Reverend Horace Holley, a New England-born, Yale-educated, Unitarian minister from Boston, was offered the presidency of Transylvania University in the town of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1817. He investigated the opportunity by way of a "tour of inquiry," a circuitous route west through notable "literary establishments" of the…

This book is a biography of Cora Wilson Stewart, a Rowan County, Kentucky, school superintendent who rose to prominence with the establishment of the Moonlight Schools for adults with low literacy levels in 1911. It presents the details of her Kentucky crusade against illiteracy, then examines the personal part of her life as well as her later…

This book reviews the career of Rufus Ballard Atwood, who served as president of Kentucky State University from 1929 to 1962. The book describes how he was often chosen by whites to represent the African American community on boards and commissions and how these appointments gave him access to the state's political and educational power structure.…