Happy April!

Spring is in the air, and with it comes the joy of spring cleaning! As you’ve been clearing out cupboards and organizing closets, the Frazier History Museum’s collections team has been hard at work cleaning one very large artifact stored away for many years. With the help of our friends in the Brown-Forman Archives, we successfully cleaned a model of the USS Louisville, a navy battle ship. The ship is now on display in the Frazier’s vestibule to welcome you into the museum!

Before we could display the boat, we needed to ensure it was in the best condition after years spent in a non-climate-controlled environment. Led by our collections manager and resident preservationist Tish Boyer, our team underwent a four-day cleaning process that involved careful vacuuming with a soft brush and meticulous application of cleaning solutions to remove layers of dust and dirt from every tiny mast and machine gun.

Hours of brushing and hundreds of cotton swabs later, the USS Louisville was—quite literally—ready to roll! Our staff was extremely thankful the base has wheels, as the inside of the model is filled with concrete that causes it to weigh a ton.

Now, when you open our front doors on Main Street, the USS Louisville, along with a wall panel featuring a message from our president and CEO Andy Treinen, will steer your course into the museum, where your journey can continue. For those of you enjoying spring break, this week is the perfect time for parents, students, and teachers to visit!

I’ll now let our curator of guest experience Mick Sullivan take the helm with a video about the Liberty Bell’s connection to West Louisville. Next, Megan Schanie relays the experience of a longtime U of L women’s basketball fan and Simon Meiners shares the story of Russell-born concert pianist Tella Marie Cole DeBose. We plug a custom guide to Bourbon country’s most scenic drives, courtesy of our Kentucky Bourbon Trail® Welcome Center, and highlight upcoming activities at the museum. Erine Sato introduces the new members of our events team and Andy Treinen welcomes Dream Hotel Louisville to Ninth and Main Streets. Finally, Rachel Platt writes about our participation in ICOM UK and guest contributor Kayla Hinrichs focuses on sustainability and Earth Month at Louisville Water.

Have a wonderful week!

This Week in the Museum

Video: When the Liberty Bell Visited West Louisville, 1915

On November 22, 1915, from 5:45 to 9:45 a.m., the Russell neighborhood of Louisville hosted a historic visitor: the Liberty Bell. While traveling by train back to Philadelphia from the San Francisco World’s Fair, the world-famous bell was seen by an estimated 50,000 Kentuckiana residents on what was surely a morning they wouldn’t forget.

For more on the history of Russell and other neighborhoods of West Louisville, visit the Frazier’s West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition, open now through September.

Here’s a quick video on that historic morning.

2021–22 U of L Women’s Basketball Team Earns a Banner in Cool Kentucky

What a finale for U of L basketball fans! Cheers to the University of Louisville women’s basketball team for their inspiring tournament run in which they made it all the way to the Final Four.

March Madness has been one of my favorite times of year for as long as I can remember. I have fond memories of banging pots and pans on Bardstown Road as an eleven-year-old after the men’s 1986 championship, and being astounded growing up by the back-to-back (-to-back-to-back) national wins of powerhouse women’s programs such as Tennessee and Connecticut.

As a former high school and college basketball player myself, I’ve always been a fan of both the men’s and women’s games. Knowing the amount of time, energy, and dedication it took to come off the bench at a small NAIA school, I can only imagine the work, commitment, and intensity of playing at the level these women do.

It has been terrific to watch the growing success and interest in the University of Louisville women’s program over the years. Some of the crowds at Freedom Hall and smaller on-campus athletic venues years back were small but mighty. Now I have male friends who refuse to miss a home game and the team boasts some of the highest attendance numbers in the country, averaging over 8,000 fans per game.

Much of the credit goes to head coach Jeff Walz. During his fifteen-year tenure, Walz has led the team to multiple Sweet Sixteen appearances, four Final Four appearances, and two national championship games. And, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t even realize his strong Kentucky ties until I began to research this article. It turns out Walz attended high school in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, completed his undergraduate degree at Northern Kentucky University, and finished his master’s degree and took his first college coaching position as an assistant at Western Kentucky University. This year’s team also includes a defensive rock star from the Commonwealth: Mykasa Robinson who hails from Ashland.

From all of us at the Frazier Museum, we offer a sincere congratulations to the University of Louisville players and staff for their many accomplishments this year. We are very much looking forward to adding yet another banner acknowledging your 2021–22 feats in the “Competitive Kentucky” section of our Cool Kentucky exhibition.

