The French Tipton Papers include correspondence, scrapbooks, and personal notes by French Tipton of Madison County, Kentucky. Overall, the collection captures Tipton's interests in history, journalism and local and regional events, as well as, to a lesser extent, national and global affairs. In particular, the collection contains the remaining notes and correspondence that Tipton had compiled while researching Madison County for his unpublished History of Madison County Kentucky.
The scrapbooks that are included in the collection contain enough information to reconstruct the public identity that Tipton maintained, whereas the surviving correspondence can be used to unravel Tipton's research methods and personal interests. French Tipton's tragic end during an altercation in downtown Richmond terminated his research and left many questions about his personal and professional life unanswered.
Only a portion of this collection has been digitized. See the
Finding Aid for a description of the entire collection.