Kentucky Chronicles: A Podcast of the Kentucky Historical Society
We educate and engage the public through KY’s history in order to meet the challenges of the future.
Episodes
Since 2010, the Kentucky Historical Society has been the proud home of the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, a digital project committed to understanding and interpreting Kentucky’s role in the Civil War. Over the past decade, CWGK has digitized thousands of letters that crossed the desks of Kentucky’s five wartime governors. The letters offer a glimpse into the lives of ordinary Kentuckians—men and women...
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May 1, 2026 • 26 mins
Figures like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass are household names within the abolitionist movement. In Kentucky, well-known figures like Cassius Clay also occupy a prominent place in the antislavery narrative. But what about the everyday men and women who joined the fight against slavery in Kentucky and beyond? Although many of their names have been lost to history, scores of Kentuckians went to prison for challenging ...
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April 3, 2026 • 27 mins
Just four months before the end of the American Revolution, a Frenchman named John Savary arrived in Boston. Speaking no English, Savary eventually made his way to Millersburg, Kentucky, where he operated a general store and acquired huge tracts of land. He later befriended Robert Alexander, owner of the famed Woodburn Farm in Woodford County. Savary and Alexander exchanged some eighty letters, most of them in French, where they di...
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March 6, 2026 • 56 mins
On March 9, 1976, tragedy struck the community of Oven Fork in Letcher County, Kentucky, after an explosion at the Scotia Mine killed 15 miners. Two days later, a second explosion killed another 11 miners and federal inspectors, making the disaster one of the worst in US history. Years of legal challenges rocked this close-knit eastern Kentucky community and raised important questions about the safety of coal mining. Join us today ...
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February 6, 2026 • 38 mins
Back on Season 1 of Kentucky Chronicles, we were joined by Elizabeth De Wolfe, who discussed her research on Madeleine Pollard. Pollard rose to national prominence in 1894 when she sued Kentucky Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge for breach of promise. During the trial in Washington, DC, Breckinridge’s legal team hired an undercover detective named Jane Tucker to spy on Pollard. Join us today for another discussion with Professo...
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January 2, 2026 • 42 mins
For more than a century, the cooperative extension service has provided agricultural and educational programming to communities across the United States. From 4-H to nutrition services to economic development, the extension service has played a critical role in improving people’s lives. Yet during the extension service’s early years in Kentucky, the organization was rigidly segregated. Join us for a discussion with the author of a ...
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December 5, 2025 • 33 mins
Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of future President Lincoln, died from milk sickness in Spencer County, Indiana, in 1818, when young Abraham was only nine years old. Nancy died only days after providing care to other family members who had also succumbed to the illness. The Lincoln family’s experiences with milk sickness mirrored the challenges of thousands of other settlers who crossed the Appalachian Mountains seeking land and ec...
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November 7, 2025 • 28 mins
November 2025 marks 200 years since the founding of Choctaw Academy, the first boarding school for Native Americans in the United States. Located in Great Crossings in Scott County, Choctaw Academy educated more than 600 students from across 17 nations. The academy, however, was more than a boarding school. It was a place where larger debates over imperialism, slavery, and Native American policy played out. Join us today for a disc...
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October 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Think of the Confederacy, and your focus probably shifts to the U.S. South. Yet during the Civil War era, the Canadian border emerged as an important political and military battleground. On one hand, enslaved people went to great lengths to forge freedom in Canada. Confederates, however, also executed violent attacks on the Union home front from Canada. As a border state, Kentucky played a crucial role in these excursions between N...
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September 5, 2025 • 23 mins
Travel across Kentucky today and one can easily find traces of the prominent McDowell family, who played an outsized role in the founding of Kentucky. Less known, however, is Dr. Ephraim McDowell. He married the oldest daughter of Governor Isaac Shelby, and in 1809, performed what is believed to be the first-known removal of an ovarian tumor. A man of contradictions, McDowell enslaved numerous people throughout his life, even as he...
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August 1, 2025 • 38 mins
The Whig Party has been largely forgotten today, but prior to the creation of the Republican Party in 1854, it was the main competitor to the Democratic Party. In Kentucky, the Whig Party dominated state politics, as it held the governor’s mansion from 1836 to 1851. In 1848, support from prominent Kentuckians like John J. Crittenden proved crucial to the nomination and election of Zachary Taylor, a man who had himself been raised i...
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July 4, 2025 • 58 mins
Founded in 1780, what would become Transylvania University was established over a decade before Kentucky even became a state. In 1818, Horace Holley—a Yale-educated minister from Connecticut—took over as president of the fledgling institution. Holley attempted to transform the institution, but ran into a host of difficulties. Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow, who has written a book exploring Holley’s lif...
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June 6, 2025 • 43 mins
When we think of border states and the Civil War, we often think about Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware. When we think of fugitive slaves, we often think of the Ohio River or the Mason-Dixon line as a boundary between slavery and freedom. But did you know that similar debates over the meaning of freedom and slavery occurred in the Washington Territory? Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow, who will...
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May 2, 2025 • 25 mins
Within popular culture, veterans of the Civil War are often depicted as having reconciled in reunions held throughout the nation in the late nineteenth century. Grainy images of Blue and Gray Reunions often show grizzled veterans shaking hands, symbolically pulling the nation back together as the bitter memory of the Civil War faded. Yet how accurate is this portrayal? Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow wh...
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April 1, 2025 • 44 mins
Kentucky is known for having a lot of counties: 120 to be exact. At the center of each county stands the county courthouse, some slightly more elaborate than others. Most Kentuckians are familiar with these, as it is where they go to register their vehicles or obtain a marriage license. In Jessamine County, however, those who visit the courthouse in Nicholasville will likely be struck by a towering statue that stands on the courtho...
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March 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Loretta Lynn rose to musical fame through songs such as “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Trouble in Paradise,” and “The Pill.” But have you ever wondered how her Kentucky roots influenced her lyrics? Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow who explores how Lynn’s upbringing in Johnson County indelibly shaped her artistic output.
Dr. Brian Ward is a Professor in American Studies at Northumbria University. His previous...
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February 7, 2025 • 48 mins
In the nineteenth century, individuals who wanted to study medicine often had few options for formal study, with only a handful of schools accepting students. This meant that most of those who came to Kentucky to teach at places like Transylvania were not from the state. Join us today for a discussion with a scholar who has written an article about the “Pioneer Professors” of Kentucky medicine.
Dr. Christopher Willoughby is an ass...
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January 3, 2025 • 67 mins
Richard Mentor Johnson is one of the most famous Kentuckians of the nineteenth century, having ascended to the position of Vice President of the United States in 1837. While much has been written about Johnson’s political career, nobody has uncovered the story of the enslaved woman whom he considered his wife, Julia Chinn, until now. Join us today for a discussion with a former research fellow who wrote a book about Julia Chinn and...
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December 6, 2024 • 31 mins
Many of us have seen images of a naturalization ceremony in the United States, where a group of individuals become citizens. Or perhaps you have participated in a naturalization ceremony yourself. But did you know that the process to become a citizen used to be quite different? Join us today for a discussion with a research fellow who talks about how a person could go about becoming a citizen of the United States in the nineteenth ...
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October 25, 2024 • 39 mins
On the early morning of November 7, 1825, in Frankfort, Ky., Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Kentucky Legislator Solomon Sharp, in an event that would become known as the Kentucky Tragedy. But did the murder really occur as Beauchamp explained in his sensational confessions? Join us today for a special discussion of one of Kentucky’s most notorious murders,
and a story that inspired Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Penn Warren.
Dr. Matthew...
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