Object in Focus: Tella Marie Cole DeBose Piano Recital Programs, 1935–38

In the Frazier Museum’s West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation exhibition, in a case of objects loaned by the Cole family, there is a program for a November 10, 1937, piano recital by “twelve-year-old piano genius . . . Tella Marie Cole of Louisville, Kentucky.”

As a Louisville-native pianist who learned how to play in the 2010s by watching YouTube tutorials, I’ve often stopped at this case and wondered: Who was this child prodigy?

Photograph of Tella Marie Cole DeBose at a piano, c. 1935. Credit: Nora Cole.

At left, front cover of the program for a November 10, 1937, piano recital. At right, page of a program for a May 10, 1935, piano recital. On loan from the Cole family.

In March, I set out to find answers. I scoured newspapers, interviewed her niece Nora Cole, and exchanged emails with her former students.

And I learned quite a bit.

Photograph of husband-and-wife duo Tourgee and Tella Marie Cole DeBose, seated, playing the piano, 1950. Credit: Nora Cole.

I learned she grew up on Twenty-third and Walnut Streets in the Russell neighborhood of Louisville. She was the daughter of Louisville Leader newspaper founder I. Willis Cole. She had recitals as a child in Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and New York, where she performed pieces by composers such as Schubert, Chopin, and Mana-Zucca, as well as an original work. She graduated Central High School at sixteen in 1941 but was refused a spot at the U of L School of Music because of the school’s racial discrimination policy. She married and performed as a duo with renowned pianist Tourgee DeBose Sr. She taught piano at Illinois State University, where one of her students was actor Craig Robinson. She played “Un Sospiro” by Franz Liszt like no one else could. And her piano pedagogy was “beyond measure.”

As for her personality—“Tella Marie isn’t loquacious,” the Courier Journal’s Marion Porter wrote in 1941, reporting her discussion with the then-sixteen-year-old. “‘I want to be a concert pianist,’ [Tella] said with an arresting simplicity and singleness of purpose.”

What follows is an overview of the life and career of Mrs. DeBose, written for museum visitors planning to see West of Ninth. My hope is that, when you lay eyes on the yellowing eighty-five-year-old pamphlets promoting this talented young pianist, you’ll remember her story.

Tella Marie Cole DeBose, 1925–2012

Tella Marie Cole DeBose was born January 24, 1925, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Rosa Evelyn Long and Isaac Willis Cole and the youngest of the couple’s six children. Her father was a noted business and civic leader, devout churchman, and inductee of the National Negro Press Hall of Fame. He was the editor and sole owner of The Louisville Leader, a newspaper published from 1917 to 1950. The Cole family lived at 2317 West Walnut Street in the Russell neighborhood of the West End of Louisville.

From age four to twelve, DeBose learned how to play piano under Miss Emma L. Minnis. She made her first public appearance as a pianist in 1932 at age seven in Jeffersonville, Indiana, then appeared before the National Musicians’ Association in Indianapolis. In 1933, she was presented by the National Woman’s Missionary Society in Chicago and by the Kentucky State College that July. She appeared as a guest pianist on the Louisville radio station WAVE in August 1934. She appeared in a public recital in Memphis, Tennessee, before the schools of that city at the request of the superintendent, whose hope was to inspire the schoolchildren, in October 1934. She also had performances in Dayton, Ohio, and Hopkinsville and Lexington, Kentucky.

On Wednesday, November 10, 1937, twelve-year-old DeBose performed a recital at Williams Institutional C. M. E. Church, located at 218–20 West 130th Street in Harlem, New York. The recital was arranged by the Epworth League, a Methodist young adult association for people age eighteen to thirty-five.

From age twelve to sixteen, she studied under University of Louisville School of Music dean Dwight Anderson. He put a halt to her public appearances, but he allowed her to perform in 1940 at Louisville Municipal College. He said she had a “fine ear” that, if not the best, would have been “among the best” at the U of L School of Music, had she enrolled there.

Program for a recital DeBose held January 12, 1938. The setlist consists of seventeen pieces: “Presto Agitato,” Mendelssohn; “Prelude Op. 28 No. 3,” Chopin; “The Two Larks,” Leschetizky; “Hark! Hark! The Lark!,” Schubert; “Warrior’s Song: Op. 45 No. 15,” Heller; “Prelude Dramatique,” Ketelbey; “Rustle of Spring,” Christian Sinding; (Vocal) “Philosophy,” David Emmell; (Vocal) “Mighty Lak’ a Rose,” Ethelbert Nevin; (Vocal) “The Big Brown Bear,” Mana-Zucca; “Sonata Pathetique (1st Movement),” Beethoven; “Barcarolle (Morning),” R. Nathaniel Dett; “Juba Dance,” R. Nathaniel Dett; “Reflects,” Clarence Cameron White; “Valse Chromatique Op. 88 No. 5 (Fifth Valse),” Godard; “Dad’s Lullaby,” Tella Marie Cole; “Concerto in G Minor,” Mendelssohn. On loan from the Cole family.

