Browse Items · The Filson Historical Society Digital Projects

Barry Bingham and Popo, 1940

Photograph of Barry Bingham Sr. (1906-1988) seated with the family standard poodle Popo on the West Terrace, Melcomb estate. Bingham was a second-generation owner of The Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville Times, and WHAS radio and television. Popo is a frequent subject among the Bingham family photos.

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Lapdog, 1959-1964

Polaroid of Lucy C. Mickens (1895-1970) holding her pet dachshund on her lap. Lucy was born in Eastwood, Jefferson County, Kentucky, and resided in the same neighborhood her entire life. She was married to Robert Thomas, Sr., and the couple had three children, Miles, Robert, and Estella. Lucy and Robert, Sr., separated in the 1920s, and Lucy remarried twice: first to Filmore Colemand and later to John Clark. In 1927, she bought property on Gilliland Road and worked as a laundress.

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Hazelwood Tuberculosis Sanatorium

Photograph of six employees posing with dog on a bench at Hazelwood Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. Pictured on the bench holding the dog’s paw is Adele Albrecht (1888-1961). Adele met and married Dr. Lee Palmer (1897-1985) while they both worked at Hazelwood, she as a nurse and he as a resident finishing medical school at University of Louisville. After medical school the couple moved to the coal mining town of Allock, Kentucky, where he served as a mining camp doctor. Dr. Palmer went on to serve on the Jefferson County Board of Health and research polio in children, including administering some of the first polio vaccines in Louisville.

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Martha Albert Butt with dog, 1897

Strip of four photograph booth images of young Martha Albert Butt with her dog.

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Lew Family, circa 1972

Color photograph of Helen Fay Lew (1926-2017) relaxing with her four children and their family dog Holly, a border collie. Helen and her husband Calvin (1925-2008) were married in 1949 in Seattle, Washington. The couple moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1958, when Calvin joined the faculty of the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine, where he founded the Biomedical Aging Research Program. Once their four children were grown, Helen founded the Crane House in 1987 to celebrate and share Chinese culture throughout Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

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Dottie

Two photographs of Dr. Jeffrey Fowler, a Blind cardiologist at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, walking with his service dog Dottie and reading scans while Dottie sits beside him. Dr. Fowler had average vision as a child, but his eyes gradually deteriorated from a genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa. He stopped driving around 1964, during his second year of medical school. At the suggestion of a nurse who bred Akitas, Fowler acquired Dottie in 1991. Dottie went through obedience and behavior training in California and Ohio and was put into service in mid-1992. In 1994, Dottie won an annual service-dog award from the Delta Society (now called Pet Partners).

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Studio portrait with a cat, circa 1960

Portrait of Elen (Fran) Levey posing with her Siamese cat for the Jewish Community of Louisville.

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Boys on the sidewalk with dog, June 10, 1959

Reproduction of a negative by Ivey Watksins Cousins (1898-1973). It captures the joy of young Black boys playing with a pet dog in a northwestern view of East Broadway and South Jackson Street in Louisville, Kentucky. A native of Danville, Virginia, Ivey Watkins Cousins moved to Louisville in 1944. He held numerous jobs over the years, working as a tobacco dealer, photographer, machine-shop instructor, manager of the USO Shop, and Curator of the Louisville Library Museum. In 1959, he began photographing houses and structures being demolished to make way for I-65. After viewing the images, the Filson Club Board of Directors gave Cousins $25 to buy film for his project. This is one of the few images in which Cousins photographs people.

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Mary Churchill Bacon with cat

Photograph of Mary Churchill Bacon (1904-1941) in the garden posing with her cat. Mary was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Ernest J. Bacon, attorney and son of prominent 19th-century attorney Byron Bacon, and Lucy Henry. In 1924, Mary was enrolled at Gulf Park College in Gulfport, Mississippi. By the spring of 1932, she was married to Gerald C. Hayes of Los Angeles. The couple later moved to Los Angeles, California, followed by Mary’s family, who relocated in the mid-1930s. By 1940, Mary was divorced and living in Oklahoma City. The next year, Mary died in Midland, Texas, while visiting friends.

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Three children and a cat, circa 1900-1910

Photograph of three young children outside with a cat. The children are unidentified but are related to the Dudley family of Flemingsburg, Kentucky. It is possible that the two of the children may be siblings Carrie and Bruce Dudley. Carrie Douglas Dudley Ewen (1894-1985), known artistically as “Doug Ewen,” was a Louisville-born artist who painted portraits, illustrated children’s books and cookbooks, and even designed greeting cards. Bruce Dudley (1892-1964), served as sports editor for The Courier-Journal, as well as president of the Louisville Baseball Club and Louisville Colonels.