The Filson Historical Society Digital Projects

Browse Exhibits (29 total)

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    A History of Steamboating in the Ohio Valley

    The successful transit of the steamboat New Orleans down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans in the fall and early winter of 1811 signaled a new era in American history—the age of the steamboat. The advent of steamboats on western waters impacted transportation, industry, business, communication, and culture. Ohio Valley residents quickly embraced its advantages and accepted and bore its dangers.

    The letters, diaries, business records, books, maps, photographs, prints, paintings, and artifacts in The Filson’s collection provide a record of the steamboat era in the Ohio Valley, from the famous voyage of the New Orleans to the period’s final years, when the few remaining paddle wheelers were used for entertainment and leisure travel. 

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    Breaking the Mold: Sculptor Enid Yandell

    October 2019 marks the 150th birthday of Louisville-born and nationally-renowned sculptor Enid Yandell (1869-1934). This celebratory exhibit examines how Enid broke the mold that society and the art establishment imposed on women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by pursuing a career as a sculptor. The materials in this exhibit come from the Filson Historical Society's Special Collections and represent a sampling of Enid's life as a sculptor and activist.

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    Bricks and Mortar, Soul and Heart: The Evolution of Louisville's Young Men's Hebrew Association and Jewish Community Center 1890-2022

    On its 50th Anniversary, celebrated in 1940, the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA) of Louisville dedicated ceremonies to its former president, Benjamin S. Washer. During his tenure (1911-1920), Washer led a successful campaign to build an expanded new YMHA facility. Reflecting on this triumph, community leader Louis Cohen wrote “The community’s gift of money was translated into stone and steel, lumber and plaster, bricks and mortar…but something more than money, energy, and material things that go to equip and erect a building were needed, and that was soul and heart.” 

    Indeed, community centers are physical spaces, but they are also social and emotional places. More than mere structures, they offer grounds for gathering, learning, growth, and connection. This exhibit provides glimpses into one of the oldest continuously operating community centers in the state of Kentucky, tracing its evolution from the late nineteenth century up through the present day.

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    Cecelia Larrison: A Story of Self-Liberation from Slavery

    Cecelia Larrison is one of many people who liberated themselves from slavery long before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1846, at age 15, while on a trip to Niagara Falls with her enslavers, the Thruston family of Louisville, Kentucky, Cecelia slipped away and crossed the border into Canada. 

    Throughout her years as a free woman, Cecelia faced many joys and hardships. The details of her life, like those of many formerly enslaved people, could have been lost to history. But fortunately, we have significant documentation of Cecelia’s movements and struggles, much of it coming from an unlikely source: a woman who was once her enslaver, her childhood playmate, and perhaps even her friend.  

    After her liberation, Cecelia started a nearly decade-long correspondence with her former "mistress," Frances "Fanny" Thruston. This online exhibit uses some of these letters to tell the story of Cecelia’s life after slavery. 

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    To learn more about Cecelia and Fanny and how their lives were entwined, read Cecelia and Fanny: The Remarkable Friendship Between an Escaped Slave and Her former Mistress by Brad Asher.

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    Celebration Menu Collection

    This is an exhibit of menus from across Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee from various celebrations including; Christmas, Thanksgiving, Weddings, and even appreciation dinners. These menus show us what foods were popular over the years and what traditions were common depending on location and hierarchy. 

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    Continuity of Care: Transforming Jewish Hospital for Modern Louisville, 1945-1980

    Jewish Hospital opened in 1905 as a charitable institution with a joint mission of patient care and education. Funded entirely by Louisville’s Jewish community, it provided culturally sensitive treatment to new Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, as well as training and practice opportunities for aspiring Jewish doctors facing professional restrictions. Forty years later at the end of World War II, Jewish Hospital made a major leap: leaving its original Kentucky and Floyd Street location for a state-of-the-art new facility in the heart of Louisville.  

    OUR GOAL IS A NEW JEWISH HOSPITAL,” wrote Jewish Hospital Board President Milton Trost in 1945.  “It is our only expression of providing the city of Louisville with an institution dedicated to service for all religions and citizens. The expanded and thoroughly modernized Jewish Hospital opened on Chestnut Street and Brooks in the winter of 1955. By 1980 it had become a nationally renowned multi-specialty medical center. These decades were full of challenges and growth as the hospital worked to uphold its original mission amid major social, economic, and medical changes.

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    Encountering the First American West

    For more than two centuries, American national identity has been tied inextricably to the idea of the West. The western dream of individual freedom and limitless expansion has shaped American cultural values and political ideologies.

    At the same time, the violent acquisition of Indigenous lands and the transplanting of enslavement of African-descended people into new states set the stage for generations of sectional conflict and a lasting legacy of trauma and legal, economic, and geographical structures of inequality.

