Sunday’s Free Family Day, Thursday’s Ugly Sweater Night, Genealogy Program for Members, and More
Free Family Day flyer.
This Sunday, the Frazier will be absolutely packed for our Free Family Day, hosted in partnership with I Would Rather Be Reading. You don’t want to miss what we have planned!
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., admission to the museum is free, courtesy of Passport by Molina Healthcare. Our halls will be filled with activities, performances, special guests, and friends from all over.
From 10 to 11:30, you will have your chance for a photo op with Santa. Then, from 11:30 to 1, if Santa isn’t quite your speed, the Grinch will take over. Con Aji y Cafe food truck will park out front, slinging delicious empanadas, arepas, and more. Nativas Market will lead traditional Colombian holiday traditions all morning, and Ballet Folklorico will perform Mexican and Latin American cultural dances at 12:30. You’ll have your chance to build your own airplane with Equus Flight School, decorate delightful delicacies with the Cookie Lady, and plant your own tree with the Food Literacy Project. That’s not even to mention the games and crafts our Frazier staff will lead!
Children pose with the Grinch at last year’s Lights on Main Free Family Day, December 17, 2023.
Nearly a thousand visitors turned out to enjoy last year’s Lights on Main Free Family Day, December 17, 2023.
Children pose with Santa at last year’s Lights on Main Free Family Day, December 17, 2023.
Many thanks to Passport by Molina Healthcare and Louisville Downtown Partnership for making this family day possible and keeping it free. We hope you’ll choose to stay warm with us inside this Sunday, and keep coming back all December for extended museum hours, musical performances, festive exhibits, and so much more.
In today’s Frazier Weekly, Simon Meiners previews Thursday’s Ugly Sweater Night—admission to which is also free, thanks to Passport by Molina Healthcare. Stephen Yates makes a staff pick in the Museum Shop, Rachel Platt announces Tori and Mac McClure’s historic donation to the museum, and Jeanne Howser McCutcheon explains how White Cane awareness was introduced in Kentucky.
Have a great week!
Kent Klarer
Sr. Manager of Youth Programs & Education Advancement
Frazier History Museum
This Week in the Museum
Join Us Thursday for Ugly Sweater Night (Free Admission!) Sponsored by Passport by Molina Healthcare
Ugly Sweater Night (Free Admission!) Sponsored by Passport by Molina Healthcare flyer.
Don your ugly sweater (we know you’ve got one!) and help us celebrate literacy nonprofit I Would Rather Be Reading and the many families they help support. This Thursday, December 5, we’ll have a late night program featuring an Ugly Sweater Contest as well as singalongs, Bourbon tastings, and Bearno’s pizza.
The program includes: extended museum hours, 5–8 p.m.; FREE admission (sponsored by Passport by Molina Healthcare), 5–8 p.m.; Bearno’s selling pizza, Log Still and New Riff serving complimentary specialty cocktails and tastings, an Ugly Sweater Contest with winners announced (Best Group, Best Adult, Best Child) at 7:30 p.m., and a singalong led by I Would Rather Be Reading. Plus, guests can tour our newest exhibition, Lights on Main, which features nearly 100 Christmas trees decorated by local businesses, organizations, and families.
The holiday exhibition Lights on Main is a partnership offered between the Frazier and I Would Rather Be Reading.
Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist
Polo Real Estate Group Tree Voted Best Branding at Lights on Main
Polo Real Estate Group tree on display in the Lights on Main exhibition, December 4, 2024.
It’s all in the branding, baby!
“Just Do It” for Nike. “Where the World Meets Kentucky” for the Frazier History Museum. (Okay, we’re not on Nike’s level just yet—but a girl can dream.)
All of this leads me to the brand: “It’s Key Time.”
Polo Real Estate Group won “Best Branding” for a tree in our Lights on Main competition.
From the top of the tree adorned with a home, to the foot of the tree with a “key” to your dream home, and their catchphrase: “It’s Key Time.”
The judges loved it and so do we.
Congrats, Polo Real Estate Group. Thanks for supporting the Frazier and I Would Rather Be Reading.
Rachel Platt
VP of Mission
Countdown to Christmas: Stephen’s Staff Pick in the Museum Shop
Stephen Yates holds up a bottle of Barrel House Select Bourbon in the Frazier’s Museum Shop, December 4, 2024.
