Episode 13 - The Ballad Collector, Katherine Jackson French
Minerva Katherine Jackson French was a Laurel County native who was instrumental in collecting and preserving numerous old English and Scottish ballads carried from the Old World to the New, migrating from the early settlers of America to the Appalachian region of Kentucky, where they were hidden away from the rest of the world for 150 years.
She was a daughter of Maria Louisa McKee Jackson and her husband, William Harvey Jackson, who was a grandson of John Jackson and Mary Forest Hancock Jackson, who, along with their son, Jarvis Jackson, are credited with founding the city of London, the county seat of Laurel County.
According to her biographer, Elizabeth DiSavino, Minerva Katherine Jackson was “the first woman from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to earn a doctorate from Columbia University, only the second to do so in the history of the college, and one of the first Kentucky women to earn such a degree from any standard university.”
In addition to her ballad collecting, Jackson was a teacher in a variety of schools and colleges in a number of states, as well as being involved in civic and religious organizations and community endeavore.
Listen to this episode to learn more about this amazing and accomplished woman.
Episode 13 - The Ballad Collector, Katherine Jackson French
Minerva Katherine Jackson French was a Laurel County native who was instrumental in collecting and preserving numerous old English and Scottish ballads carried from the Old World to the New, migrating from the early settlers of America to the Appalachian region of Kentucky, where they were hidden away from the rest of the world for 150 years.
She was a daughter of Maria Louisa McKee Jackson and her husband, William Harvey Jackson, who was a grandson of John Jackson and Mary Forest Hancock Jackson, who, along with their son, Jarvis Jackson, are credited with founding the city of London, the county seat of Laurel County.
According to her biographer, Elizabeth DiSavino, Minerva Katherine Jackson was “the first woman from south of the Mason-Dixon Line to earn a doctorate from Columbia University, only the second to do so in the history of the college, and one of the first Kentucky women to earn such a degree from any standard university.”
In addition to her ballad collecting, Jackson was a teacher in a variety of schools and colleges in a number of states, as well as being involved in civic and religious organizations and community endeavore.
Listen to this episode to learn more about this amazing and accomplished woman.