John Fetterman Papers

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: BCA 0027 SAA 026

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

These are correspondence, research materials, writings, and photographs of Courier Journal-Louisville Times reporter and editor, John Fetterman (1920-1975). Fetterman, a Danville, Kentucky native, served three and half years in the U.S. Navy and then attended Murray State University under the G.I. bill, graduating in 1948. He worked for the Murray Ledger and Times and the Nashville Tennessean. He also tried his hand at high school teaching and did post-graduate work at the University of Kentucky before coming to the Louisville papers in 1957 as a staff writer and photographer. During his Louisville years, he also did free lance writing for such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Time, Life, and National Geographic.

Dates

created: 1940-1973

Creator

Fetterman, John. (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Records can be accessed through the Reading Room, Berea College Special Collections and Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College.

Conditions Governing Use

Some items are restricted including several photographs made by Kentucky hospitals and police departments, a series of 17 medical x-ray films, and excerpts from medical and police records that include the names and locales of child abuse victims and their alleged attackers.

Note on Copyright: The Louisville Courier-Journal holds the copyright to photographs used by Fetterman to illustrate articles produced for the newspaper. Researchers must be granted permission from the Courier-Journal before photographs can be duplicated for publication or other use.

Copyright regulations apply to all materials. Please cite.

Extent

30.00 ms_boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Fetterman was a prolific writer on a wide variety of subjects that ranged from the whimsical to the tragic. He is probably best remembered for his stories about the impact on eastern Kentucky of strip mining, the War on Poverty, and Vietnam. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for his article, "PFC Gibson Comes Home," which dealt with the death of a young Knott County, Kentucky soldier in Vietnam and its impact on his family and community. Earlier, he had contributed to a Courier-Journal series on strip mining, which won a Pulitzer in 1967. Additional writings on Appalachian related topics include “The People of Cumberland Gap” for National Geographic (11-71) and his book, Stinking Creek (1967) that portrayed life in the Stinking Creek area of Knox County, Kentucky. The core of his writing success has been described as a penchant for simplifying the complex and capturing moods. Speaking of his approach to reporting, he once said “all I try to do is find out how ordinary people are touched by things going on around them and then tell the truth about it.”

Arrangement Note

Arrangement of the collection is by series:

Series 1: Personal / Biographical

Series 2: Pulitzer Prize Materials

Series 3: Published Writings

Series 4: Research Subject Files

Series 5: Stinking Creek

Series 6: Photographs