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James C. Klotter
Office Address:
Georgetown College
400 E. College St. #244
Georgetown, KY 40324
(502) 863-8076; FAX (502) 868-8888
E-Mail: James_Klotter@georgetowncollege.edu
Home Address:
1087 The Lane, Lexington, KY 40504
(859) 277-4572
Education:
Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 1975
Honorary Degrees:
L.H.D., Union College, 1998
Litt.D., Eastern Kentucky University, 1997
Work Experience:
Georgetown College, 1998Professor of History and the State Historian of Kentucky
Kentucky Historical Society, 1973-98
Executive Director and the State Historian, 1990-98
The State Historian and Assistant Director, KHS, 1988-90
The State Historian and General Editor, KHS, 1980-88
Managing Editor, Register of the KHS, 1978-80
Assistant Editor, KHS, 1973-78
Professional Memberships and Service:
Boards and Offices Held
Collaborative for Teaching and Learning
Board Member, 1998-2008
Vice Chair, 1998-99
Chair, 2000-2003
Kentucky Historical Society Foundation Board, 2001-2009
Kentucky Association of Teachers of History
President, 1985-87
Kentucky Council on Archives, Chair, 1980-82
University of Kentucky Library Associates
Board Member, 1982-84, 1995-2008
Vice-President, 1983-84
President, 1984-85
Kentucky Civil War Roundtable
Secretary, 1984-94
President, 1994-2007
Headley-Whitney Museum Board, 2002-2003
University Press of Kentucky Board, 2008-
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Kentucky Mansions Preservation Foundation Board, 2006Ward Hall Preservation Foundation Board, 2004Filson Historical Society
Editorial Board, Ohio Valley History, 2001Kentucky Oral History Commission
Board Member, 1981-82, 1990-98
Advisory Board 1999Falls of the Ohio Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Committee
Board of Directors, 2001-2004
Conference of Historical Journals
Board Member, 1987-88
Frontier Nursing Service
Board of Governors, 1991-96
Advisory Boards
Kentucky Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission Advisory Council, 2006-2009
Muhammad Ali Museum Advisory Board, 1999-2002
Friends of McConnell Springs Advisory Board, 1998Camp Nelson Museum Advisory Board, 2004-2005
Eastern Kentucky University Center for Kentucky Studies Advisory Board, 1999-2008
Accelerated Schools Advisory Board, 1999-2002
“Kentucky Story!” Advisory Board, 2007-2008
Other Organizations and Committee Work
Henry Clay Foundation
Friends of Kentucky Archives
Bluegrass Trust for Historic Preservation
Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
Oral History Association
Journal Award Committee, 1996
American Association for State and Local History
Awards Committee, 1983-85
Election Committee, 1997
Southern Historical Association
Membership Committee, 1981-82, 1996-97
Program Committee, 1986-87
Holmes Award Committee, 2002-2003
Organization of American Historians
Publicity Committee, 1991
Selected Recent Honors:
Governor’s Outstanding Kentuckian Award, 1998
Distinguished Service Award, Kentucky Historical Society, 1998
Thomas D. Clark Award for Excellence in Kentucky History, 2003
Thomas D. Clark Award for Literary Excellence, 2004
Thomas D. Clark Kentucky Archives Award, 2005
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Governor’s Award, 2007 (for the best book on Kentucky history, published over last four years)
President’s Award, Midwest Archives Conference, 2008
Outstanding Alumnus of Kentucky Award, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, 2008
McCandless Lecture, Regents Park College, University of Oxford, 2008
Principal Publications:
A Concise History of Kentucky (University Press of Kentucky, 2008). With Freda Klotter
Faces of Kentucky (University Press of Kentucky, 2006) With Freda C. Klotter
Received Award of Merit from Kentucky History Awards, Historical Confederation of
Kentucky, and Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local
History.
Kentucky Justice, Southern Honor, and American Manhood: Understanding the Life and Death
of Richard Reid (LSU Press, 2003). Southern Biography Series. Won the Governor’s
Award in 2007, for the best book on Kentucky history published over the past four years.
Nominated for the Merle Curti Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, the Herbert Jacob
Book Prize, the Kentucky Literary Award, the Douglas Southall Freeman History Award,
National Council on Public History Book Award, and the Charles Sydnor Award.
A New History of Kentucky (University Press of Kentucky, 1997).
Coauthored with Lowell Harrison
Kentucky: Portrait in Paradox, 1900-1950 (Kentucky Historical Society, 1996).
History Mysteries: The Cases of James Harrod, Tecumseh, “Honest Dick” Tate, and William
Goebel (University Press of Kentucky, 1989).