On January 12, 1938, DeBose held another piano recital. According to the setlist, the recital consisted of seven solo pieces, then three pieces with vocal accompaniment, intermission, then seven more solo pieces, followed by the addition of Miss Minnis on a second piano. In addition to performing pieces by world-famous composers, including Mendelssohn, Chopin, Leschetizky, Schubert, Mana-Zucca, and Beethoven, DeBose performed an original piece titled “Dad’s Lullaby.”

She attended Central Colored High School and, after two-and-a-half years, graduated in 1941. She finished with a rating of 94, which placed her in the first ten honor graduates. The two or three hours of school she had missed each morning she took a music lesson “[hadn’t] hurt her a bit,” her principal, Dr. Atwood S. Wilson, told the Courier Journal. She performed the commencement exercises at her graduation ceremony Thursday, June 5, 1941, as well as all the chorus music.

Although DeBose had studied under U of L School of Music dean Dwight Anderson for four years, she was not allowed to enroll at the school because of its policy of not admitting African American students. On June 4, 1941, the Louisville Times commented editorially on the case, decrying her exclusion as an injustice, adding: “Certainly every thoughtful citizen of Louisville must be aware that equality of opportunity, one of the chief shibboleths of democracy, has been set at naught here.” In the June 5 Courier Journal, Dean Anderson voiced a similar position: “Sending her away from this city next year—because of our school racial restrictions—is to me a most shocking thing.”

In September 1941, DeBose enrolled at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin, Ohio, having been awarded a scholarship. In 1941–42, she was ranked the second-highest honor student in her freshman class. She graduated with honors in 1946, receiving both a bachelor of music and a master of music degree, and was elected to the Pi Kappa Lambda Honor Society.

Immediately upon graduating from Oberlin, she became a faculty member at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During her tenure at Southern, she married Tourgee DeBose Sr., a nationally renowned concert pianist, and the two performed as a duo-piano team.

On Sunday, February 19, 1950, the Courier Journal published “2-Piano Recital,” an article promoting a concert by the DeBose couple to be held at Memorial Auditorium in Louisville, presented by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. “The program on March 5 will include solo performances by both [Mr.] DeBose and Mrs. DeBose, as well as numbers for two pianos,” it said. However, the morning the issue was published, Mrs. DeBose’s father, I. Willis Cole, died unexpectedly of a heart ailment at the family’s home on Walnut Street. As a result, the couple requested the concert be presented as a memorial to Cole.

Dean Anderson penned a review of the recital in the March 6 Courier Journal:

Mr. and Mrs. DeBose belong to those duo-pianists who play together like two individuals rather than like a disciplined mechanism. It is probably that they will continue to play thus, even after they have improved their unanimity of attack. At present, it is his virility that dominates while she supplies charm, but with greater experience he will surely temper the trumpet of his tone to more nearly match his wife’s flute.

Nothing in the afternoon equaled the glamour with which they invested Walter Niemann’s “Evening in Seville,” and they brought insinuating grace to two Danses Andalouses by Infante. The Saint-Saens Variations on a Theme of Beethoven came off not without mishaps of memory on the part of Mrs. DeBose, but there was a solid conception of the whole. Mendelssohn’s Allegro Brillant was the only example presented of music for four hands at one piano, and it was more successful, both in style and precision, than anything in the early part of the program.

Alone, Mr. DeBose played a Barcarolle by Ladow with warm lyricism, and the Paganini-Liszt “La Campanella” with bravura. Mrs. DeBose programmed the Liszt “Mephisto Waltz,” and added Smetana’s “By The Seashore.” She met the difficulties of the former with considerable ease, but the Smetana piece is more within her limits of endurance, and it was played with romantic grace. Her many friends in the audience must have noted the remarkable progress that she has made since her last public appearance here as a young girl.

In the late 1960s, Mrs. DeBose and her husband divorced. Together, they had two daughters, Donna and Arian.

From left, Professor Julian Dawson and Professor Tella Marie Cole DeBose, undated. The photograph appears in an article by Elaine Graybill titled “For love of the piano.” Both Dawson and DeBose were professors of piano at the Illinois State University School of Music. Credit: ISU School of Music, Facebook.

