The Oral History Collection Projects

Commission Projects:

Current Grants

New Accessions

New to the Digital Collections Catalog

Special Projects

Current Grants

Project Grants
Caverna Schools and the History of Integration
Project Director: Kenneth Russell
Locations: Hart County, Horse Cave
Horse Cave Development Corporation is a non-profit organization committed to enhancing the community pride of the City of Horse Cave and surrounding communities. This project seeks to document the history of the integration of the Caverna Schools in Horse Cave, with the goal to incorporate this history and first-person documentation in a interactive tour of the community.

The Underground Sound: How Cafe LMNOP Ignited 30 Years of Independent Music Culture in Lexington, Kentucky
Project Director: Mick Jeffries
Locations: Lexington
In the late 1970's, shortly after its acclaimed emergence in New York, underground rock music came to Lexington. The catalyst in Kentucky was a short-lived nightclub called Cafe LMNOP, operated by an extraordinary Kentuckian named Bradley Picklesimer. The antics and performances at his club in 1979-80 were unlike anything Lexington had ever seen, attracting an incredible array of patrons, from business kings to drag queens. It was a Zeitgeist of music and arts culture which flourishes to this day, 30 years after the club closed its doors.

The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts Oral History Project
Project Director: Traci Simonsen
Locations: Jefferson County, Louisville
The purpose of this project is to document and preserve the oral history of the founding members, board chairs, donors and family members of the founders and board chairs, and others who have significantly contributed to the realization of The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts (KC), emphasizing the founding members vision for building KC and their memories of the early days at the Center.

Funerary Traditions of Southeastern Kentucky
Project Director: Darla Jackson
Location: Harlan County
This project seeks to document funerary traditions of Harlan and surrounding counties through 40 oral history interviews. These traditions reflect the diverse cultural and ethnic groups that
have shaped our contemporary attitudes toward death and dying. This is a topic which I deal with on a daily basis as the owner and operator of Mt. Pleasant Funeral Home. As a community scholar and author of books about Harlan County, I have conducted many interviews about the oral ghost story traditions of the region, and many of these spring from beliefs about death and dying reflected in the funerary traditions.

James Harrod Trust Oral History Project
Project Director: Kandie Adkinson
Location: Harrodsburg
The James Harrod Trust Oral History Project will focus on documenting the African American experience in Harrodsburg/Mercer County from the 1930's to present focusing on the Broadway St. neighborhood with topics including social changes through integration of schools and businesses in the 1960's. The project will focus on the segregated schools, their students, teachers and sporting traditions. The oral histories will also focus on the church influence and job opportunities for African Americans in the mid 20th century. With the development of the upcoming African American Museum/Heritage Center this is a very timely project.


Transcription Grants
Stories From The Balcony
Project Director: Joanna Hay
This is an oral history project about the history of the Grand Theatre in Frankfort, Kentucky. As a symbol of segregation in the 50s and 60s, interviews about the Grand encompass the struggle for Civil Rights and questions about the problems of Urban Renewal. This project, directed by filmmaker and community scholar Joanna Hay, is developing into a public Web site, a documentary film and a published book.


Technical Assistance Grants
Bowlingtown and Buckhorn Oral History Project
Project proposes to document the community's reaction to and memories of the 1961 formation of Buckhorn Lake in Leslie and Perry Counties.

Buckhorn Lake Oral History Project
This project seeks to document the people who called Bowlingtown, Kentucky home before the creation of Buckhorn Lake in 1961. The project will also extend to people who lived in the area now underwater, which includes Leslie, Perry, Clay and Owsley counties.

20th Century Kentucky Art Pottery
Project Director: Jerry Nichols
This project seeks to conduct interviews with those involved with early 20th century art pottery in Kentucky, specifically Madison and Fayette Counties, looking closely at Bybee and Waco potteries.

Bolyn, Kentucky: The Lost Community
Project Director: Tamara Howard
This project's goal is to document the community of Bolyn, Kentucky, a dwindling community in Knott County, Kentucky.

Saint Paul’s Story
Project Director: Kurt Krouse
An oral history project to discover, document and disseminate Lexington’s Saint Paul parish history for future generations. This project plans to interview long standing parishioners about the history of the church within the community.

Remembering the Gateway: Memories of Mt. Sterling, KY
Project Director: Janet Kenney, Ph.D.
This series of oral history, conducted by members of the Montgomery County Council for the Arts, seeks to document Mt. Sterling history through interviewing longtime residence, business people and community leaders.

Lost Voices of Scott County Speak
Project Director: Cynthia Foster
Locations: Sadieville, Scott County
Project objectives are to connect the pieces of Scott County’s African American history, heritage and culture and for the preservation of the life experiences and stories passed down through generations by families and friends. Accounts of experiences attending a Rosenwald School; who the descendants of the Great Migration to Nicodemus, Kansas were; the social life of the African American hamlets; spiritual life in the hamlet churches will be researched, recorded and exhibited at Sadieville’s Cultural/Heritage Education Center. The final goal is to educate students and adults and for future generations to know their history and heritage.

Hidden Treasure: Rediscovering the Scrivener-Moore Coal Mines in Jackson County, Kentucky
Project Director: Dr. Mary Ruth Isaacs
Locations: Williamsburg, KY, Whitley Co., Jackson Co.
This project seeks to provide information on an area of Kentucky that few, if any, researchers or historians have explored. Interviews will be solicited from individuals who lived in the Scrivener-Moore Coal Mining community in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Individuals will be asked to discuss their opportunities for job creation and advancement, ways of life, work and living conditions, and customs/traditions (e.g., storytelling, balladry). Information from these interviews will be published in books and journal articles, and presented to citizens in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and students at the University of the Cumberlands.

Being Loretto Amid the Needs of the Late 20th Century
Project Director: Eleanor Craig, S.L.
Locations: Bardstown, KY, Nelson Co.
"Meeting the needs of the times" has been the mission of the Sisters of Loretto since the beginning of the community on the Kentucky frontier in 1812. In these oral interviews, individual members of the Loretto Community tell how they have lived their commitment to meet the needs of the late 20th Century, shaped by an increasingly global consciousness of social, political and cultural diversity.

Documentation of the history of the Bluegrass Theatre Guild
Project Director: Nancy Atcher
Locations: Frankfort, KY, Franklin Co.
As part of its 30 years celebration, the Guild plans to begin the process of documenting its history by interviewing 10 of its founding members.


Preservation Grants
Preservation Assistance:

Eastern Kentucky University Political Oral History Digitization Project: Project seeks to digitize 227 interviews from nine projects relating to politicians or politics in Kentucky. Interviews include Carl Perkins, John Ed Pearce, Bert Combs and Barry Bingham to name a few.

Murray State University – to digitize oral history collections in the special collections archive at Murray State University.


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New Accessions

Military Treasures Exhibition Oral History Project
African American Heritage in Southern Hart County
African American Families and their heritage in Garrard County
Early Families of Frankfort


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New to the Digital Collections Catalog

Rural Health Care Oral History Project
KHS Digital Collections Catalog Oral History Page

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