Upcoming Exhibition "The Commonwealth," Mary Todd Lincoln Arrest Warrant, Kentucky House Rep. Keturah Herron, and More
Good Monday morning,
The field is set, the brackets are out, and the madness is underway. Please don’t miss this opportunity to get a 70-inch television by winning our Membership Madness NCAA Tournament bracket pool! So, fill out your bracket and get them back to us by Wednesday, March 16, at 5 p.m.
Now, I’d like to take a moment to say, thank you! A few weeks ago, we sent out a poll to better understand our Frazier Weekly subscribers so we could better meet your needs. Amazingly, 768 of you completed it with over 450 of you writing genuine and detailed responses. Congratulations to Tim Haddow for winning the drawing and $100 in Frazier Museum Store credit!
Tim Haddow shows the $100 Frazier Museum Store credit voucher he won, March 13, 2022. Credit: Tim Haddow.
It was wonderful to learn that you know who we are, but interesting to discover there is more we can do to help you understand all we do. You’re excited that we share stories about Kentucky and you’re interested in more, more, more. You want more public programming, more Bourbon programming, and more events for young adults like Summer Beer Fest at Frazier. You also want more people to know about us. The banner at the top of this e-mail is to let you know about the ten exhibits now on view.
We got valuable feedback on some things that you like and others that some of you don’t like. You want us to be educational but not political, engaged in our community with no agenda, and exclusive in content, yet inclusive in outreach. In short, you want us to mean more to more people every day and that is great, because that is our goal. You can view the general results of the poll here.
In today’s Frazier Weekly, you’ll meet our new preparator, Nick Cook. Women’s History Month takes center stage with stories about Mary Lincoln, Marian Anderson, Geneva Bell, and trailblazing teachers. The museum store is going green for St. Patrick’s Day and Northern Kentucky’s New Riff weighs in with our distiller spotlight!
I hope you enjoy,
Andy Treinen
President & CEO
Frazier History Museum
This Week in the Museum
Dr. Bell, Geneva Bell, and Marian Anderson
There are many amazing people profiled in our West of Ninth exhibit, and Dr. Jesse and Geneva Bell are one couple among many fascinating figures. Their accomplishments are staggering and their impact in the community is great, but it was a picture of them with world-famous opera star Marian Anderson that first grabbed my attention. This video pairs Marian’s visits to Louisville with a background on the Bells, with whom she clearly had a relationship.
Next week, we’ll go in search of another special and historic photograph that Dr. Bell happened to mention in a 1979 interview.
If you’d like to learn more about the Bells, here is an article created by our friends at Cave Hill Cemetery, which is the final resting place for Dr. Jesse and Geneva Bell.
Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience
The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall Update Ahead of May 2022 Opening
Spring is just around the corner, and in no time at all we will be welcoming everyone to the opening of our new permanent exhibit, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, already well on its way to completion!
I wanted to introduce myself and give a quick update on the exhibition process. My name is Nick Cook and I am the newest team member of the exhibits department. I am a preparator, which means I, along with my team, work on the design and layout of how a show comes together. Working from the show outline created by our curator, Amanda Briede, with input from every member of the exhibits team, my job is to bring the initial ideas into a functioning gallery space.
From the beginning of construction to the final placement of objects, there is a lot of work behind the scenes that takes place for months before the actual show comes together. After objects are chosen, we start building item-specific mounts and displays (this is the phase we are currently entering for The Commonwealth). Labels are then written, and we work to create graphics and signage throughout to complete the exhibit.
For the last couple months, we have been reimagining the second-floor layout, working to transform the gallery space into an interactive and immersive telling of Kentucky’s rich history that we are so excited for the public to experience! I have the pleasure of sharing with you this sneak peek of The Commonwealth.
Construction progress for upcoming exhibit, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, opening May 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Construction progress for upcoming exhibit, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, opening May 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Demolition was completed in January and construction of new walls and rooms followed in February. Walls are painted and flooring is in, and without giving too much away, I wanted to share progress pictures of an area I have been focusing on. Can you guess what the completed structure may become? Come visit The Commonwealth later this spring to find out!
Nick Cook
Preparator
Mary Lincoln Arrest Warrant in Upcoming Exhibit, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall
On the second floor of the Frazier, a striking document is typically on display, although it is currently in storage “resting” as we prepare for our new second floor exhibit, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall. It is an arrest warrant that was issued for a prominent Kentucky woman nearly 150 years ago: former First Lady Mary Lincoln, on the request of her only surviving son, Robert Lincoln.
