Preeminent Kentucky reformer and women's rights advocate Madeline McDowell Breckinridge (1872–1920) was at the forefront of social change during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A descendant of Henry Clay and the daughter of two of Kentucky's most prominent families, Breckinridge had a remarkably varied activist career that included roles in the promotion of public health, education, women's rights, and charity. Founder of the Lexington Civic League and Associated Charities, Breckinridge successfully lobbied to create parks and playgrounds and to establish a juvenile court system in Kentucky. She also became president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, served as vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and even campaigned across the country for the League of Nations. In the first biography of Breckinridge since 1921, Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South, Melba Porter Hay draws on newly discovered correspondence and rich personal interviews with her female associates to illuminate the fascinating life of this important Kentucky activist. Deftly balancing Breckinridge's public reform efforts with her private concerns, Hay tells the story of Madeline's marriage to Desha Breckinridge, editor of the Lexington Herald, and how she used the match to her advantage by promoting social causes in the newspaper. Hay also chronicles Breckinridge's ordeals with tuberculosis and amputation, and emotionally trying episodes of family betrayal and sex scandals. Hay describes how Breckinridge's physical struggles and personal losses transformed her from a privileged socialite into a selfless advocate for the disadvantaged. Later as vice president of the National American Women Suffrage Association, Breckinridge lobbied for Kentucky's ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. While devoting much of her life to the woman suffrage movement on the local and national levels, she also supported the antituberculosis movement, social programs for the poor, compulsory school attendance, and laws regulating child labor. In bringing to life this extraordinary reformer, Hay shows how Breckinridge championed Kentucky's social development during the Progressive Era.

Madeline McDowell Breckinridge and the Battle for a New South (Topics In Kentucky History)

Biographies & Memoirs

Hay, Melba Porter

Community & Culture

University Press of Kentucky

We have all spied them as we blast down I-75 scanning the roadside for anything of interest or rolled past one while trying to find that elusive gas station in an unfamiliar small town. Perhaps we have even stopped to read one outside our local courthouse. 
Since 1949, the Kentucky Historical Highway Marker program has erected more than 1,800 markers that highlight the rich diversity of the state’s local and regional history as well as topics of statewide, and sometimes national, importance. They provide on-the-spot Kentucky history lessons, depicting subjects as diverse as a seven-year-old boy who served as a drummer in the Revolutionary War to a centuries-old sassafras tree. 
Roadside History is a key to the markers, enabling travelers to read Kentucky history without stopping to see each marker as they pass. There are two indexes arranged by subject and county.

Roadside History: A Guide to Kentucky Highway Markers

History

Appleton, Thomas H.

Wells, Dianne

Americas

Kentucky Historical Society

Adventure story, biography, western history -- Simon Kenton, Kentucky Scout fits all these descriptions. While still in his teens, Kenton explored Kentucky and became an expert woodsman. His daring rescue of Daniel Boone during an Indian attack on Boonsborough and his assistance to George Rogers Clark are prime examples of his skill and heroism.  No frontiersman showed more bravery than Kenton. When he was captured following a raid on the Indians' horses at Chillicothe, he exhibited almost superhuman endurance as he ran the dreaded gauntlet, and withstood numerous other tortures. He eventually escaped and returned to Kentucky.  In the mid1780's, Kenton brought his family from Virginia and settled them in presentday Mason County. By then, the primary Indian threat was over. However Kenton's role as Indian scout during the previous decade had been so important that his memory remains forever a part of Kentucky's history.

Simon Kenton Kentucky Scout

Clark, Thomas Dionysius

Shenton, Edward

Historical

Jesse Stuart Foundation

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