July 15, 2024–January 6, 2025 - Museum Tickets
2nd Floor

Extra! Extra! The Frazier Museum has opened its latest exhibition.

Flashback: Louisville Media Through the Years explores the role of media in the history of Louisville.

“Flashback brings nostalgia for those people we loved and cherished, but also lets us reminisce about the events that have impacted our community,” Frazier senior director of engagement Casey Harden said.

Since Louisville’s beginnings, news sources have been here to cover important events happening in the city, state, county, and beyond. We let these trusted reporters and news anchors into our homes via newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and the internet. Often these individuals provide vital information about important events. However, in times of crisis, they become a source of comfort as well.

About the Exhibition

Flashback tracks the emergence of trailblazing media outlets in Louisville, including: the Public Advertiser (1819), the Louisville Anzeiger (1848), the Colored Citizen (1866), the Courier Journal (1868), the Kentucky Irish American (1898), WHAS radio (1922), WAVE TV (1948), WFPL (1950), WLOU (1951), WAKY (1958), KET (1968), WAMZ (1977), the Disability Rag (1980), LEO Weekly (1990), the Letter (1990), Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting (2013), 502 Livestreamers (2020), and the Kentucky Lantern (2023).

Flashback looks at how these outlets covered major events in the history of Louisville, such as: Bloody Monday (1855), the Great Flood (1937), the duPont Chemical plant explosion in Rubbertown (1965), the tornado (1974), the busing crisis (1975), the Standard Gravure shooting (1989), the winter snowstorm (1994), and the Breonna Taylor protests (2020).

Flashback also explores major events in the history of Louisville media, including: the first WHAS Crusade for Children (1954), WAVE’s first color broadcast (1954), Phyllis Knight’s trailblazing coverage of cervical cancer (1950s), Melissa Forsythe’s federal court–upheld move from WAVE to WHAS (1979), Terry Meiners and Ron Clay’s WLRS show Morning Sickness (1982), Barry Bingham’s sale of the Bingham family media empire (1986), the first televised Thunder over Louisville (1991), and the Courier Journal website launch (1997).

On display are artifacts from print, radio, and TV media outlets, including: a Wellington No. 2 typewriter, 1892; George Joseph’s illustrations, 1930s–60s; radio consoles and studio equipment, midcentury; CJ reporter Byron Crawford’s famous camo bucket hat and reporter’s notebook, 1970s–90s; CJ anti-bussing demonstration photographs, September 1975; a WAVE Ikegami ITC-350 Series video camera, 1980s; WAMZ mic flags and bobbleheads, 2000s; and livestream footage of protests, 2020.

Interactive stations in Flashback play selected radio and TV broadcasts, including coverage of the Great Flood (1937), Dick Gilbert’s aerial coverage of the tornado damage from a helicopter (1974), clips from the Terry Meiners Show (1993), and coverage of the winter snowstorm and Michelle Schmitt’s liver transplant (1994).