Katherine Jackson French: Kentucky’s Forgotten Ballad Collector by Elizabeth DiSavino

Katherine Jackson French (1875-1958) was born and raised in a leading family in London, Kentucky. In 1906 she became the second woman, and first from the South, to earn a PhD from Columbia University. When she returned home to London, Kentucky, she became involved in discovering the ballads of Kentucky mountain people and made trips into the interior to do just that. She prepared a book about the ballads of the Kentucky mountains, but could never convince Berea College President Frost to publish her book and knew of no others with contacts in the publishing business. In 1911 she married William French, a London, Kentucky, businessman, and her work on balladry diminished. In 1917 her husband took a job in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Katherine went with him and experienced a distinguished career as an educator there. The author of this book, Elizabeth DiSavino, believes that had Katherine Jackson French’s book been published, it would have established Appalachian Balladry in a substantial