Related Resources

This page includes additional resources on the state of Kentucky from the Library's website.

American Folklife Center State Resources

American Folklife Center Collections: Kentucky
American Folklife Center collections from Kentucky contain rich and varied materials that document the diversity of the Bluegrass State's folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are hundreds of hours of folk music, recorded from the 1930s to the present, including banjo, dulcimer, and fiddle tunes; religious music and sermons; and Southern Harmony singing and Baptist "lining-out" hymns.

Bibliographies and Guides

U.S. State Poets Laureate: Kentucky
This site provides the names of all current state poets laureate of the United States. It also includes a history of the laureateship in each state, as well the District of Columbia, and attempts to provide a comprehensive listing of all prior state poets laureate. Included is information on the position of State Poet Laureate in Kentucky.

Exhibitions Featuring Kentucky

American Treasures of the Library of Congress

The American Treasures of the Library of Congress exhibition is an exhibition of the rarest, most interesting or significant items relating to America's past, drawn from every corner of the world's largest library.

If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong
On March 26, 1864, former Senator Archibald Dixon, Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, and Albert G. Hodges, editor of the Frankfort, Kentucky, Commonwealth, journeyed from Kentucky to meet with Lincoln to discuss the recruitment of slaves as soldiers in Kentucky.
A Wife's Chronicle
In this memoir Malvina Harlan chronicled her fifty-four-year marriage to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911), a Kentucky lawyer and former slaveholder.

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

Encompassing over 200 objects including early American books, manuscripts, letters, prints, paintings, artifacts, and music from the Library's collections and complemented by loans from other institutions, Religion and the Founding of the American Republic explores the role religion played in the founding of the American colonies, in the shaping of early American life and politics, and in forming the American Republic. The Religion and the New Republic section includes information pertaining to revivals in Kentucky.

View the Religion and the Founding of the American Republic Exhibition

Global Gateway

France in America
Conceived in partnership with France’s national library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, France in America /France en Amérique is a bilingual digital library made available by the Library of Congress. It explores the history of the French presence in North America from the first decades of the sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. Included in the project is a map of Kentucky from actual survey by Elihu Barker.

Historic Newspapers

Chronicling America: Kentucky
This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1836-1922 from more than 20 states and the District of Columbia. Search this collection to find selected newspaper articles that mention events in Kentucky.

Law Library

The Guide to Law Online: Kentucky
The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information on U.S states and territories, including Kentucky.

Resources for Teachers

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Features & Activities

Primary Sources by State: Kentucky
The Library of Congress has rich documents and artifacts from every state, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Lesson Plans

Creating a Primary Source Archive: All History Is Local
Examine the interplay between national, state, local, and personal history. Students produce a digital collection of primary sources from their family or local community based on the Digital Collections.
Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions
Students explore the local history of the community in which they live through written and spoken stories; through landmarks such as buildings, parks, restaurants, or businesses; and through traditions such as food, festivals and other events of the community or of individual families.
Local History: Mapping My Spot
Students create their town’s history for coming generations and place themselves on the map in a literal as well as figurative sense, by producing portions of an updated version of an early twentieth century panoramic map from the Digital Collections.

Today in History

The following dates in history feature significant events in Kentucky's history as highlighted in the Library of Congress' collections.

May 17
Popular rider Oliver Lewis rode H. P. McGrath's thoroughbred Aristides to victory in the first Kentucky Derby on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club. Fourteen of the fifteen jockeys in the derby, including Lewis, were African Americans.
June 7
On June 7, 1769, frontiersman Daniel Boone first saw the forests and valleys of present-day Kentucky. For more than a century, the Kentucky Historical Societyexternal link icon has celebrated June 7 as "Boone Day.
June 29
On June 29, 1852, statesman Henry Clay, known as "the Great Compromiser" for his feats of legislative reconciliation between the North and the South, died at the age of seventy-five at the Old National Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Born on a farm in Virginia on April 12, 1777, Clay practiced law in Virginia and Kentucky before embarking on a political career. He represented Kentucky both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives and was a guiding force in American political life. He served as Speaker of the House of Representatives (as a Democratic Republican) from 1811-20 and again from 1823-24.
October 8
On October 8, 1862, Union and Confederate forces fought at Perryville, Kentucky, in a one-day battle that repulsed the South's attempt to bring that border state into the Confederacy. Although the summer of 1862 began promisingly for the Confederate cause, the fall brought failure and disappointment.

Veterans History Project

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects and preserves the remembrances of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them. Click on the link below to locate veterans from the state of Kentucky.

Veterans History Project: Kentucky

Kentucky: State Resource Guide

Digital Collections: Ask a Librarian