Collins Project Progress
March 22, 2013 in 1950s-1960s, Intellectual history, Oral history, Primary source
Martha Layne Collins
The research being done by my partners and I for the Martha Layne Collins project we are working on has been proving very fruitful. We were able to obtain many more leads on her life before her role as governor in the library when we began searching for her under her maiden name of Martha Layne Hall. There we found a lot of pictures of her during her time at UK and information about the numerous activities she was involved in on campus. This weekend we plan to visit the Historical Society in Versailles to see the file that is there on her to see if we can discover any thing about her time as a teacher or student.
The lead that has been the most beneficial so far in my opinion is a women named Duane Puckett. My partner stumbled across her while emailing Shelby County High Schools to find out information on Collins’ time in high school when the principal of Shelby County High School forwarded her correspondence to Miss Puckett, who has been family friends with Collins’ family for years, although they are a few years apart in age. After sending a couple of e-mails back and forth with her, we plan to schedule a face-to-face interview with her to ask her questions about Collins’ early life and her personality; basically anything she knows about Collins’ and her family. We think this can be especially promising because there is a good chance that a lot of this information will be new and undocumented. We hope to record this interview and hopefully get some pictures as well. All of these things we hope to find to possibly understand better how Collins was a community bridge leader who helped in some way organize the civil rights movement in Kentucky.
Randolph Hollingsworth said on March 25, 2013
very exciting lead! great job in history-sleuthing… this is exactly how many of the great histories come about, just one step after another just like this.
granestrella said on March 25, 2013
I think it’s wonderful that you’ve been able to track down someone that knew her well! My partner and I have not been as fortunate with Audrey Grevious but we hope to uncover pictures as well. Including information about Collins and time her at UK will be extremely interesting and will give you the opportunity to build a great context around her early work.
dreambig123 said on March 25, 2013
I think you did a great job of explaining the resources that you have found thus far in your project as well as how each of these resources has impacted the work that you have been able to do. I really like your description of the most helpful source that you have found. It truly provides a lot of insight to how your project is going so far!