Maude Ward Lafferty

Born in 1869, Maude Ward Lafferty was a Kentucky historian and author whose papers and published work show a deep, sustained interest in the state's past. University of Kentucky archival records note that she grew up in Cynthiana, Kentucky, continued her education at a convent in Paris, Kentucky, and later married Judge William Thornton Lafferty.

Her best-known books include A Pioneer Railway of the West, a history-centered account of early rail transportation, and The Lure of Kentucky, a historical guidebook. Archival descriptions of her papers also show that she researched and wrote about subjects such as the University of Kentucky, John B. Bowman, the Choctaw Indian Academy, Scott County history, Lexington's botanic garden, and episodes from the Revolutionary era in Kentucky.

Lafferty died in 1962, but her writing still matters as a record of how one devoted local historian gathered, organized, and shared Kentucky's stories. For listeners interested in regional history, genealogy, and the beginnings of American institutions in the border South, her work offers a window into both the past she studied and the era in which she wrote about it.