Browse Items (164 total)
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Kirkpatrick
Aged 5 yrs. Property of E. S. Washington and A. D. Offutt Fayette Co., Ky. A prize cattle specimen c. 1850s. -
Natchez vs. Robert E. Lee
Harper's Weekly print dated November 12, 1870, of the famous steamboat race between the Natchez and the Robert E. Lee. The two boats raced in the summer of 1870. The Robert E. Lee won the famed steamboat race against the Natchez, going from New Orleans to St. Louis, Missouri, a distance of 1,154 miles, in 3 days, 18 hours, and 14 minutes. -
Steamboat Disaster on the Ohio
Hand-colored print from Harper's Weekly showing the collision and fire when the steamboats America and United States collided on December 4, 1868. -
On the Mississippi, ca. 1869
A Currier & Ives lithograph of the steamboat Mayflower, circa 1869. Printmakers Nathaniel Currier and James Merrit Ives produced some of the most popular American art of the 19th century. The company specialized in publishing inexpensive hand-colored lithographic prints for the growing American middle class. -
Passage Down the Ohio River, November 16, 1861
Hand-colored illustration from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 16 November 1861, entitled "Passage Down the Ohio River of General Negley's Pennsylvania Brigade, Consisting of the 77th, 78th and 79th Regiments Pennsylvania Volunteers, Under Colonels Hambright, Stambauch and Sewall, En Route for the Seat of War in Kentucky." The illustration shows Federal troops being transported by steamboat down the Ohio with civilians waving to them from the shore. -
Eliza's Flight
Litho: Eliza and baby crossing ice floes (scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin) -
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Heigold house façade, ca. 1950
Heigold house facade after house was demolished and facade rebuilt on River Road. House built in 1857. Originally 264 Marion. Owner Charles Heigold. -
"The New Art Gallery"
The great expositions of the 19th century were spectacles that displayed the nation's industrial, technical, and cultural accomplishments in the decades following the Civil War. Massive galleries dedicated to art provided unprecendented opportunities for American artists to exhibit their work the hundreds of thousands of visitors. Thum exhibited work at the Southern Exposition held in Louisville from 1883-1887. It helped launch her career and she developed a lasting friendship with expo's curator Charles Kurtz, an influencer in New York. Following the exposition Thum actively exhibited her work throughout the country.
-1893, Columbia's Exposition in Chicago
-1886 and 1889, National Academy of Design in New York City
-1897, Nashville, Centennial Exposition
-1898, Trans-Mississippi International Exposition
-1905, St. Louis World's Fair -
Three-year-old Patty Thum, 1856
Patty Thum was known for her paintings of flowers, especially roses but she was also a talented landscape and portrait artist. She is one of the city's earliest professional woman artists. She also was an author, inventor, and major advocate for the arts in the City of Louisville. She dedicated her life to art from the age of 16 right up until her death at the age of 73.
Born in Louisville in 1853, Patty was the eldest child of Louisa Miller and Mandeville Thum, a doctor with a practice on Jefferson Street. Patty attended the Louisville Girl's School (the city's first public school). Patty was 9 years old when her father died in 1862, serving as a surgeon for the Confederate 7th Arkansas Infantry. Louisa never remarried and ensured her sons and daughters all attended college.
In 1869, at the age of 16, Thum left home and traveled north to study art at Vassar College, established in 1861 to "accomplish for young women what our colleges are accomplishing for young men." -
Ladies' Book of the U.B.F.: Constitution, General Laws, By-Laws, and Rules of Order Installation, Funeral Ceremonies
Dinnie Thompson (1857-1939) was a member of the Sisters of Mysterious Ten (SMT), a Black women's benevolent society in Louisville. As a young child, she was enslaved by the Speed family, along with her mother, Diana, and grandmother, Phyllis Thurston. From 1889 through the 1920s, she worked as a laundress or domestic in private households, eventually earning enough money to purchase her own home. In the SMT, Thompson found a social support network and opportunities to do charitable work. In the Knights of Friendship, a related branch of the organization, she participated in patriotic demonstrations and competitive drills and was given a sword engraved with her name. -
Song Stories for the Kindergarten
Though best known for writing "Happy Birthday to You" sisters Mildred and Patty Smith collaborated on hundreds of children's songs. With songs such as "Washing and Ironing," "The Waking Flowers," "Each Mother Loves Best," and "The Blacksmith's Song," the Hills explored important concepts such as emotions, the natural world, and occupations in relatable and memorable ways. In this songbook's introduction, Anna Bryan (1858-1901) writes, "In consecutive work with children, songs selected with reference to a leading thought and to its gradually developed details, are more educative than it is possible for them to be when made an end in themselves." The book is dedicated to the Louisville Free Kindergarten Association -
Annual Catalogue of Pupils
In 1852, 250 girls attended Science Hill Female Academy. Students were primarily from Kentucky as well as Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas, and California.
Tevis advocated for equal education in science for women. Despite advice to "let Chemistry alone" as a subject better suited for men, Tevis built a chemistry lab a Science Hill in the early 1850s.
"Chemistry is especially requisite for the successful progress of our inquiries and researches into the nature of those things whence we derive the means of our comfort, our happiness, our luxuries, our health, and even our existence...In an an experimental science, where truth lies within our reach, we should make use of our sense and judge for ourselves."
-Julia Ann Hieronymus Tevis -
Second Annual Catalogue of the Elizabethtown Female Seminary, 1857
At age 15, Stow began a three-year course of study at Elizabethtown Female Seminary in Ohio, a boarding school 16 miles from Cincinnati. The school's mission was to cultivate "earnest and independent thought," to teach habits of "order, economy, punctuality, and industry," and to qualify women to "enter any Sphere that Providence may assign."
Stow's friends were all from rural farming communities in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. She and the other girls from Switzerland County travelled upriver by steamboat to reach the school, where they lived during the school term. -
School Schedule for Elizabethtown Female Seminary
Elizabethtown Seminary's curriculum was designed to be challenging. Science and math were given priority, and subjects included natural history, botany, physiology, atronomy, geology, mineralogy, chemistry, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. Viola was often nervous before examinations and dedicated many hours to study.
She and the other students were assigned daily domestic tasks such as preparing meals and doing dishes. Some students also made pies or cakes. It could take up to 2 hours to wash dishes after a single meal. -
Letter from Viola Stow to brother Loring Stow, 1858
The young women found the seminary's rules severe. They were afraid to be caught talking during the strictly enforced quiet study time. In their correspondence, several students refer to their school as a "nunnery." They sometimes found it a lonely place, lacking the company of young men and society. Stow's older brother's occasional visits to the seminary were always highly anticipated.
Stow expressed some envy of her brothers and the difference in their school experiences. She expected that her older brother was "enjoying himself finely" at school in Cincinnati. She told her younger brother that she was glad he was next in line for "edification," assuring him that boys are given more privileges than girls, so he wouldn't have a hard time at school.