If you’re looking for a unique bottle of Bourbon to give as a gift this holiday season, look no further, my friends. My pick is Barrel House Select Bourbon, which is available in the Frazier’s Museum Shop year-round. This product uses a heavy rye mash bill and is barreled at 120 proof in number four char barrels. Three barrels are hand-selected per batch to blend according to their unique flavor profiles and then the entire batch is cut to 90 proof using Appalachian Mountain spring water. It is a great Bourbon that has plenty of robust flavors but is not overpowering in its proof. It is handcrafted in Lexington, Kentucky, and sold only at retail in Kentucky. Additionally, it is under $50 and makes a fantastic addition to any Bourbon lover’s bar—especially anyone living outside of Kentucky. It’s just another reason to come do your holiday shopping at the Frazier History Museum!
Stephen Yates
Community & Corporate Sales Manager
Tori and Mac McClure Donate Rowboat American Pearl to Frazier History Museum
Tori Murden McClure signs paperwork donating the American Pearl at a news conference at the Frazier, December 3, 2024.
Tori and Mac McClure pose in front of the American Pearl at the Frazier, December 3, 2024.
I hinted in our open letter in Frazier Weekly last week we would have good news to share about the boat Tori Murden McClure rowed into history, the American Pearl.
On loan to the Frazier since 2020 and on display in our Cool Kentucky exhibition on the first floor, the boat has quickly become one of the most talked about and iconic items at the museum.
Last Tuesday, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Tori’s historic row, both Tori and her husband Mac donated the American Pearl to the Frazier.
The American Pearl will now be a permanent fixture at the Frazier to tell Tori’s amazing story. She became the first woman, and the first American, to row solo across the Atlantic. She stepped ashore in Guadeloupe on December 3, 1999. This spring, we will expand the footprint of Tori’s story with new items she has donated to the Frazier from that 3,300-mile journey.
The media and many of Tori’s friends were at the Frazier for our news conference last week. We are where the world meets Kentucky and love to tell stories that ignite the human spirit. Tori and the American Pearl are the perfect fit. Here is part of a quote from Tori:
“The Frazier History Museum is both a community asset and a community resource. The story of the American Pearl is bigger than me and even bigger than the large circle of friends who helped to build the American Pearl and to row the boat “alone” across the Atlantic Ocean. I was physically alone, but there were two flags aboard that connected me to land and to people: the American flag and the Kentucky flag.”
As Tori also said, thousands of stories have rippled outward from her boat. There’s something about Tori’s story and the American Pearl that resonates with everyone—whether it be adversity, uncertainty, defeat, or triumph. We all have oceans to cross in some form.
What a gift! We can’t thank Tori and Mac enough for their generosity.
What we can do is tell the story of Tori and the American Pearl, in new and exciting ways. The adventure continues.
Rachel Platt
VP of Mission
Join Us January 19 for Members-Only Program Unpuzzling the Past
Unpuzzling the Past flyer.
From left, Leslie Anderson, age nine, poses with her grandpa Cliff Anderson at Churchill Downs in Louisville, c. 1998.
Genealogy has always been important to my family. I remember going to my grandpa’s house when I was a child and him showing me the Anderson family tartan and crest. He would travel around with his sister, my great-aunt, to take photos of graves and help document important information about our distant relatives. When I turned eighteen, I got the Anderson family crest tattooed on my arm in honor of my grandpa (I’m pretty sure that my mom wishes I had found some other way to pay tribute to him!).
When one of my colleagues approached me with the idea of connecting the Frazier with Louisville Genealogical Society for a member-only program, I immediately thought it would be a fantastic idea. Family means so much to all of us, and the discovery of who our ancestors were and where we come from can have such an impact on how we understand who we are today. We began planning our genealogy program for members and I was able to test out some of the resources that Louisville Genealogical Society will share with us on January 19. I have since been able to trace my family back to the 11th century and found that one of my French ancestors from the Calais region, Baudouin de Guînes, was knighted by the saint Thomas Becket, archduke of Canterbury. As someone with a background in Medieval Studies, this revelation was incroyable.
My hope is that our members who attend this member-only program will get the tools they need to begin or continue the journey to discover their roots, learning about themselves and their ancestors along the way. We are grateful to Louisville Genealogical Society for their partnership and for making this program possible!
Leslie Anderson
Sr. Manager of Grants & Community Development
20th Anniversary Photo: Kwanzaa Exhibit, 2016
Kwanzaa exhibit created by Ben Johnson and Karen Blade on display as part of the Frazier’s Holidays Around the World exhibition, November 23, 2016.
In the early 2010s, the Frazier hosted an annual exhibition called Holidays Around the World. It featured small exhibits about holiday traditions in the UK, Italy, Greece, China, Vietnam, Ecuador, and other nations and communities. Kwanzaa is a unique American holiday celebration that pays tribute to the rich cultural roots of Americans of African ancestry. Founded in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, Kwanzaa is observed from December 26 to January 1. It is based on seven fundamental principles referred to as the Nguzo Saba: the system of views said to give identity, direction, and purpose to the lives of African American men and women.
Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist
Bridging the Divide
Historic Tours of Town Clock Church in New Albany on December 14
Town Clock Church clock face on display in the Frazier’s Commonwealth exhibition, May 2022. Credit: Mary Helen Nunn, Frazier History Museum.
The Frazier History Museum has many partnerships, and one of most enduring and meaningful has been with the Town Clock Church in New Albany and the story it tells with the Underground Railroad.
Part of that story is told in our Commonwealth exhibition and our walking tour The Journey, which explores local ties to the Underground Railroad.
We want to make sure you know about historic tours happening on December 14 at the Town Clock Church in New Albany. Tours will happen each hour on the hour, beginning at 10 a.m. with the last tour beginning at 3 p.m.
The tour is free and open to the public, but donations are welcome. The church is now home to the Second Baptist congregation at 300 East Main Street.
For more information on tours, you can call (502) 645-2332.
Rachel Platt
VP of Mission
Origin of White Cane Awareness in Kentucky, 1946–74
I love when an article in Frazier Weekly resonates with someone, and it brings up their personal history. That’s the case with an open letter from the October 14 issue focused on White Cane Awareness Day, which emphasizes the rights and mobility of blind and low-vision individuals. We were highlighting our partnership with GoodMaps, an indoor navigational app for the visually impaired. The article caught the attention of Jeanne Howser McCutcheon, whose father worked at the Kentucky School for the Blind from 1946 to 1974 and became its superintendent in 1956. Jeanne was just eighteen months old, and her sister Nancy was nine years old, when they moved onto the school’s campus. Keep reading for a fascinating history of this family and their amazing contributions to our community.—Rachel Platt, VP of Mission
L P Howser in uniform, undated.
From left, Dixie and L P Howser, undated.
Hello, I am Jeanne Howser McCutcheon.
My father, L P Howser, was superintendent of the Kentucky School for the Blind. He retired in 1971. He served at Valley Forge Hospital in Pennsylvania during World War II, training and helping wounded soldiers. My Dad was trained there to teach soldiers, who were blinded in battle, how to travel using the white cane concept. It was very new for many blind people. He came back to Louisville and began using his training by teaching blind students at the Kentucky School for the Blind how to use the White Cane. He began teaching history at the school, became principal, then superintendent.
My Dad was extremely interested in being helpful to these men whose lives had been turned upside down when they came home, not only from being in a serious, devastating war, but an unexpected handicap to learn to deal with, and live with, the rest of their lives. My Dad also was assigned to go to the homes of the fallen soldiers to inform them of their loved one’s death.
His contribution and training became what it is today, a way for the Blind Community to independently travel with more confidence. It was his life’s work, and always his goal, to be an advocate for the Blind Community.
A building is dedicated to my Dad on the campus of the school—Howser Hall. He will have a tile in his honor in the new museum at the American Printing House for the Blind.
Not to leave my Mother, Dixie, out, who was a house parent in the young boys’ cottage, where the boys who stayed on campus lived. She alone took care of ten to twelve boys every day and night. Then she got accredited to teach the Blind, and was a braille and large print math teacher. She learned to read braille with her eyes!
When I read the October 14 Frazier Weekly article about White Cane Awareness Day, I felt it might be good to include how it began in Kentucky!
Jeanne Howser McCutcheon
Daughter of Dixie and L P Howser
Guest Contributor
History All Around Us
We all know Louisville has incredible ties to baseball, but I’m still learning about some of them. December of 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of a meeting at the Louisville Hotel that helped shape major league baseball. Chris Betsch, a member of the Louisville Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, is helping to lobby for a way to commemorate that site. Keep reading to learn more.—Rachel Platt, VP of Mission
Every year, visitors flock to downtown Louisville and visit the famed Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. From the most die-hard baseball fans to those with a passing interest in the sport, everyone associates the museum with America’s National Pastime. By the end of the museum tour, guests are well acquainted with the legend of how popular Louisville baseball player Louis “Pete” Browning needed to replace a broken bat, so teenager John “Bud” Hillerich took Browning to his father’s wood-turning shop and created the original Louisville Slugger bat. Historians question which parts of that story are truth and which are fiction, but one thing that cannot be doubted is how the Louisville Slugger cemented Louisville’s place in baseball history. What many visitors to the city do not know, nor do many residents for that matter, is that Louisville was the location for another important moment in baseball history, one that helped solidify the sport as we know it today.
