Thomas D. Clark

Thomas Dionysius Clark (July 14, 1903 – June 28, 2005) was perhaps Kentucky's most notable historian. Clark saved from destruction a large portion of Kentucky's printed history, which later become a core body of documents in the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Often referred to as the "Dean of Historians" Clark is best known for his 1937 work, A History of Kentucky. Clark was named Historian Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1991.

Born in Louisville, Mississippi to a cotton farmer and a schoolteacher, Thomas Clark received his primary education in a neighborhood school to the third grade . After that he made it only to the seventh grade at his mother's school. He dropped out of school to work at a sawmill and as many southern boys did in those days, helped out on the family farm. At sixteen, he took a job on a dredge boat that scoured the bed of the Pearl River. His mother urged him to get back in school.

From an interview, Clark recalls:

"I left the boat in September 1920. Without a job. Without a future, really. I accidentally met a boy who told me about an agricultural high school Choctaw County Agricultural High School. I went down and within 10 minutes of getting off the train I'd registered. The old superintendent didn't ask me one thing about my education. He didn't know if I could read or write. Said you look like a big stout boy. You look like you'd make a good football player. So I was admitted as a football player. I went to that school for four years [and obtained] reasonably basic preparation."

Clark had decided that farming, manual labor and river work were not going to meet his needs. At the urging of his parents, he entered the University of Mississippi in September 1925. While there, he met his first mentor, historian Charles S. Sydnor, who held a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Even though Clark had no classes under Sydnor, the two had "deep conversations" about the rich heritage of the old South. Sydnor encouraged Clark to follow his interests into post graduate studies in the field of History.

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