Harry M. Caudill Papers

Born in 1922, Harry M. Caudill grew up with a zest for history and reading in the coal fields of Letcher County, Kentucky.  After being seriously wounded in Italy during World War II, Caudill went to the University of Kentucky Law School.  While at UK, he met Anne Frye, whom he married in 1946.  After law school, Caudill practiced law in Whitesburg, in Letcher County, and held some local political offices, in addition to a seat on the Kentucky House of Representatives. However, it was with Caudill’s 1963 book, Night Comes to the Cumberlands: A Biography of a Depressed Area, that the Eastern Kentucky lawyer’s life took a slightly different turn.  One of the first works to closely examine Eastern Kentucky, Caudill looked at the area’s history and present, predicting a grim future.  Particularly, the author focused upon the people of Eastern Kentucky, coal companies and the effects of strip mining and the poor conditions its people were living, learning and working in.  In later years, Caudill’s theory of poor gene stock of Scotch-Irish and German descent of the Eastern Kentuckians became very controversial, however, the book was and is a very influential work on Eastern Kentucky, effecting Government, Washington and individuals, ranging from Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln, former Kentucky governors and Appalachian writers such as Denise Giardina. After retiring from practicing law, Caudill wrote 6 more books, numerous articles and editorials and spoke widely on strip mining and other Eastern Kentucky subjects. However, in seeming despair over increasing pain from a WW II leg injury and progressively worsening symptoms of Parkinsonism, Caudill took his own life November 29, 1990.