The early days of professional baseball were, in a word, chaotic. As baseball expanded across the country in the 1800s, it evolved from a game played by amateur society club members to one of rough-and-tumble pay-for-play players, and it desperately needed organization. Early leagues were tried in an attempt to standardize rules and set schedules, but those leagues had their share of issues. Players jumped back and forth to whichever team was willing to pay them more. Some teams skipped games if they didn’t think they would make any money from the trip. And, worst of all, there was an untold number of players involved in “hippodroming,” an old term that in baseball meant planning out the winner and loser of games on purpose for the benefit of gamblers. If these issues could not be resolved, the fledgling sport risked losing fan interest and falling apart before it got started. The teams knew changes were needed. One man, William Ambrose Hulbert, decided to do something about it.
William A. Hulbert, undated. Credit: the Society for American Baseball Research.
William Hulbert was the president of the baseball team in Chicago (the precursor to today’s Chicago Cubs). He recognized the need to create a new league for professional baseball clubs, one that would put more power in the hands of club management and hopefully rid baseball of the issues that had plagued previous leagues. Hulbert had preliminary conversations with other teams to gather interest, then his next step was to set up a meeting with representatives from clubs in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville (yes, Louisville once had major league baseball—but that is a story for another time). Hulbert needed to find a location that would be central to those cities, and he wanted to find a meeting spot that would provide a professional atmosphere, while also adding a touch of sophistication that would impress the attendees. Hulbert chose the Louisville Hotel.
A printing of the Louisville Hotel in its early years, undated. The Ionic columns were later removed following renovations.
The Louisville Hotel has been gone from the Louisville skyline since 1949, but for over one hundred years the building, located on the south side of Main Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, was one of the premier establishments of downtown Louisville. When it opened its doors in 1833, the Louisville Hotel was cited as “surpassing in elegance anything in the West” (at that time the West was considered basically any part of the country not in the original thirteen colonies). The hotel featured black walnut paneling, stunning glass chandeliers, brass railings, and imported glass windows. Designed by Louisville native Hugh Roland, the city’s first professional architect, the Louisville Hotel quickly became a top destination in the city. It was a popular stop for travelers coming and going along the Ohio River or heading out to the Western territories. It was the first hotel in the city to provide many amenities that were new for the time, including a tailor shop, a barber, and a private dining room. The hotel was especially popular with businessmen and politicians. It played host to President Andrew Johnson on his American tour in 1866. And it was said that, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln may have held a meeting there.
The agreement of four of the original National League clubs, written on Louisville Hotel stationery on December 17, 1875, stored at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Credit: the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
When the four teams met at the hotel on December 17, 1875, it was presumed they were meeting to sort out business plans for the upcoming baseball season. The clubs were actually gathering to secretly discuss a new league for select baseball teams. The representatives of the clubs signed an agreement that was written down on stationery adorned with the name and image of the Louisville Hotel. That document is now stored at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. One of the signers of the document was Albert Spalding, a player and manager of Hulbert’s Chicago club. Spalding later owned the team, but he would eventually redirect his focus to his sporting goods business that bore his name. After that meeting, Hulbert took the signed agreement and went to New York to meet with representatives of four more clubs from the Eastern cities of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Hartford. On February 2, 1876, the eight clubs formally announced the formation of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs. That league, better known as the National League, remains popular to this day.
The start of the National League came at a critical time in baseball history. If the league failed, professional baseball could have soon flamed out as a passing fad and Americans might have moved on to other diversions. Major league baseball would still face growing pains over its first several years (even decades), but without that first meeting at the Louisville Hotel, it may never have even gotten off the ground.
As for the Louisville Hotel, it saw a decreasing number of visitors later in the 1800s as new hotels sprung up in the city and riverboat traffic decreased. The hotel survived a fire in 1853 and the great tornado of 1890, but it could not survive the decline in business. After entertaining guests for over one hundred years, the Louisville Hotel closed its grand doors in 1938. The hotel’s empty shell sat idle for a decade then was razed in 1949 to make way for a parking lot. Where the hotel once sat on Main Street there is now a row of office and retail buildings, including the Six Fourteen Building.
December 2025 will mark the 150th anniversary of the Louisville Hotel meeting that helped shape major league baseball. To help mark the occasion, the Louisville Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research will nominate the former site of the Louisville Hotel for a Kentucky Historical Marker. Hopefully, a marker will someday be put in place there and visitors to the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory will have another stop to make on their baseball history tour.
Chris Betsch is a member of the Louisville Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Anyone interested in joining SABR can go to SABR.org for information or contact Chris at cbbetsch@gmail.com.
Christ Betsch
Members, Louisville Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)
Guest Contributor
