Browse Items (128 total)
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Household linen, 1800-1825
Household linen, hand-woven in a huckaback pattern, credited to Elizabeth Tyler Sturgeon. Elizabeth married Thomas Sturgeon in 1816. After he died in 1823, she managed their farm and raised three young sons. Her father, Edward Tyler II, enslaved up to fourteen people. Elizabeth herself enslaved seven people whose labor sustained both the household and the farm. This forced labor enabled the production of textiles like this household linen. Eliza and/or enslaved laborers cultivated and processed flax into yarn for weaving. Historical records suggest that an unidentified enslaved woman played a key role in managing the household and supervising other enslaved laborers after Thomas’s death. In 1833, Eliza died from cholera, leaving behind three children under the age of eighteen. -
Towel, 1800-1825
Linen towel, hand-woven in a huckaback pattern, credited to Elizabeth Tyler Sturgeon. Elizabeth married Thomas Sturgeon in 1816. After he died in 1823, she managed their farm and raised three young sons. Her father, Edward Tyler II, enslaved up to fourteen people. Elizabeth herself enslaved seven people whose labor sustained both the household and the farm. This forced labor enabled the production of textiles like this towel. Eliza and/or enslaved laborers cultivated and processed flax into yarn for weaving. Historical records suggest that an unidentified enslaved woman played a key role in managing the household and supervising other enslaved laborers after Thomas’s death. In 1833, Eliza died from cholera, leaving behind three children under the age of eighteen. -
Pillowcase with drawn work edges, 1800-1825
Cotton pillowcase credited to Elizabeth Tyler Sturgeon. Elizabeth married Thomas Sturgeon in 1816. After he died in 1823, she managed their farm and raised three young sons. Her father, Edward Tyler II, enslaved up to fourteen people. Elizabeth herself enslaved seven people whose labor sustained both the household and the farm. This forced labor enabled the production of textiles like this pillowcase. As cotton wasn’t generally grown in Jefferson County, Kentucky, Elizabeth likely acquired already-made cotton fabric, cotton yarn, or raw unspun cotton from a local merchant. Drawn thread work is a form of counted-thread embroidery in which threads are removed from the warp or weft to create a decorative design. -
Portrait of Jemima Pearsall Castleman
Jemima Pearsall Castleman married Johannes "Lewis" Castleman in Frederick, Virginia, in 1765, when she was approximately fifteen years of age. She was the mother of eight children that were born between 1770 and 1797. She came to the frontier with her husband sometime between 1787 and 1800. They lived on a farm along Clear Creek in Woodford County that included a tannery and a distillery that made apple brandy. The Castlemans enslaved ten persons in 1810 and eighteen persons in 1819. -
Portrait of Samuel Oldham Churchill, circa 1845
Samuel Churchill moved from Virginia to Kentucky when he was eight years old. He owned 415 acres of land along Beargrass Creek. The Churchills enslaved thirty-six individuals whose labor created economic advantage and comfort for the family. He had an interest in horse breeding and was president of the Louisville Association for the Improvement of Breed of Horses. Samuel Churchill was one of seven founding trustees of the Oakland Racecourse in Louisville in early 1832, which was located on fifty-one acres of land purchased from Samuel and Abigail Churchill, as well as from other landholders. His sons, John and Henry, inherited land from Samuel, which they leased to his nephew Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., founder of a new racecourse known today as Churchill Downs. -
Portrait of Abigail Oldham Churchill, circa 1845
Abigail Oldham Churchill came from a lineage of wealthy and prominent early Louisvillian settlers. She was just two years old when her father, Colonel William Oldham, died in the Battle of Wabash. Her mother, Penelope Pope, a twenty-two-year-old widow with four children, remarried into the Churchill family. In 1802, two weeks after her fourteenth birthday, Abigail married Samuel Churchill, her step-father's twenty-four-year-old brother. She gave birth to their first child when she was fifteen and had a child almost every other year over a span of thirty years. She had her last of fifteen children when she was forty-four years of age. -
Portrait of "Fanny" Frances Latham Slaughter, circa 1820
"Fanny" Frances Latham Slaughter was a wife and a mother who had strong ties with her family as seen through letters sent to her daughter and other relatives. "Time passes away tedious and heavy" writes Frances Latham Slaughter to her daughter (who left home) on 12 October 1816. Women who were separated from family and friends often experienced loneliness on the frontier. -
Miniature portrait of Ann Booth Gwathmey, circa 1804-1805
Women experienced death and loss regularly on the frontier. Ann Booth Gwathmey (1782-1862) was no exception. The daughter of William A. and Rebecca Hite Booth, she migrated to Jefferson County, KY, with her family as a child. She married John Gwathmey in 1800 when she was eighteen years old, and he was twenty-six. She was nineteen years old when she gave birth to their first daughter, who died less than six weeks later. During the next twenty-five years, Ann lost both of her parents, two more pre-school aged children, and her husband. In her senior years, two of her adult children preceded her in death. See also the mourning necklace that belonged to her. The portrait is attributed to Benjamin Trott. -
Miniature portrait of Ann Rogers Clark Gwathmey, circa 1804-1805