Arrest warrant for Mary Lincoln dated May 19, 1875. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
On May 19, 1875, Mary was in Chicago to attend an event commemorating the still-traumatic anniversary of her husband’s violent death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth. That morning she was awakened by a knock on her door. It was a former law partner of Abraham Lincoln’s, from before he was elected President, and he flabbergasted her with the shocking news that she was not to attend the event at all—she was under arrest and would be brought to court to be tried for insanity. In a “kangaroo court” made up of witnesses that Mary had only the most passing acquaintance with, she was declared insane (in 19th century parlance), and sent to Bellevue Place, a mental hospital.
She had no idea that her son Robert Lincoln had put her up to this. He had, in fact, orchestrated the whole thing, perhaps in light of a recent episode where Mary, suffering from a migraine and the largely unresolved trauma of the past two decades of her life, traveled overnight to confirm his good health after he had a nightmare in which he fell “terminally ill”. The press had noted this trip and her “disheveled” appearance, and Robert was running for Town Supervisor of the city of South Chicago. She and Robert were estranged for all but the final few months of what remained of Mary’s life in light of this.
Portrait of Mary Lincoln, mid-19th century, by Mathew Brady. Credit: Public Domain.
It’s difficult to know how to truly interpret this event and the actual life and personality of Mary Lincoln. She kept many diaries of her own experience, but the public record has cast her as an unreliable narrator in her own story. She had to be many things at once—the genteel, aristocratic society wife, but also the rough-edged matriarch of a “Wild Western” family. The wife of the president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation who came from a family whose wealth was derived from enslaving people against their will (in fact, I am careful to not refer to her as Mary Todd Lincoln, as some historians assert that she wanted to distance herself from the Todds, who did enslave people). Was she the morale-boosting figurehead of the White House during wartime, or a tragic widow who could not keep herself together emotionally? The reality is unknowable, but it’s likely she was a mix of these things, and undeniably human.
I am very much in debt to this series by historian Alexis Coe for opening my eyes to a new perspective!
Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth & Family Programs
Teacher Professional Development Opportunity: Trailblazing Kentucky Women
Cool Kentucky Teacher Series: Trailblazing KY Women
April 16, 2022
9 a.m.–12 p.m.
In celebration of our Cool Kentucky exhibition, the Frazier education team has been pleased to offer a teacher series connecting local educators with themes found within the exhibit. After successful sessions focused around Kentucky music and the enslaved guides of Mammoth Cave, we are now ready to dive into the incredible stories of trailblazing Kentucky women!
Cover of Bluegrass Bold: Stories of Kentucky Women by Carly Muetterties. Credit: Carly Muetterties, design by Scott Stortz, published by Butler Books.
On April 16, we are thrilled to welcome Carly Muetterties, Director of Learning Design at Newsela and co-author of the book Bluegrass Bold: Stories of Kentucky Women. Carly will share how teachers can incorporate the stories of Bluegrass Bold into their classrooms based upon state standards. She will also discuss ways educators can enrich their social studies and literacy instruction and techniques for spring boarding into civic engagement projects.
In addition, teachers will enjoy a guided tour focusing on trailblazing women in the Cool Kentucky exhibition and hear from our friends at Kentucky to the World regarding the terrific educational resources they provide. Participating educators will be entered into a drawing for a chance to receive a classroom copy of the book. And if you’re not an educator but interested in Bluegrass Bold, be sure to pick up a copy for sale in our museum store.
Best of all, the session is FREE to local teachers. Special thanks to our anonymous donor for making this possible!
To learn more or reserve your spot, click here!
Please direct any questions to education@fraziermuseum.org.
Megan Schanie
Manager of School & Teacher Programs
Museum Store: Wearing of the Green
Frazier Museum staff wearing Kentucky Bourbon Trail Crossroad (left) and Ale-8-One (right) shirts sold in our museum store. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day and make sure you're wearing green! Pick up a green shirt in our museum store to avoid getting pinched or you can order the green Kentucky Bourbon Trail Crossroad shirt here.
Kentucky Bourbon Distillery Spotlight: New Riff Distilling
As the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, the Frazier History Museum shares stories of the people, places, and producers of the Kentucky Bourbon industry. To learn more, visit our Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center or tour our Spirit of Kentucky® exhibition.
Proudly claiming the northernmost spot on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour, we are New Riff Distilling. Founded in 2014 in Newport, Kentucky across the river from Cincinnati, we are “a new riff on an old tradition.” That tradition is sour mash whiskey making, and while we make a lot of Bourbon, we also maintain an identity as a rye-centric distillery with our selection of spicy ryes.
New Riff Distillery. Credit: New Riff Distilling.
