.
By Kyle Beeler
Collection Overview
Scope and Contents of the Materials
This collection is composed of essays and short stories about nature and ecology as well as photographs of nature. The photographs include a large collection of magic lantern slides that consist of wooded areas, the Red River Gorge, Cumberland Falls, etc. taken during EKU class excursions as well as many photographs of plants, mushrooms, lichens, birds and wildlife. There is also a set of photos showing Dr. Smith's peach orchard from planting to harvest and another set of baby photos of Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College faculty and staff.
Dr. Smith believed that the young people of the early 20th century were "very deficient in a first hand acquaintance with the commonest things in nature" and attempted to create in his students an interest and "a burning desire" to know about nature. The short stories and essays written by Dr. Smith include the manuscript of a book he hoped to publish, "Back to Nature in Pictures and Story," as well as other stories. Some of the stories mention community members such as Cassius M. Clay or students such as Earle Combs. One story describes an excursion he took with his students and another inventories ferns that he photographed. Dr. Smith's essays show his love of nature and the outdoors as he writes about the flora and fauna of the locations he hikes.
The photographs in this collection were pieced together from various other collections by using the handwriting on the back of the photos. A portion of the collection, including the magic lantern slides, came from the Dorris Museum collection and those have the number 668 penciled in on the back. A number of the lantern slides are copies of baby photos of Eastern faculty and students from the 1920s and 1930s.
Subject/Index Terms
Administrative Information
Repository:
Eastern Kentucky University - Special Collections and Archives
Acquisition Source:
Unknown
Finding Aid Revision History:
Short stories and magic lantern slides were added to the photographs in the collection 18 Nov 2013.
Other Note:
Photographs were initially numbered with the accession number; however, a decision was made to change to collection number. The database was changed, but the numbers written on the images were not changed.
Box and Folder Listing
Browse by Series:
[Series 1: Essays and Stories],
[
Series 2: Photographs],
[
All]
- Series 1: Essays and Stories
- Box 1
- Barcode: 31234014045908
- Folder 2: Amphibians, Birds Reptiles
- Item 1: Billie
- Item 2: The Courtship of Billie and Mandy/The Courtship of Billie Bufo/Animal Courtship
- Three similar short stories with different titles.
- Item 3: Billie and Manda Toad's Children
- Item 4: Billie and Manda Toad's Relatives
- Item 5: Motherly Love
- Item 6: Robin Redbreast
- Item 7: The Tragedy of Life
- Item 8: Back to Nature Thru Pictures and Story
- Item 9: Preface to back to nature
- Item 10: The Kentucky Thorobred [Thoroughbred]
- Item 11: Faithful Rover
- Item 12: The Last Warning of the Rattler
- Item 13: The Death of Beautiful Roy
- Item 14: The Tragedy of the Passenger Pigeon
- Item 15: Tim the Terrible
- Folder 3: Back to Nature Thru Pictures and Story
- Item 1: Silverstreak of Templeton Swamp
- Item 2: The Old Clearing
- Item 3: A Trip to the Old Maid's Kitchen/ A Ramble thru the Cuyahoga Gorge
- Item 4: Lichens
- Item 5: Bird Courtship, 3-Dec-21
- Item 6: Mrs. Fuzzie, Queen of the Clover Patch
- Item 7: A Shower of Toads
- Item 8: Tom and his relatives ...
- Item 9: The Heart of Nature
- Folder 4: Excursions
- Item 1: The greatest discovery of the age
- Item 2: A Hunting Trip in Search of the little giant
- Item 3: Legend of the dirty thumb-spot
- Item 4: Saturday excursions
- Item 5: A Trip to Copley Swamp
- Item 6: Trip to Boonesboro and Natural Bridge
- Folder 5: Flora
- Item 1: Among the ferns
- Item 2: Flowers
- Item 3: Forestry
- Item 4: Beauties of the flower world
- Item 5: Legend of the Indian pipe
- Folder 6: Horticulture
- Item 1: Setting trees by dynamite
- Item 2: My first peach tree
- Item 3: Preventing the winter kill of peach buds
- Item 4: Cooperation
- Item 5: How I Succeeded in Raising Watermelons on clay soil
- Folder 7: Insects
- Item 1: Cutting the bee tree
- Item 2: A great mountain feud
- Item 3: A Great Swarm of the seventeen year cicada
- Item 4: Marriage flight of Queen Antie and her friends/Marriage flight of the Black Queen
- Item 5: Migration of the Monarch
- Item 6: Argiope and her relatives
- Item 7: The singing scorpion and the spider
- Item 8: Storming the castle of Queen Baldface
- Folder 8: Mammals
- Item 1: Bess, the razorback
- Item 2: Billie O'Possum
- Item 3: Lovely Joe
- Item 4: The Mountain Wizard
- Item 5: Nimbo, the red fox of the Bluegrass.
- Item 6: The panther of Big Hill
- Item 7: Playing possum
- Item 8: Riding the two-year-old steer
- Item 9: The white fawn
- Folder 9: Mushrooms
- Item 1: Mushroom Camping Cowbell Hollow
- Folder 10: Religion
- Item 1: Common sense view of evolution
- Item 2: Traditional origin of the belief in the transmigration of souls
- Box 2
- Barcode: 31234014045890
- Folder 1: Stories
- Stories, often written in first person, but seemingly the words of someone other than the author. Names mentioned are Hugh Porter, Maude S. Caperton, Earle Combs and Cassius M. Clay.
- Item 1: The Impatience of youth
- Item 2: One day in the field with a mossback
- Item 3: Bill's first bicycle
- Item 4: My silent partners
- Item 5: Tom and I
- Item 6: Untitled Stories about Eastern
- Item 7: Making a world record
- Item 8: Aunt Debbie's story of the great tragedy
- Item 9: The great tragedy
- Item 10: Story of the corpse
Browse by Series:
[Series 1: Essays and Stories],
[
Series 2: Photographs],
[
All]
