The Buzzel About Kentuck

This reproducible book is an introduction to your great state. Kids will learn about their state history, geography, presidents, people, places, nature, animals, and much more by completing these enriching activities.

The Great Depression was defined by poverty and despair, but visionary American filmmaker Busby Berkeley (1895-1976) managed to divert the public's attention away from the economic crash with some of the most iconic movies of all time. Known for his kaleidoscopic dance numbers featuring multitudes of performers in extravagant costumes, his musicals provided a brief respite for an audience whose reality was hard and bitter. Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley is a revealing study of the director, drawing from interviews with his colleagues, newspaper and legal records, and Berkeley's own unpublished memoirs to uncover the life of a Hollywood legend renowned for his talent and creativity. Jeffrey Spivak examines how Berkeley's career evolved from creating musical numbers for other directors in films such as 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) to directing his own pictures, such as Strike up the Band (1940) and The Gang's All Here (1943). Though Berkeley claimed he was no choreographer, his movies revitalized the public's waning interest in musical pictures. While other popular filmmakers advertised their works specifically as nonmusical, Berkeley embraced his niche, eventually becoming the premier dance director of his time. However, the happy face Berkeley presented publicly did not necessarily reflect his life. Offstage and away from the set, the director met with scandal, and his fondness for liquor and women was well known. In September 1935, he was involved in a car accident that left three people dead and four others severely injured. Accused of driving under the influence, he was put on trial for second-degree murder. The accident significantly changed the nature of his stardom.

The long journey of an American song, passed down from generation to generation, bridging a nation’s fraught disconnect between history and warped illusion, revealing the country's ever evolving self. MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME, from its enormous success in the early 1850s, written by a white man, considered the father of American music, about a Black man being sold downriver, performed for decades by white men in blackface, and the song, an anthem of longing and pain, turned upside down and, over time, becoming a celebration of happy plantation life. It is the state song of Kentucky, a song that has inhabited hearts and memories, and in perpetual reprise, stands outside time; sung each May, before every Kentucky Derby, since 1930. Written by Stephen Foster nine years before the Civil War, “My Old Kentucky Home” made its way through the wartime years to its decades-long run as a national minstrel sensation for which it was written; from its reference in the pages of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind to being sung on The Simpsons and Mad Men. Originally called “Poor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!” and inspired by America’s most famous abolitionist novel, it was a lament by an enslaved man, sold by his "master," who must say goodbye to his beloved family and birthplace, with hints of the brutality to come: “The head must bow and the back will have to bend / Wherever the darky may go / A few more days, and the trouble all will end / In the field where the sugar-canes grow . . .” In My Old Kentucky Home, Emily Bingham explores the long, strange journey of what has come to be seen by some as an American anthem, an integral part of our folklore, culture, customs, foundation, a living symbol of a “happy past.” But “My Old Kentucky Home” was never just a song. It was always a song about slavery with the real Kentucky home inhabited by the enslaved and shot through with violence, despair, and degradation. Bingham explores the song’s history and permutations from its decades of performances across the continent, entering into the bloodstream of American life, through its twenty-first-century reassessment. It is a song that has been repeated and taught for almost two hundred years, a resonant changing emblem of America's original sin whose blood-drenched shadow hovers and haunts us still.

Long associated with fine Thoroughbred horses, Kentucky’s Bluegrass region is also home to America’s oldest indigenous breed: the American Saddlebred horse. A composite of several breeds, the Saddlebred was developed by 18thcentury colonists who sought a goodlooking, sensible, adaptable, and comfortable animal to ride and drive. These traits made it the mainstay of the Confederate cavalry during the Civil War and the choice mount of many generals on both sides. As the Industrial Revolution replaced the need for working horse power, the Saddlebred evolved naturally into recreational activities. Affectionately known as “peacock of the show ring,” the Saddlebred’s beauty, expression, and athleticism epitomize the essence of a show horse. In many ways, the breed’s history parallels that of America and unfolds in pictures in Kentucky’s Saddlebred Heritage.

In 1971, Californian congressman Thomas M. Rees told the US House of Representatives that ‘very little has been written of what the Welsh have contributed in all walks of life in the shaping of American history’. This book is the first systematic attempt to both recount and evaluate the considerable yet undervalued contribution made by Welsh immigrants and their immediate descendants to the development of the United States. Their lives and achievements are set within a narrative outline of American history that emphasises the Welsh influence upon the colonists’ rejection of British rule, and upon the establishment, expansion and industrialisation of the new American nation. This book covers both the famous and the unsung who worked and fought to acquire greater prosperity and freedom for themselves and for their nation.

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Although they are commonplace in American homes, quilts are much more than simple patchwork bed coverings and wall adornments. While many of these beautiful and intricate works of art are rich in history and tradition, others reflect the cutting-edge talent and avant-garde mastery of contemporary quiltmakers. Kentucky Quilts and Quiltmakers: Three Centuries of Creativity, Community, and Commerce is the first comprehensive study to approach quilts as objects of material culture that have adorned homes throughout the history of the commonwealth and the country. Linda Elisabeth LaPinta highlights such topics as quiltmaking in women's history, the influence of early Black quiltmakers, popular Kentucky quilt patterns, types, and colors, and the continuing importance of preserving the commonwealth's quilt history and traditions. The author provides a panoramic view of Kentucky quiltmaking from colonial America through the American Revolution, the Civil War to the 1900s, to the new millennium and the dynamic quilting industry of today. LaPinta reveals Kentucky's pivotal role in shaping significant aspects of American quilt culture—Kentuckians founded the first statewide quilt documentation project, created important exhibits and major quilt organizations, and established the National Quilt Museum. Rounding out this all-encompassing volume is a collection of fascinating and intimate artistic commentaries by notable quiltmakers, as well as discussion of the key players who have conserved, celebrated, and showcased the commonwealth's extraordinary quilt culture.

Did you know that William Goebel of Kentucky remains the only state governor to be assassinated while in office? Or that Abraham Lincoln, now a favorite son of the Bluegrass State, garnered less than 1 percent of the state's vote in 1860? How about Matthew Lyon, the congressman who won reelection from a jail cell and once bit off the thumb of a voter during a brawl on the House floor? These are but three of the fascinating and little-known stories from Kentucky's political past found in True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics. Join longtime columnist Berry Craig as he shares tales of a time when votes could be bought with a drink and political differences were resolved with ten paces and a pistol.