    NEH Preferred Seal
    First American West was generously funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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    Evolving Inspiration: The Art and Design of Julius Friedman

    Innovator. Experimenter. Prolific. Lively. Artist and graphic designer Julius Friedman (1943-2017) was Louisville’s beloved and renowned image maker and cultural advocate. Throughout his fifty-year career, Friedman embraced a vast range of media and methods to delight viewers with his visual artistry. As a designer he crafted iconic advertisements for clients in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors and produced dozens of book publications. As an artist, he experimented extensively, constantly pushing the photographic medium and exploring book arts, sculpture, dance, and video. An enthusiastic collaborator and dedicated member of Louisville’s arts community, Julius Friedman is widely and deeply missed.

    In 2018, the artist’s sister and longtime manager, Carol Abrams, generously donated works from his estate to the Filson’s collection. From September 26th, 2019 through February 28th, 2020, the Filson mounted an original exhibit based on this collection in the Nash Gallery called Evolving Inspiration: The Art and Design of Julius Friedman. We present here highlights from the exhibition and a digital tour through the phases of Julius Friedman’s rich and multi-faceted career.

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    Forgotten Foundations: Louisville’s Lost Architecture

    In the mid-20th century, downtowns were “modernized” in response to residential decline and suburban growth, with structures levelled and rebuilt. Louisville lost many historic buildings during these decades yet failed to recreate the vibrant urban scene of years past.

    Do we need so many new buildings, or should we focus on spaces that people use and enjoy? How can we apply urban planning and architecture to make city streets places where people are present, day and night? How do we create an urban experience through architecture – a place with its own unique ambiance? 

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    Geneva H. Bell Textile Collection

    The textiles of Geneva Howard Bell (1905-2013) became a part of The Filson’s museum collection in mid-2015. Geneva was the wife of Dr. Jesse B. Bell, a nationally-recognized physician and prominent figure in Kentucky’s African American community. Dr. Bell was the first African American physician to practice at Jewish Hospital in Louisville. Both Geneva and Dr. Bell worked tirelessly to improve health and education for Kentucky children. Geneva was an active member of Mount Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church and a teacher in the Louisville Public School System.

    The collection consists of twenty-eight pieces varying from shift dresses to hats, accessories and outerwear. The items represent fashions from the 1960s-80s and are a wonderful compliment to the Jesse B. Bell Photograph Collection (006PC5); Jesse Bennett Bell (1904-1998) Papers, 1924-1998 (Mss. A B433 1-21); and the Dr. Bell portrait (1999.13.1). The textiles were processed in May 2015 by Filson volunteer and museum professional Jennifer Spence.

    The following gallery highlights only a portion of the collection; researchers may visit The Filson and view the remaining items digitally through PastPerfect, The Filson’s museum software database.

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    History of the Louisville Legion

    The Commonwealth of Kentucky has a long history of military service, dating back to its frontier days as a Virginia territory. Volunteer militias were initially formed in the Kentucky territory as a fighting force opposed to indigenous tribes still living in the region. Kentucky combatants were particularly infamous amongst the indigenous peoples of the midwestern territories for their ferociousness in combat. As military engagements developed from frontier skirmishes to large-scale battles with sovereign nations abroad, the Kentucky military responded with enthusiastic service. This fierce spirit in combat would define the military history of Kentucky, particularly the history of the Louisville Legion. 

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    I Scream America: The History of Enslaved People at Oxmoor Plantation

    The state of Kentucky and its people have a complex relationship with enslavement and the disenfranchisement of Black and Indigenous peoples. The institution of slavery touched every aspect of American life before, during, and after the Civil Warand we still see the scars of bondage on our state today. 

    The title "I Scream America" comes from the art of Red Biddix, whose work from the Filson collection is featured in this digital exhibit. In this work, Biddix presents her view of how America was founded on anti-Blackness and white supremacy, and her belief that these inequalities continue to be baked in our education systems, prisons, police workforces, and more.  

    This digital exhibit highlights the families of those who were enslaved by the Bullitt family at the Oxmoor and Cottonwood plantations in Kentucky from the founding of the state to the late 1870s. After a brief history of the two plantations, this exhibit discusses the roles that gender, marriages, hemp house burnings, and self-emancipation played in subverting the institution of slavery. This exhibit reworks the Bullitt Family Papers-Oxmoor Collection, one of the Filson's largest manuscript collections, to speak from the perspective of those in bondage, and to highlight their agency within enslavement. 

