Tales From Kentucky Sheriffs, and: Fields of Learning: The Student Farm Movement in North America, and: Ripe for Emancipation: Rockbridge and Southern Antislavery from Revolution to Civil War, and: The Brandeis Century: Constant Values in Changing Times (review)

“The position of sheriff is the only true grassroots law enforcement agency in the United States,” notes one sheriff interviewed for this volume (p. 5). Given such an opinion, it is not surprising that the eminent Kentucky folklorist’s latest collection should focus on sheriffs. What may be more surprising is the breadth of the topics covered—from politics, to meth, to humorous local characters.

Part history of the student farm movement on college campuses, part practical handbook on starting and maintaining such a farm, and part manifesto on the value of such programs for students, academic institutions, communities, and environments, this volume will find a receptive audience across the country in an era where issues of food sustainability are increasingly pressing. Kentucky readers will find an essay on the Berea College Farm, a model for programs nationwide, particularly interesting.

This well-researched study of the local antislavery movement in and around Lexington, Virginia, sheds interesting light on slavery and antislavery in the whole of the Upper South, Kentucky included. In Young’s discussions of local antislavery ministers, American Colonization Society members, and politicians, readers see the spread and influence of white southern antislavery thought as well as the inevitable opposition such ideas faced within local communities. This scale, referencing the national debate within the county, makes this study methodologically valuable, even to those studying similar movements outside of Rockbridge.

This lavishly illustrated centennial history of Louisville’s Brandeis Machinery & Supply Company goes beyond the bounds of the usual institutional history. Kramer sets the history of the company within the story of the twentieth-century industrial development of Kentucky and the nation, making this a useful as well as an attractive book.