Edward F. Prichard, Jr. Oral History Project

A native of Paris, Kentucky, Edward F. Prichard Jr. (1915--1984) graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, a member of the White House staff during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and an advisor to many Kentucky governors, and served on the Kentucky Council on Higher Education and the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. Prichard and his associates discuss Prichard family history, Bourbon County life in the 1920s, Prichard's early interest in the law, the politics of the Prichard family, the Ku Klux Klan and race relations in Bourbon County in the 1920s, Princeton University and Harvard Law School in the 1930s, union organizing activities in Harlan County in the 1930s, A. B. "Happy" Chandler's gubernatorial administrations in the 1930s and 1950s, Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the New Deal, the Neutrality Act and Lend-Lease, the Office of Price Management, the Progressive Citizens Political Action Committee, Americans for Democratic Action, the 1946 Moss Bill in the Kentucky legislature, economic and social conditions in Kentucky immediately after World War II, Prichard's work in the Earle C. Clements administration, desegregation in Kentucky, television and politics, Bert T. Combs's gubernatorial administration, the growth of state universities in the 1960s, the Earle C. Clements truck deal controversy, the United States Senate election of 1962, and the role of lobbyists in state government. The interviews conducted by Vic Hellard with Prichard and two of his associates are also available at the Kentucky Oral History Commission (see Collection Number 18-09).