    One of these families is the Sanders family, headed by Eliza Sanders and her husband, Jim Sanders. While not all people enslaved by the Bullitt family were tied by blood to the Sanders family, the use of the Sanders name in the project and the digitization and exhibition of these sources aims to recognize all of the people and families enslaved by the Bullitt family and bring academic attention to the complex community they fostered among each other while in bondage.

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    Jerry Abramson, Louisville’s Mayor for Life

    The long career of Jerry Edwin Abramson (b. 1946) took him from a small family grocery store in Louisville’s Smoketown neighborhood to City Hall, the Kentucky State Capitol, and eventually the West Wing of the White House. One of the most prominent politicians in Louisville’s history, Abramson holds several distinctions in city memory and politics: the first Jewish mayor of Louisville and the longest-serving mayor in the city’s history, earning him the local title “Mayor for Life.” Throughout three decades in municipal government, Abramson’s impact on Louisville has been profound, and his legacy endures in the modern landmarks, policies, and infrastructure of Kentucky’s largest city. In 2011, he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky under Steve Beshear and, in 2014, was appointed Deputy Assistant to the President and White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Barak Obama.  

    In 2020, Jerry and Madeline Abramson donated an extensive collection of papers and photographs to the Filson, documenting years of family and professional history. This exhibit provides highlights from the collections, life and work of Louisville’s Mayor for Life. Interested in learning more? Visit finding aids for the Abramson Papers and Photographs 

    The Filson is tremendously grateful to Rabbi Stanley Miles for all his work arranging the Abramson collections and writing their biographical and contextual notes.  

    In 2016 and 2017, Dr. Carol Ely interviewed Madeline and Jerry and Abramson for the Kentucky Jewish Oral History Project led by professors Jan Fernheimer and Beth Goldstein at the University of Kentucky Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History. The complete interviews are fully digitized and accessible. Jerry's interview can be found here, and Madeline's here. Links to these interviews are also included throughout the exhibit sections. 

    Exhibit curated by Dorian Cleveland, Abby Glogower, and Danielle Spalenka 

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    Louisville, City in Transition

    Ivey W. Cousins captured streetscapes and buildings in downtown Louisville from Broadway north to the Ohio River and the residential district of Third and Fourth Streets in Old Louisville in 1959. During an era of transition with urban renewal in full swing, construction of expressways, and the expansion of the downtown medical complex—Cousins documented many of the buildings and streetscapes lost to history.

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    Mammoth Life and Accident Insurance, Co.

    Mammoth Life and Accident Insurance, Co. (1915-1992) was one of the largest Black-owned and operated companies in Kentucky's history. Four individuals founded Mammoth Life during the "Golden Age of Black Business" in Louisville, Kentucky: B.O. Wilkerson, Rochelle I. Smith, William H. Wright, and Henry E. Hall. By 1928, Mammoth Life opened district offices in seven neighboring states: Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. The corporation was central to the Black community for decades, especially during the height of racial segregation. In 1992, Atlanta Life Insurance brought out Mammoth Life, another Black-owned business headquartered in Georgia. By 1994, Atlanta Life closed down the flagship Louisville district office. This digital exhibit pairs together black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, and pastel portraits of former presidents to explore the history of Mammoth Life and Accident Insurance, Co.

    Please note that the Filson Historical Society does not have insurance policy records for Mammoth Life. Requests for their insurance policy records should be made to Kemper Life Insurance Company at 1-800-777-8467.

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    Novia James White Photograph Collection: Life in Peace and War

    The Novia James White Photograph Collection shares snapshots of a life in peacetime and in war. Through these pictures, we can glimpse some of the ordinary days of White's life growing up in Kentucky and marrying in Los Angeles. But the bulk of the collection shows the extraordinary days of his Air Force service in Japan during World War II, including many photos taken from the air.

    See more photos from the collection here.

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    Olde England on the Ohio: Louisville's Tudor Revival

    Revivals in art, architecture, and design are movements that draw inspiration from the past. Tudor Revival is a style that became a nationwide phenomenon and remains beloved in cities and communities across the country.

    When it burst onto the American landscape in the early twentieth century, Tudor Revival was immediately the subject of debate. Emerging at a time of heated discourse about immigration, race, and class, Tudor Revival was seen by many as an antidote to modern America's changing social fabric. Critics, academics, and tastemakers worked to define the style's limits and meaning. It was parsed into increasingly narrow subgenres, each with its own rigid rules that remain with us today.

    ''Olde England on the Ohio'' challenges this narrowing of Tudor Revival's scope and definition. Using Louisville as a microcosm, this exhibit suggests Tudor Revival was an expansive movement that went far beyond architecture and design. While elites looked to restrict Tudor's access and importance to a select few, everyday Americans freely drew from a wide spectrum of Tudor influences to create fun, fanciful, and beautiful worlds for themselves. This exhibit reconsiders Tudor Revival as a broad cultural moment decided from the ground up, not the top down.

