Good Monday morning,

So, it’s the last Monday morning of the year. One day after Christmas and the last day of Hanukkah, 2022. It is my hope that this is a time of both reflection and celebration for you and your families.

I gained a lot in 2022, but I also lost my Mother. It will never be my favorite year. There was triumph and tragedy, immense joy and great sadness. I have learned that the two can live together. Perhaps more than ever, I appreciate the privilege of being a father, a husband, a brother, a friend, and this museum’s president.

If you are planning big changes in 2023, or making a bold New Year’s resolution, Godspeed. I have evolved away from making New Year’s resolutions in recent years, in search of an outlook that shapes more than just my eating habits, my fitness, or my sense of sacrifice. For this, I turn to our sixteenth president.

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”—Abraham Lincoln

Rest assured, our team isn’t slowing down in the new year. In fact, we already have three exciting programs on the 2023 calendar—and we hope that you decide to join us for any and all.

Sunday, January 8, 2023, 3–4 p.m.: Elvis, the Colonel, and Author Alanna Nash
Wednesday, February 8, 6–7 p.m.: Bridging the Divide: Help Me Find My People
Friday, February 17, 7–8:30 p.m.: Masters Series: Twin Barrel with New Riff and Ten20 Brewery

I hope you enjoy attending our programs as much as we enjoy hosting them. May we all specialize in having fun in the new year.

Starting in January and ending on March 14, we will be closed to the public for admissions on Wednesdays. Education groups and Events will continue as scheduled.

Today’s Frazier Weekly has a bit of a holiday feel. Next week, we’ll look back at some of the best Frazier Weekly articles of 2022.

I hope you enjoy.

Museum Store: Champagne Bottle Earrings for New Year’s Eve

Cheers to the perfect earrings for New Year’s Eve and all festive days of celebration! Shop online with free shipping over $50 or visit the Frazier’s Museum Store.

Seelbach Cocktail a Nod to Historic Louisville Hotel

Happy New Year!

Thank you for all your support of the Frazier Museum’s Bourbon programs in 2022. To show our appreciation, I have included one of my favorite celebratory cocktail recipes. It’s named after and thought to have originated at one of Louisville’s historic hotels, the Seelbach.

We have several amazing events on our Bourbon calendar at the Frazier Museum for 2023, including a very special Masters Series on Friday, February 17. It’s a Twin Barrel event featuring two distinct barrel picks from New Riff distillery and two fantastic beers from Ten20 Brewery. We hope you can join us!

Get Tickets

Thank you again for all your support. Wishing you health, wealth, happiness, and lots of great Bourbon in 2023!

Recipe for Seelbach Cocktail

Ingredients:

1 oz. your favorite Bourbon
1/2 oz. Cointreau
3 dashes Angostura bitters
3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
Champagne or sparkling wine, chilled, to top
1 extra-long orange twist to garnish

Instructions:

Add the Bourbon, Cointreau, Angostura bitters, and Peychaud’s bitters into a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled. (Bitters can be adjusted to taste.) Strain into a chilled flute. Top with cold champagne or other sparkling wine. Garnish with an orange twist.

Cheers!

Kentucky Rivalries: Calipari, Payne to Face Off Saturday in UK-U of L Game

Kentucky Rivalries logo. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

From archrival teams like the Cats and the Cards to dueling editors, competing caves, and beefing barbecues, Kentucky Rivalries celebrates the most iconic conflicts in the Bluegrass State. As we promote this interactive new exhibition, which opened November 5, our Frazier Weekly contributors will spotlight the history behind some of the rivalries featured in it.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

Let’s be frank: the first matchup between University of Kentucky men’s basketball head coach John Calipari and his former assistant, U of L head coach Kenny Payne, this Saturday will hold less luster than originally anticipated. Louisville has been historically bad this season, while Kentucky has so far failed to meet the expectations of its savvy and devoted fan base.

With consensus National Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe back for another year, and consensus 5-star freshman Cason Wallace joining an already-deep Kentucky team, fans envisioned the Cats would dance deep into the NCAA tournament come March. But with early losses to other blue bloods like UCLA and Michigan State, Kentucky fans have begun to question again the coaching decisions of John Calipari.