The Breckinridges of Kentucky, 1760-1981 (University Press of Kentucky, 1986). Nominated for
Frank Owsley Award, Douglas S. Freeman History Award, and Richard Leopold Award.
William Goebel: The Politics of Wrath (University Press of Kentucky, 1977).
Kentucky: Decades of Discord, 1865-1900 (Kentucky Historical Society, 1977).
Coauthored with Hambleton Tapp. Chapter reprinted in From the Fort to the Future:
Educating the Children of Kentucky (1986).
Edited Works:
Our Kentucky: A Study of the Bluegrass State (University Press of Kentucky, 1992; revised
edition, 2000). Editor.
Book received Certificate of Commendation, AASLH.
The Human Tradition in the Old South (Scholarly Resources, 2003). Editor.
The Human Tradition in the New South (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).Editor.
Kentucky: Land of Tomorrow (Kentucky Historical Society, 1998). Coeditor.
The Kentucky Encyclopedia (University Press of Kentucky, 1992). Associate editor.
The Union, The Civil War, and John W. Tuttle: A Kentucky Captain’s Account (Kentucky
Historical Society, 1982). Coedited with Hambleton Tapp.
Kentucky Profiles: Biographical Essays in Honor of Holman Hamilton (Kentucky Historical
Society, 1982). Coedited with Peter Sehlinger.
The Public Papers of Governor Simeon Willis, 1943-1947 (University Press of Kentucky, 1987).
Editor.
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General Editor, with Terry Birdwhistell and Doug Boyd, of “Kentucky Remembered: An Oral
History Series” for the University Press of Kentucky. Eight books in print to date: Bert
Combs the Politician (1991), Barry Bingham: A Man of His Word (1993), Conversations
with Kentucky Writers vol. 1 (1996), vol. 2 (1999), Tobacco Culture (1998), Food and
Everyday Life on Kentucky Family Farms (2006), This is Home Now: Holocaust
Survivors Speak (2009), and Freedom on the Border: An Oral History of the Civil Rights
Movement in Kentucky (2009).
General Editor, “Topics in Kentucky History,” for the University Press of Kentucky. Three
volumes in print: Henry Watterson and the New South (2006) and Madeline McDowell
Breckinridge: The Battle for a New South (2008), and Murder and Madness: The Myth of
the Kentucky Tragedy (2009).
Chapters or Sections in Books:
“Family Influences on a Progressive: The Early Years of Sophonisba P. Breckinridge,” in
Kentucky Profiles (1982)
“William O’Connell Bradley,” “William Sylvester Taylor,” “William Goebel,” and “Simeon
Willis,” in Lowell H. Harrison, ed., Kentucky Governors (1985; rev.ed., 2004)
“The Frontier Years,” “The Natural World,” “Making a Living,” “Roads, Rivers and Rails,”
“Religion and Education,” “The Civil War,” “The Rural and Urban Landscape,” in
Martin E. Schmidt, Kentucky Illustrated (1992)
“Past as Prologue,” in Michael T. Childress, ed., Exploring the Frontier of the Future (1996)
“Kentucky Historian,” in John E. Kleber, ed., Thomas D. Clark of Kentucky: An Uncommon Life
in the Commonwealth (2003)
Major Articles:
“The Black South and White Appalachia”
Journal of American History, 66 (March 1980): 932-49
Reprinted in Turner and Cabell, eds., Blacks in Appalachia
(University Press of Kentucky, 1985).
“Sex, Scandal, and Suffrage in the Gilded Age”
The Historian, 42 (February 1980): 225-43
“Slavery and Race: A Family Perspective”
Southern Studies, 17 (Winter 1978): 375-97
“Clio in the Commonwealth: The Status of Kentucky History”
The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 80 (Winter 1982): 65-88. Reprinted as
The Status of Kentucky History in pamphlet form by NEH-funded “Reflections of the
Past” project.
“Moving Kentucky Into the 21st Century: Where should we go from here?”
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 97 (Winter 1999): 83-112
“Appalachian Feuds: An Overview”
Filson Club History Quarterly, 56 (July 1982): 290-317
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“Snapshots of a State in Change: An Overview of Kentucky in the Twentieth Century”
Filson Club History Quarterly, 66 (July 1992): 421-48.
Winner of the Otto A. Rothert Award for the best article published in the journal in 1992.
“Promise, Pessimism, and Perseverance: An Overview of Higher Education History in
Kentucky”
Ohio Valley History 6 (Spring 2006): 45-60.
“Little Shepherds, Little Colonels, and Little Kingdoms: A Selective Review of Kentucky
Writing, 1784-1950”
Journal of Kentucky Studies, 3 (October 1986): 61-72.
