal. She knew what she was doing,”he said. “Now that I’ve been at this a while, I realize thatyou’re only here a short amount of time, and you have toget other people interested in it to keep that continuity upand the research going. Plus, anybody who has doneresearch knows that in your pursuit of primary sourcesyou might uncover ones that have never been used before.Sometimes that means purchasing new things for ourcollection, and sometimes it results in gifts being made tothe University.”

B Y B O B S K I P P E R

Lost River Cave, Bowling Green, Kentucky

HISTORYin the Library

WHEN JONATHAN JEFFREY BEGAN WORKING ON A DEGREE

IN HISTORY, HE ENVISIONED BECOMING A HISTORY TEACHER.

HOWEVER, AN ASSIGNMENT FOR A GRADUATE CLASS CAUSED

HIM TO CHART A NEW COURSE THAT HAS ALLOWED HIM TO

COMBINE HISTORY, RESEARCH, AND TEACHING AS SPECIAL COL-

LECTIONS LIBRARIAN AT WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY.

Jeffrey was writing a paper on the history of a housenear the Stephen F. Austin State University Campus and

had to visit the library’s special collections area. “It wasfascinating,” he said. “I had never been encouraged to useprimary source materials — first-hand accounts of howpeople lived, their letters, and what they said. “I loved it. Itwas like reading someone else’s mail from 100 years ago.That is really what clicked me into this whole librarianshipthing.”

Now, 14 years later, Jeffrey has left his mark inKentucky’s history by documenting such topics as the

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Western Kentucky University 1312 The Western Scholar | Fall 2003

area, even though we have some nicetourist sites.”

Since the book was so wellreceived, Jeffrey is now working on aphotographic history of Warren Countyusing twentieth century photographsfrom the Kentucky Library’s collection.That book should be ready by Christ-mas 2003. “I think it shows the interestin local history, particularly pictorialworks,” he said.

Jeffrey also has several long-termprojects in the works, including com-prehensive histories of Warren Countyand of the development of libraries inKentucky. When he began writing acolumn for the quarterly newsletterKentucky Libraries, he saw this as aplace to start.

“For each issue I’ve been trying toresearch a different public library in thestate and write its history in hopes thatsome day I can go back and pull all that together and seethe trends and determine what I think has happened,” hesaid. “The more data you collect, the more you are able tosee the patterns, how things have changed and why theychanged.”

There are public libraries in 118 of Kentucky’s 120counties. Jeffrey said he wants to find out why librarieswere so slow to develop in the Commonwealth and whythere are still two counties without libraries. In 1991 he

Jonathan Jeffrey

wrote Growing with Bowling Green:The History of the Bowling Green PublicLibrary, 1938-1988 for the Friends ofthe Library.

Jeffrey also would like to producea comprehensive history of WarrenCounty. While some histories havebeen written, along with articlesdetailing various pieces of history,“there are lots of other pieces thatneed to be in place,” he said, such ashistories of the railroad and quarryindustries. “I’m encouraging otherpeople to do more and more in localhistory. This goes back to that idea ofgetting other people interested.”

“For posterity’s sake it’s good thatwe’re doing these things now,” Jeffreysaid. “Some of the information, whencertain people die, is just gone. Wedon’t have a lot of it written down.Changes in the way we communicate

and our increased mobility will affect the ability of futureresearchers to gather information about today. Instead ofwriting, we use telephones and cell phones, or we sendmessages electronically via e-mail,” he said.

“We’re not keeping as much of the documentationabout everyday life, and the documentation is not as fullor colorful,” Jeffrey said. “Future generations will find itharder and harder to document society despite all ourelectronic gadgets.”

Novelty Card. The card captured two of the Bowling Green area’s greatest attractions: WKU and Mammoth Cave.

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“Because I’m interested in local history, I’m interested in every little aspect of it.I’m interested in the medical history. I’m interested in the architecture

and how all these things affect our history as a whole, and howit changed this area, and how we view things.”

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National Corvette Museum. The museum welcomes over 150, 000 visitors a year for exciting programming and a spectacularexhibition of vintage Corvettes.

Jeffrey’s interests were not limited to the Shakers. Hisinterest in architecture has led to an active role in Bowl-ing Green’s Landmark Association. “You can’t be in-volved in everything, so you have to pick the things thatare most interesting to you, or might be most helpful toyou, or where you might be most helpful to otherpeople,” he said. “Landmark combines several of thosethings for me. I’m very interested in architecture and Ilike trying to get people involved in local history, and it’sreally the only historical society we have in town.”

As editor of Landmark’s newsletter, Jeffrey tries to getother people involved by writing articles on local topics.That work led to another publication that proved to bevery popular locally: Bowling Green, Kentucky in VintagePostcards. Published in late 2002, the book sold out of itsfirst 1,800 copies and is now in its second printing.

The project began when Arcadia Publishing called theLandmark office with the idea. “Finally, we gave in andsaid we’d do it,” Jeffrey said. He contacted historian Ray

Buckberry of Bowling Green, who has a large collection ofpostcards, and supplemented Buckberry’s collection withcards from the Kentucky Library collection.

Jeffrey selected the cards, sorted them into categories,and wrote the captions. “Anybody who thinks that’s easyhasn’t done it,” he said. “For some of these postcards Icould write two or three pages about them. Writing cap-tions of from 50 to 75 words, which is what the publisherswanted, was like trying to write poetry.”

The book provides significant documentation of BowlingGreen and Warren County’s history. “The information inthe book is good, and it’s good to have it written down,”he said. “Some of the businesses pictured in the bookdon’t exist any more, and people know little about them.So doing the research for this was, in many ways, like do-ing the research for any scholarly work.”

He said it was also interesting to notice how postcardschanged over the years. “It’s sad how things havechanged. Today we don’t have many postcards from our

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