Things have not been better for little brother. After a historically horrendous start, the Cardinals have shown signs of life with wins at home against WKU and Florida A&M. Still, fans in the Ville have grown restless over how long it has taken first-year head coach Kenny Payne to actually win some games (the Cards are 2-9 as of this writing). Some have even gone so far as to call for Payne’s firing, to make way for an old, yet controversial, favorite of both the Cards and the Cats.

Traditionally the UK-U of L rivalry game in men’s basketball is regarded as the marquee matchup of the holiday season in the Commonwealth, the last non-conference game before both storied programs shunt off into the gauntlet that is in-conference play. Yet, with a season seeming to turn out like many others in recent years for the Wildcats, and a year like no other unravelling for Cards fans, both fan bases might need to dig deep into another holiday tradition to stomach watching this year’s rivalry game.

Pass the egg nog!

Object in Focus: Card for UK-U of L Basketball Doubleheader, 1915

We feature many different rivalries from throughout the state in our new exhibition Kentucky Rivalries. Of course, the biggest of them all is the UK-U of L basketball rivalry.

The rivalry as we know it began in 1983 when the University of Louisville Cardinals and the University of Kentucky Wildcats met in an Elite Eight matchup during the NCAA tournament. Dubbed “the Dream Game” or simply “the Game,” it was the battle that basketball fans all over the state were hoping for. U of L won the game 80-68, dominating overtime. The two teams have played each other every season since.

Though the rivalry really began in the 1980s, UK and U of L men’s basketball first played each other in 1913, then faced off only twelve times between 1913 and 1983. The women’s basketball teams first met in the 1911–12 season. However, University of Kentucky Senate passed a bill abolishing women’s basketball because it was “too strenuous for girls.” Women’s basketball at UK was reinstated and programs became varsity in 1974–75. The women’s teams have played each other every season since.

One of my favorite objects in the Kentucky Rivalries exhibition comes from one of these early matchups. On loan from the University of Louisville Archives and Special Collections, this card advertises a doubleheader between the men’s and women’s teams from UK and U of L that occurred at the YMCA on February 27, 1915. The cost of admission was 50 cents! If you are keeping score, U of L won both games, with the men coming out on top 26-15 and the women with a score of 11-8.

Whether you are rooting for the Cats or the Cards on Saturday, be sure to stop by and see all the cool objects that we have on loan from both universities, now on view in Kentucky Rivalries!

Go Cards!

Curator’s Corner: Frazier Swaps Chevrolet Corvette C7 for a C6

I know school is out for the winter break, but I have a little word problem for you to solve.

Representatives from the Corvette Museum bring a C6 Corvette to the Frazier to replace the C7, which has been on display in the Frazier’s first-floor exhibition Cool Kentucky since 2020. The freight elevator—the only way to access the loading dock, which is level with the basement—is too small to fit either car. So, how does the team—made up of Corvette Museum and Frazier Museum employees—successfully remove the C7 and replace it with C6?

Is this a word problem or a riddle?

Either way, we did just that last week!

As we make updates around the museum, we realized it was time to switch out the C7 Corvette with a very similar 2007 C6. This was no easy feat, as I mentioned in the riddle above—both vehicles are longer that our service elevator. In order to get each car onto the elevator, the Corvette team had to remove its bumper—and the C6 was still an eighth of an inch too long! After realizing there was no give (you can’t tell the car to “suck it in”), they decided to remove the muffler to give more room. Even with all that removal, the car still had to be jacked up at least two feet at an angle in order for the doors to close safely. Once it was safely in our Great Hall, they replaced the parts. Now, it looks like nothing even happened!

We learned from our first trials and removed the bumpers and muffler on the C7 to bring it down and load it on the truck. While this process went a bit faster, it was still no easy task since the C7 is a longer model. The bumpers and muffler were removed, and the car was jacked at an angle again with less room than the C6. But our true challenge was just ahead of us.

The C7 was built as a simulator car. This means the car was built with no engine or mechanics as a street-regulated car. It also didn’t have true functioning brakes. A little behind-the-scenes knowledge is that our loading dock isn’t tall enough to back anything larger than a box truck into it, and the Corvette Museum trailer was much larger than a box truck. We placed ramps to guide the C7 down, and several of us were on the back end to hold the car while others were on the front to make sure it didn’t take off down the ramp. To our surprise, the car made it safely down the ramp and no one was injured.

It was just another day at the office! I didn’t realize until this day how much strength was needed to work in a museum, nor how risky it could be! I handed out ice packs to the team for a job well done!