In the era before photography, miniature portraits were popular mementos of loved ones that could be easily carried across long physical distances. The watercolor on ivory portraits were desired for the way artists could accurately capture a subject, working in such small dimensions. Ann Rogers Clark Gwathmey (1755-1822) was the sister of George Rogers Clark and William Clark. She was married to Owen Gwathmey. She and her husband moved to Louisville with at least five of their twelve children in 1797. They purchased 335 acres and built a home near Harrod's Creek, east of Louisville not very far from her sister Lucy Croghan's home at Locust Grove. The proximity to her sister and other family members ensured that Ann had a strong social network to rely on. The Gwathmeys enslaved twenty individuals on their estate, whose labor created economic advantage and comfort for the family. The portrait is attributed to Benjamin Trott and believed to have been painted when the miniatures of her son John and his wife Ann were painted. -
Elizabeth Logan Hardin
Elizabeth Logan Hardin (1786-1853) was born on the Kentucky frontier at Logan's Station (also known as St. Asaph's; present Stanford). She was one of nine children of Ann Montgomery and Benjamin Logan, one of Kentucky's early military and political leaders. who fought in the Indian wars of the 1770s and 1780s in the struggle to wrest control of Kentucky from the Native Americans. Elizabeth married Martin D. Hardin on 20 January 1809. At age thirty-nine, Elizabeth became a pregnant widow with three children between the ages of five and thirteen, and a failing farm (near Frankfort) that was $50,000 in debt. Elizabeth ran the farm as a single woman for seven years before she married Porter Clay in 1816. They sold the farm and moved to Illinois, but their strained marriage ended in separation. She returned to Kentucky and died in Shelby County where she is buried. -
Portrait of Elizabeth Wood Bayless, circa 1815
Elizabeth Wood Bayless was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She migrated to Mason County, Kentucky, with her family sometime within the first decade of Kentucky's statehood. Her father, George Wood, was a Revolutionary War Veteran who was one of the first Baptist preachers to settle in the region. Elizabeth married Benjamin Bayless in 1798 in Mason County, Kentucky. -
Travels through the states of North America, and the provinces of upper and lower Canada, during the years 1795, 1796, and 1797.
Includes view of the natural Rock Bridge, houses, conditions of the enslaved peoples,the land, cultivating tobacco, lower classes of people in Virginia, unhealthy apperances, the Shenandoa Valley, German immigratnts, landscapes, military titles that are common in America, Irish immigrants, etc.Tags African American; agriculture; canada; climate; clothing; clover; enslaved persons; enslavement; European Immigrants; farming; fashion; german immigrants; immigration; irish immigrants; military titles; natural history; natural rock bridge; nature; public health; social class; tobacco; travel; travelogue; wheat; Women -
Cincinnati in 1826
Full version of this text available at Cincinnati in 1826.Tags African Americans; banking; boarding school; bridge; buildings; Canal; Christianity; church; climate; college; Colonization; court house; courts; episcopal; exports; female school; finances; fine arts; fuel; government; Hospital; humane society; imports; institutions; insurance; intelligence; jail; jewish; jews; journals; Kidd Fund; land office; Library; literary institution; louisville and portland canal; manufactures; markets; masonic hall; medical; minerals; money; museum; newspapers; pamphlets; population; post-office; prison; public health; real estate; religion; scientific institution; steam-boats; theatre; Women -
Domestic manners of the Americans, 1832
Titlepage of A description of the customs and manners of the Americans.
Full version of this text available at Domestic Manners of the Americans.Tags chapel; cholera; church; Cincinnati; clergy; climate; clothing; customs; domesticity; drawing; Equality; feminism; fever; fine arts; food; gender; health; holidays; hotel; independence day; literature; Louisville; market; museum; Native American; Ohio River; pamphlets; parties; phrenology; picture gallery; pigs; religion; river navigation; school; servants; shakespeare; sickness; social life; society; storms; Theology; travel; Women; working class -
History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1837
History of the Indian tribes of North America with biographical sketches and anecdotes of the principal chiefs, embellished with one hundred and twenty portraits, from the Indian gallery in the Department of War, at Washington, D.C. -
The Art of Cookery, made plain and easy, 1796
An 18th-century cookbook including one hundred and fifty recipes and modes of cooking, as well as recipes for cosmetics and medicinal purposes. -
Letter from William Clark to Fanny Clark O'Fallon, 1 July 1795
William Clark writes to his sister Fanny Clark O'Fallon a brief letter from Greenville, Ohio, updating her on the comings and goings of various officers and ladies, including Captain Thomas Lewis. He expresses that he wishes to hear from their sister Lucy Clark Croghan. -
Letter from William Clark to Fanny Clark O'Fallon, 9 May 1795
William Clark writes to his sister Fanny Clark O'Fallon from Greenville, Ohio, while a lieutenant in the U. S. Army. He reports his generous reception by the General upon his tardy return and discusses his romantic interest in the women of the neighborhood, alluding to a particular lady. He also mentions Captain Thomas Lewis' interest in a particular woman. He states that a number of Indigenous people are there and peaceably inclined. -
Letter from William Clark to Jonathan Clark, 21 January 1809
Clark writes his brother Jonathan from St. Louis announcing the birth of a son - Meriwether Lewis Clark. He reports how Julia and the baby are doing. He also reports on paying for a midwife for his enslaved woman Easter, who he has punished for bad behavior. He lists some other of his enslaved people he has punished and worries that Jonathan will think he has become a severe master, but he assures him he has not. -
Letter from William Clark to his brother, April 1805
Letter from William Clark to his brother talks of sending his journal to the President and the Secretary of War, documenting his voyage and discoveries. Includes note stating he has included with the letter: one shirt worn by the Mandan Indigenous women, a few pairs of moccasins, some Mandan "legins", hides from several different animals, corn, tobacco seeds, a Mandan pot, and more, from the western country. He sends compliments from Meriwether Lewis to him and his lady.