Thomas H. Appleton, Jr. Collection

Collection

Identifier: 2018A012

Thomas H. Appleton Jr. Collection

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Scope and Contents

Dr. Thomas H. Appleton, Jr. started regularly collecting historical Kentucky materials after he started working at the Kentucky Historical Society in the 1980s. The collection he continues to build consists of materials such as correspondence, ephemera, publications, legal documents and other items, which span over 200 years of Kentucky history. Some notable figures mentioned in the correspondence include Henry Clay, Charles S. Morehead, A.B. 'Happy' Chandler, Phyllis George Brown, Alben Barkley, Barbara Bush, and many more. Materials contain information about politics, religion, pop culture, death, slavery, the military and more. The collection is state-wide in scope; however, most materials are from central Kentucky. The collection continues to grow thanks to a generous endowment funded by Dr. Appleton.

Dates

Creation: 1812 - 2015
Acquisition: 2014-12-11

Biographical or Historical Information

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Thomas H. Appleton Jr. (Tom) was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1950. After graduating from the University of Memphis in 1971, he enrolled at the University of Kentucky to pursue a doctorate in American history. At UK he was fortunate to study under two of the eminent scholars in that field, Charles P. Roland and Holman Hamilton. In 1979, he joined the publications department of the Kentucky Historical Society, where he rose from assistant editor to editor in chief in 1990. His work at the KHS nurtured his desire to collect historical materials, which he had begun in elementary school. In 2000, he became professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University; in 2015 he was named Foundation Professor. As he approached retirement (2018), he decided that the archives and special collections department at EKU's Crabbe Library would be the logical repository for his collection. At the same time he established an endowment that would permit the purchase of additional materials to augment the collection. He hopes to inspire other patrons to donate their materials as well.

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