We have a full range of tours and experiences available at New Riff:
Our BONDED Tour begins with a visit to our sensationally modern distillery building. Our architects knocked it out of the park, as our 58-foot-tall copper column still gleams in a glass tower. The second floor houses our production facility, an open, expansive space that lets you see the Bourbon making process in full. You can walk right up to the still (don’t burn yourself!), taste the fermenting mash, and see the barrels being filled, all in the same building. Your BONDED tour concludes with a full tasting in our gift shop, including our Single Barrel whiskeys and some of our “special riffs.” You’ll find some of those special bottles in our gift shop. Then, repair to our rooftop Aquifer Bar, an open-air experience featuring New Riff whiskey and gin cocktails shaken up by our crack mixologists.
Twice a month, we offer our BARREL PROOF Tour, a behind-the-scenes peek into our West Newport Warehouse Campus. Walk through our barrel warehouses capable of holding over 20,000 barrels of whiskey. Breathe in the angels’ share, see the turn-of-the-century architecture home to our bottling hall and tasting rooms and, best of all, experience the taste of New Riff Kentucky Bourbon directly from a barrel.
West Campus Warehouse for New Riff Distilling. Credit: New Riff Distilling.
Finally, we are thrilled to return for 2022 our acclaimed BLEND event. Blend your own bottle of Bourbon in our private tasting room. Taste. Blend. Bottle. Join us once a month in our West Campus Tasting Room and spend a couple of hours experiencing the fine balance between art and science as you blend your very own bottle of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Our team will guide your hands-on experience as you taste and blend three individual barrels into your perfectly balanced blend of Bourbon, ultimately bottling your very own creation to take home! Click here for BLEND.
New Riff’s Bourbon and Rye whiskeys are made only and ever in our own distillery. We are committed to sour mash whiskey making, and bottle strictly without chill filtration for maximum flavor, aroma, color and texture. Our rye-centric whiskey portfolio exploded onto the scene in September 2018, earning an unprecedented full sweep of Double Gold Medals at the 2019 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Furthermore—with the exception of our barrel proof Single Barrel whiskeys—ALL New Riff whiskeys are issued only as “Bottled in Bond,” the world’s highest standard for quality since 1897.
New Riff’s Kentucky Wild Gin is made with local, wild foraged Ohio Valley botanicals that capture true Kentucky wild flavors. We make a Bourbon Barreled aged gin in addition to our standard Kentucky Wild Gin. Our gins have captured repeat Double Gold medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
NEW RIFF DISTILLING
24 DISTILLERY WAY
NEWPORT, KY 41073
859-261-RIFF (7433)
www.newriffdistilling.com
Summer Camp Spotlight: Chicks Rule
Campers participate in a lesson on Annie Edson Taylor. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re spotlighting a favorite camp theme year after year: Chicks Rule!
Camper with Kiana Del, a local musician. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
At Chicks Rule Camp we’ll dig deep into the past and our community today to learn more of the story… and those whose stories are just now beginning to be told. Campers will host and meet incredible ballet dancers, musicians, and artists, while also recreating the achievements of some impressive engineers, designers, rulers and leaders that have come before.
Campers learning about ballet with Ashley Thursby Kern, dancer and teacher with the Louisville Ballet. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Chicks Rule is already filling up, and spaces are quite limited! If you are interested in joining us for this camp, sign up today!
Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth & Family Programs
The Journey: Unsung Stories of the Underground Railroad Audio Tour
When you create something you are proud of, there is nothing better than seeing the final result of your efforts enjoyed by others. The Education Team was thrilled to hear via social media that the Martin family had participated in one of the projects closest to our hearts, The Journey: Unsung Stories of the Underground Railroad. We are so glad that they were gracious enough to let us share their experience with The Journey here in Frazier Weekly!—Frazier Education Team
The Martin Family exploring stops along The Journey audio tour. Credit: The Martin Family.
The Martin Family exploring stops along The Journey audio tour. Credit: The Martin Family.
The Martin Family at the Journey audio tour's fifth stop, the Second Baptist Church, also known as the Town Clock Church, in New Albany. Credit: The Martin Family.
My kids and I followed the Frazier’s The Journey: Unsung Stories of the Underground Railroad audio tour last week. The experience was powerful. We had visited most of the sites in the past, but the audio recordings allowed us to see these places in a new light, and to imagine what Thornton and Lucie Blackburn might’ve thought or felt on their long journey. Presenting the Blackburns’ story in its historical context—and geographical location—was a creative and impactful way to make it accessible for today’s Louisvillians. We will definitely return to experience it again, and we look forward to the addition of more information and the completion of the final stop, a monument on the New Albany waterfront, this summer.