Other Articles and Publications
(in order of publication)
“Mary Desha: Alaskan Schoolteacher of 1888”
Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 71 (April 1980) (with Freda Klotter).
“A Hatfield-McCoy Feudist Pleads for Mercy”
West Virginia History, 43 (Summer 1982)
“Introduction,” in Eleanor B. Chalkley, Magic Casements (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical
Society, 1982)
Annotated and Selected Bibliography of Kentucky History (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical
Society, 1983)
“Publishing in State Journals”
OAH Newsletter (August 1983)
“Old Families and the New History”
Reviews in American History (September 1983)
“The History of the Family: Old, New, and Hybrid Approaches”
KATH Newsletter, 7 (Spring 1984)
“Boss Ben Johnson, the Highway Commission, and Kentucky Politics, 1927-1937”
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 84 (Winter 1986) (coauthor)
“Kentucky in the Constitutional Era”
Kentucky Bench & Bar, 51 (Fall 1987)
“Hatfields and McCoys Revised”
Appalachian Journal, 15 (Summer 1988)
“Advice for ABDs”
OAH Newsletter, 16 (August 1988)
“Slavery in Louisville”
in Randall Miller and J.D. Smith eds., Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (1988)
“What Makes Kentucky Unique?” Guidelines (September 1988)
A Century of Banking: The Story of Farmers State Bank and Banking in Owsley County,
1890-1990 (Booneville: Farmers State Bank, 1989) (coauthor)
“Researching and Writing Local History in Kentucky”
The Circuit Rider, 12 (July/August 1989)
“Two Centuries of the Lottery in Kentucky”
The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 87 (Autumn 1989)
“Preface,” in Kentucky‘s Historic Farms (Turner Publishing Co., 1994)
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Sixteen articles in The Kentucky Encyclopedia (1992)
“Introduction,” in Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition: Kentuckians and World War II
(Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1994)
“Kentucky,” in Donald C. Bacon, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the United States Congress. Vol
3(1995)
“Kentucky,” in Dictionary of American History: A Supplement (1996)
“Kentucky Business History: A Story Begging to be Told,” Kentucky Humanities 1 (1997)
“Migration and Kentucky: An Overview,” in Kentucky Connections: Teaching with History
(1998)
“Time Past and Time Future: Kentucky History, People, and the Next Century”
Kentucky Living 52 (1998)
“What Might Have Been,” Kentucky Journal (1998)
“Foreword,” in Craig T. Friend, ed., The Buzzel about Kentuck (Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 1998).
“Earle Chester Clements,” in Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., Scribner’s Encyclopedia of American
Lives. Vol. 1 (1998)
“J.C.S. Blackburn,” “W.C.P. Breckinridge,” in John A. Garraty and Mark C. Caines, eds.,
American National Biography. Vol. 2, 3.
“Robert Jefferson Breckinridge,” in Richard J. Attenbaugh, ed., Historical Dictionary of
American Education (1999)
“James Douglas Breckinridge,” “Whig Party,” in John E. Kleber, ed., Encyclopedia of
Louisville (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000)
“Looking Backward Into the Future,” Kentucky Humanities (2000)
“What if…?” Kentucky Humanities (2000)
Georgetown (published in Japanese only, 2000)
“John Cabell Breckinridge,” Encyclopedia of the American Civil War. Vol. 1 (2000)
“John Sherman Cooper,” Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Lives. Vol. 3 (2001)
“Undertaking a Capital Campaign: Lessons from the Kentucky Historical Society,” History
News, 56 (Spring 2001)
“William Goebel,” in Leonard Schlup and James G. Ryan, eds., Historical Dictionary of the
Gilded Age (2003)
“Foreword,” to Peter Sehlinger, Kentucky’s Last Cavalier (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical
Society, 2004)
“Duty, Honor, and Family: The Breckinridges of Kentucky,” Kentucky’s Civil War 3 (2004)
A 100 Year Partnership: Hyden Citizens Bank and Leslie County, 1904-2004 (Hyden: Citizens
Bank, 2005)
“The Echoes of the Civil War in Kentucky,” in Jerlene Rose, ed., Kentucky’s Civil War (Clay
City: Back Home in Kentucky, 2005)
“History,” in Clark’s Kentucky Almanac and Book of Facts, 2006 (Lexington: Clark Group,
2005) Also appeared in later editions.
“Mary Breckinridge” and “Frontier Nursing Service,” in Ruth Abramson and Jean Haskell, eds.,
Encyclopedia of Appalachia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006): 1642-43,
1649-50
Faces of Kentucky Teacher Guide (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006). Coauthor.