    "Olde England on the Ohio: Louisville's Tudor Revival" was featured in the Filson Historical Society's Bingham Gallery from November 4, 2022 to March 3, 2023. It was guest curated by Daniel Gifford, Ph.D. and was made possible through the generous support of Stock Yards Bank and Trust.

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    Paul Günter: Studio Portraiture to Art Photography

    In conjunction with the 2021 Louisville Photo Biennial, the Filson is proud to present this virtual exhibit, Paul Günter: Studio Portraiture to Art Photography.

    Immigrating from Hanover, Germany in 1886, Paul Günter (1857-1936) settled in Louisville, KY, establishing himself as a commercial and art photographer. Coming from a family of photographers, one can assume that Günter immigrated to the United States in hopes of opening his own photographic studioShortly after arriving to Louisville, Günter is listed as an artist with Stuber and Bro. a prominent photographic studio located at 616 East Chestnut street. By 1891, he is listed as the successor to Daniel Stuber’s studio, another notable German photographer. Günter’s work documents three major aspects of his career and lifeStudio photographyworkhe created to make a living, Family photography—snap shots of intimate views of his family and friends, and Art photography—where he focused on capturing the natural world, architecture, and people, including several unique views of the African American community.

    Like other prominent Louisville photographers of the time, Paul Günter’s work undoubtedly is represented in the personal collections of countless Louisville families and in the photograph collections of many historical institutions. What makes this collection so significant is that it is Günter’s personal collection, and more completely documents and preserves the legacy of his work. The photographs reveal more than Günter’s skill as a commercial photographer. In them is seen his favorite subject material as well as his interest in and experimentation with evolving photographic techniques, such as lighting and focus. This exhibit provides insight into the life and legacy of Paul Günter through the photographs he left behind.

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    Shantyboat: Life on the Ohio

    “A shantyboat is a scow with a small house on it. Nearly always a homemade job, it is put together with odd scraps of material and pieces of driftwood and wreckage. Yet it is more than a floating homestead: it is an ark which the river bears toward a warmer climate, better fishing grounds, and more plentiful and easier work on shore. At one place after another the hopeful boatman lays over for a spell, until disillusioned, he lets his craft be caught up by the river’s current, to be carried like the driftwood, farther downstream. At last he beaches out for good, somewhere in the south, where his children pass for natives.” 

    Harlan Hubbard defined a shantyboat and a shantyboater’s life in this quote from his landmark book on his own river experience, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life. Shantyboaters’ experiences varied from those who floated downriver as Hubbard describes, to those who lived in beached boats with gardens and livestock, squatting on privately or publicly owned lands. Floating and permanent shantyboaters faced dangers on the water and from floods. While some made their livelihood on the river through fishing and transportation, others worked on land in saw mills, coal yards, in other local factories and as domestics in private homes and hotels. Through their living quarters and work, shantyboaters made up one part of Louisville’s community on the river, which also included those there for recreation, transportation, and entertainment. Shantyboats coexisted with showboats, steamboats, and barges, sailboats, rowboats, and towboats, both in Louisville and in other cities up and down the Ohio River.

    This digital exhibit pairs the research of Dr. Mark Wetherington, former Director of the Filson Historical Society, with resources from the Filson’s collections. Denigrated as “squatty little half-house, half-boat,” shantyboats provided dwelling places for as many as 50,000 people along American rivers during the Great Depression. From the 1850s until the 1950s, Louisville had a thriving shantyboat community by the outlet of Beargrass Creek along River Road near Butchertown, at an area called “The Point.” In this exhibit, you'll learn about the people and customs of the river and the "underground economy” that thrived on fishing, basket making and harvesting mussel shells for buttons. "Shantyboat Life on the Ohio" is a glimpse into an Ohio River way of life. 

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    Shrouded in Jet and Crepe: A Look into Mourning Attire and Ribbons at the Filson Historical Society

    For women in the Victorian era, death and mourning were part of life. High infant mortality rates, poor sanitation, and social and political unrest left many shrouded in grief, both emotionally and physically. Mourning etiquette in Europe and America, particularly in the nineteenth century, entailed a theatrical display of one’s personal grief. While all members of society took part in these rituals, they are best understood by examining the clothing and accessories of women as they progressed through the different stages of mourning. Though the exhibit does include a few items worn by men, it focuses primarily on material culture affiliated with women. The Filson Historical Society's collection includes a wide variety of mourning garments, jewelry, and clothing accessories, as well as memorial ribbons, portraits, and posthumous portraits.