Tracy Martin
Natural Areas Division/Jefferson Memorial Forest, Louisville Metro Parks & Recreation
Guest Contributor
TikTok: Meet the Frazier
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes at the Frazier History Museum? Luckily, you can get the inside scoop by following the new “Meet the Frazier” TikTok account! That’s right, TikTok has infiltrated 829 West Main!
For those who may be unfamiliar, TikTok is a fast-growing social media platform that allows users to watch and create video content. Videos can be as short as a few seconds to as long as three minutes.
Content on the app varies. There are hundreds of niche video genres circulating on the platform, which makes it easy for new users to find communities to tap into. For example, I enjoy following bookish TikTok accounts (popularly called BookTok) and comedy accounts. However, you aren’t limited; users can watch and create many types of videos!
So, what kinds of videos can you expect from “Meet the Frazier”? Be prepared for artifact highlights from the collection, stories about all things Kentucky-related, and in general, the shenanigans of the Frazier staff!
Follow our account @meetthefrazier to keep up with all the new content! (Today is Pi Day, so we made a special video just for the occasion. Head over to our account to watch!)
If you’re lucky, you may even visit the museum on a day we’re filming and see the process in person!
You know what they say: “Visit the Frazier History Museum, where TikTok meets Kentucky.” (Or something like that.)
Shelby Durbin
Education & Engagement Specialist
Mayoral Forum Hosted by Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNPE)
Everyone profits when nonprofits thrive. And that’s why the Center for Nonprofit Excellence is hosting its inaugural Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tuesday, March 29, from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m.
Think about it, our area boasts around 2,100 nonprofits, the Frazier History Museum included among them. They include everything from cultural institutions, to nonprofits that help our children, feed the hungry, house the homeless, shelter our animals . . . the list is endless on how their work makes our community better.
Mayoral candidates will be asked about how their administration would partner with local nonprofits and support their efforts. The questions will be coming from folks in the nonprofit world. The moderators will be me and Stephen George, Louisville Public Media’s President and General Manager.
To sign up for the virtual program, click here.
Hope to see you there, because without nonprofits, where would we be?
Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement
Bridging the Divide
Kentucky House District 42 Representative Keturah Herron
When I spoke with Rep. Keturah Herron this past week from her new office in Frankfort, she says she is doing more listening than talking.
But plenty of folks have been talking about her victory in a recent special election for House District 42, a seat formerly held by Rep. Reginald Meeks.
Herron, who is a Democrat, becomes the first openly LGBTQ Kentuckian elected to the state's House of Representatives. I ask her about making history in our interview, and how she is bridging divides.
Herron is a former Policy Strategist at the ACLU of Kentucky, and played a key role in Louisville Metro Council’s passage of Breonna’s Law.
She was born and raised in Kentucky, she says more rural than city.
Credit: LRC Public Information, February 28, 2022.
Credit: LRC Public Information, February 28, 2022.
I talk to her about her objectives now in Frankfort, and the surreal moment of being sworn in, and why her mother was the perfect pick to be holding the bible as she took her oath.
Faith guides Keturah Herron, and she trusts it has led her to a place where she can keep making a difference.
Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement
Membership
First Annual Membership Madness: It’s Finally Here!
By now, all current members have had their brackets sent to them and many are submitting them back!
Is a case of FOMO already setting in? Don’t worry, you can still get a membership and be eligible to play, but you have to act fast. Use promo code SWEET16 for $16 off when you purchase your membership at the Contributor level or above. Hurry, this offer and eligibility will end this Wednesday, March 16th. Membership Madness is a Members Only Exclusive event! Find all the details here.
If you are a current member and for any reason you are unable to find the bracket that was sent to the email we have on file, you can find and download our bracket here.
Make sure to fill yours out and send your completed bracket(s) to: membership@fraziermuseum.org *No later than March 16th.
Remember, it’s not about filling out a perfect bracket—that’s why you are given the opportunity to fill out additional brackets…there are so many odds! The winner will be the member with the highest scoring bracket that is submitted.
The grand prize: A 70” Samsung Class 4K Crystal UHD LED Smart TV with HDR!
Andy Treinen poses with the television the winner of Membership Madness will receive in the “Athletic Kentucky” section of the Frazier’s Cool Kentucky exhibition, February 23, 2022. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
If you want to get that good energy flowing or if fillable PDF’s aren’t your cup of tea, come into the Frazier! I will be at our Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center today and tomorrow with details, brackets, and our grand prize!
See you soon!
Amanda Egan
Membership & Database Administrator