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“Introduction,” in Thomas D. Clark, My Century in History (Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2006)
“Kentucky,” in Richard Zuczak, ed., Encyclopedia of the Recontruction Era. 2 vols. (Westport,
CN: Greenwood Press, 2006): 354-58
“Foreward,” in Frederick Smock, ed., Abraham Lincoln of Kentucky (Frankfort: Kentucky Arts
Council, 2008)
“A Power Trio,” Kentucky Humanities (November 2008): 30-32
“Preface,” to Susan Dwyer, Lincoln’s Advocate (2009)
“William Goebel,” Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of
Kentucky, 2009)
Reviews:
Over 90 book reviews have appeared in some two dozen publications including:
Journal of American History
Journal of Southern History
Journal of Social History
Public Historian
Indiana Magazine of History
Ohio History
West Virginia History
Virginia Magazine of History
North Carolina Historical Review
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
Georgia Historical Quarterly
North Dakota History
Chronicles of Oklahoma
Appalachian Heritage
Atlanta History
Filson Historical Quarterly
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Louisville Courier-Journal
Lexington Herald-Leader
Journal of the Kentucky Academy of Science
Teacher College Record
Manuscripts have been read and evaluated for scholarly presses and journals including:
Journal of American History
Journal of Southern History
Law and History Review
Journal of the Early American Republic
Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
Ohio Valley History
Kentucky Review
Smithsonian
Oxford University Press
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University Press of Kentucky
LSU Press
University of Tennessee Press
University of Alabama Press
University Press of Florida
Ohio University Press
Kent State University Press
Selected Scholarly Papers:
“The Politics of Wrath: Assassination of a Kentucky Governor, 1900,” American Historical
Association, Washington, D.C., January 1999.
“W.C.P. Breckinridge,” Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia, November 15, 1979
“Practitioners of the Craft: Historians on the Job,” Southwestern Historical Association, Dallas,
TX, March 28, 1981
“Publishing in State History Journals,” Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and
History, Baltimore, Maryland, October 23, 1982
“Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: The Editor’s Role,” Ohio Valley History Conference,
Murray, Ky., October 4, 1986
“History Mysteries and Adult New Readers,” Modern Language Association Conference on
Literacy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 14, 1990
“Is Kentucky Southern?” Southern Foodways Alliance, Louisville, Ky., July. 11, 2008
“Kentucky History: Looking Back, Looking Forward,” Japan-American Society, Frankfort, Ky.,
August 13, 1996
In addition, talks have been given to university groups within the state, at the University
of Kentucky, University of Louisville, Eastern Kentucky University, Kentucky State University,
Murray State University, Morehead State University, Northern Kentucky University, Western
Kentucky University, Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College, Cumberland College,
Georgetown College, Thomas More College, Transylvania University, Union College, and
elsewhere. Overall, some 900 presentations have been made in over 75 Kentucky counties, to
groups ranging from Elderhostel and literary and historical societies, to Leadership Kentucky and
the Commonwealth Fellows, to Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau groups.
Grants/Fellowships:
Codirector, NHPRC Grant, Papers of the Governors (1980-81) $67,000
Codirector, NHPRC Grant, State Board of Assessment (1982) $22,000
Project Coordinator, Kentucky Humanities Grant, Kentucky Studies Seminar (1984) $22,000
Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, Reflections of the Past: Archival
Resources in Kentucky (1985) $143,000
Humanities scholar for over a dozen grants from the Kentucky Humanities Council and other
agencies over the years.
Breaux Fellowship, Filson Historical Society, 2004
Mellon Research Fellowship, Virginia Historical Society, 2005
Summer Study Grant, Georgetown College, 2007
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Media Experiences:
Have been contacted on a regular basis by journalists. In the field of radio, have made
numerous appearances on call-in shows and have been used as a historical resource and for
comment by the Kentucky Network, NPR, and other in-state and out-of-state stations.
Regarding television, have appeared in many in-state commercial and cable programs. In
the field of public television, have been a consultant on various programs, and have appeared in
several others, ranging from ones on Settlement Schools, to “Ed Prichard Remembers Kentucky
in the New Deal,” to more frequent appearances on “Comment on Kentucky.” Nationally, have
made several appearances on separate programs on the A & E Network, including its
“Biography” series and “Civil War Journal,” and on the History Channel.
College Duties (Abbreviated)
Chair, Curriculum Committee, 2001-2004
Chair, Teacher Education Committee, 2000-2001
Chair, Grievance Committee, 2005
Acting Chair, History Department, 2001-2002
Member, Honors Committee, 2005-2006
Member, Graduate Council, 2005-