The C6 is currently on display in our Cool Kentucky exhibition. Come and check it out!

Celebrating Tom Owen: Louisville’s Famed Historian

The Frazier History Museum is teaming up with Kentucky Humanities to honor one of their board members, the man who is known as “the” noted historian of Louisville: Tom Owen.

Mark your calendar to join us on March 21, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., at the Frazier to celebrate his service to our community and his devotion to preserving our history.

More details to come in early 2023!

Kentucky Humanities: Think Humanities

Happy Holidays! I am proud to be one of Governor Andy Beshear’s appointees and an Executive Committee Member of Kentucky Humanities. In this our 50th year we celebrate our partnerships with and support of cultural institutions throughout the Commonwealth. Among those treasured partners is the Frazier History Museum.

As the Kentucky affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Kentucky Humanities has been dedicated to Telling Kentucky’s Story through programs and services that create immense pride in our common culture and heritage, our civic engagement and civil discourse, and local humanities events that make us who we un-mistakenly are: Kentuckians.

When the COVID-19 Pandemic began, Kentucky Humanities immediately responded, gathering information about the effects the pandemic was having on cultural institutions throughout Kentucky. In response to these findings, Kentucky Humanities, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, awarded grants to 51 museums, archives, and historic sites in Kentucky totaling more than $800,000.

The Frazier History Museum was a recipient of one of these grants. The grant provided support for four Frazier History Museum educators to continue work on the Journey Project as it entered phase II and the Frazier History Museum now shares the unsung stories of the Underground Railroad, like that of Thornton and Ruthie Blackburn who were enslaved in Kentucky and crossed the Ohio River into Indiana to make their way to freedom, with visitors to the museum.

As Kentuckians are well-aware, the COVID-19 Pandemic was just the beginning of the devastation in the state over the last three years.

The Red River flooded in 2021 wreaking havoc on the Red River Heritage Museum and the Three Forks Museum.

In July 2022, thunderstorms brought heavy rain, deadly flash-flooding, and overwhelming river flooding to eastern Kentucky and central Appalachia, resulting in the deaths of 39 people and widespread catastrophic damage to the region. Homes and communities were swept away by the flood waters, leading to costly damage to the infrastructure in the region. Area cultural organizations experienced costly damage and destruction.

Again, Kentucky Humanities jumped into action, seeking special funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to assist seven cultural institutions in their efforts to rebuild following the floods. During 2023, Kentucky Humanities will partner with other agencies to help cultural organizations develop a plan of action to be better prepared for future disasters.

Providing grants to cultural organizations in times of hardship is just one of the ways Kentucky Humanities is reaching out to communities throughout the Commonwealth. Small grants are available to community organizations to assist in the planning and execution of their own humanities programs.

With programs including Kentucky Chautauqua®, the Speakers Bureau, Prime Time Family Reading®, Kentucky Humanities magazine, Think History, Kentucky Reads, the Kentucky Book Festival®, and many others, Kentucky Humanities is sharing Kentucky’s stories throughout the Commonwealth.

Kentucky Humanities also provides a platform for others to share their Kentucky stories through our podcast, Think Humanities.

I am especially proud of our latest, bell hooks: becoming, being, beyond. You can hear about the Frazier History Museum’s Commonwealth Divided We Fall project (episode 247) and how Kentucky Humanities is helping the Hindman Settlement School recover from the flooding (episode 245). Other episodes include the stories of Kentucky writers, poets, historians, scholars, and many extraordinary Kentuckians.

You can listen to Think Humanities at kyhumanities.org/programs/think-humanities-podcast. More than 200 episodes are available, with a new episode released each Wednesday. There is even one featuring yours truly reminiscing about my love of Kentucky history and all that makes our Commonwealth special. Please find us where you get your podcasts and subscribe!

Penny Peavler Frazier Kentucky History Museum

Penny Peavler
Frazier History Museum Board of Directors
Guest Contributor

1915 UK-U of L Doubleheader at YMCA, Frazier Swaps Corvette C7 for C6, Celebrating Famed Louisville Historian Tom Owen, and More

The 22 Best Frazier Weekly Articles of 2022

Santa Claus Collage, 1930–90; Wakefield’s Confederate-Union Guerrilla Skirmish, 1865; Preserving Trimble County’s Payne Hollow, and More