In 1968, DeBose became a professor of piano at the Illinois State University School of Music in Normal, Illinois. In the 1969–70 academic year, she was one of 104 Black teachers in the US to receive an award from the Ford Foundation for advance graduate study. The Ford Foundation grant permitted her to devote full time to completing her dissertation at Indiana University, where she studied with virtuoso pianists Abbey Simon and Sidney Foster. The grant also enabled DeBose to develop a unique method of teaching piano on which she gave lectures and visual demonstrations. Her research is illustrated in a two-part teaching manual.

“When I think of Mrs. DeBose, I remember her beautiful smile and eyes that positively twinkled when she greeted her students or as she described the pieces, classical and jazz, that she had been playing at one or two o’clock in the morning,” former student Nancy Pounds told me over email. Pounds studied under DeBose at ISU and now teaches piano herself. “No one could play “Un Sospiro” by Franz Liszt like Tella Marie DeBose. It was simply mesmerizing. Her dedication to piano pedagogy was beyond measure. I will always feel deep gratitude for the many lessons over the years and for the gift of growing to know this phenomenal woman. She had a tremendous influence on my life, and I endeavor to pass along her teachings and inspiration to my students.”

At Illinois State, one of DeBose’s undergraduate students was Craig Robinson, from the class of 1994. A talented keyboardist and vocalist, Robinson is best known for his work as an actor in TV comedies, including The Office (2005–13) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–21).

After retiring from Illinois State, DeBose continued to practice and coach her advanced students. She died April 13, 2012, in Bloomington, Illinois, and was interred at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.

Sources

Porter, Marion. “U. of L. Music Dean ‘Shocked’ By Rule Barring Negro Pupils.” Courier Journal. June 4, 1941: 12. Print.

Mootz, William. “2-Piano Recital.” Courier Journal. February 19, 1950: Sec. 4, p. 13.

Mootz, William. “DeBose Recital.” Courier Journal. March 5, 1950: Sec. 5, p. 1.

Anderson, Dwight. “Niemann’s ‘Evening In Seville’ Is DeBose Team’s High Spot.” Courier Journal. March 6, 1950: Sec. 1, p. 6.

National Urban League. Opportunity. Vol. 19–20. 1969: 219–20.

“ISU Faculty Member Receives Ford Grant.” The Vidette: A University Newspaper. Illinois State University. Vol. 82 No. 2. July 10, 1969: 5. Web.

Obituary of Tella Marie Cole DeBose. Courier Journal. April 27, 2012: B6. Print.

School of Music at Illinois State University. Facebook post. June 12, 2014.

Telephone interview with Mrs. DeBose’s niece Nora Cole. March 25, 2022.

Museum Store: Wildsam Field Guides: Kentucky Bourbon Country

We love the new Wildsam Field Guides: Kentucky Bourbon Country. It leads travelers into the heart of the state with guidance from trusted locals and experts. Local contributors include Bourbon expert Maggie Kimberl, activist and poet Hannah L. Drake, celebrated chef Ouita Michel, singer-songwriter Will Oldham, and Affrilachian poet Frank X. Walker. The guide includes dedicated sections on Bourbon, the best in scenic drives, and much more. Purchase a copy here and explore Kentucky!

Free Family Day This Saturday—Now With Gourmet Popcorn!

Looking for a fun way to wrap up spring break? Mark your calendar and join us THIS Saturday for a fun-filled day of crafts, story times, kid-friendly tours, and special guests! This April, we’ll celebrate those who broke down barriers in their world to help others, from amazing inventor Garrett Morgan to the first Black woman doctor in Kentucky, Sara Fitzbutler. This family day is FREE* thanks to a generous donation from an anonymous donor!

As an extra-special bonus, we’re also excited to introduce you to one of our newest vendors, Jeffersonville, Indiana–based Poppin’ Flavors Gourmet Popcorn, who will be at the museum with samples of their delicious gourmet popcorn! Be sure to stop by and try it. It will be available for sale in the museum store once you’ve fallen in love with their flavors.

Don’t forget that we are collecting twelve-inch fashion dolls representing people of color for Bridge Kids International for storytelling camps this summer! Dolls can be new or used, though articulated dolls (dolls with moving joints) are preferred.

*Free to families with children 18 and under in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Please be sure to mention this Free Family Day initiative at the admissions desk on the day of the event.

2022 Summer Field Trips Include Lewis and Clark, Time Travelers, and Cool Kentucky

It’s that time of year again: The days are getting longer and warmer weather is poking its head through as often as it can, reminding us that summer is just around the corner. At the Frazier Museum, that means prepping for our own summer camps, as well as the daycares, YMCAs, and summer learning programs that will visit with us for field trips in the months ahead. This year will be better than ever with multiple fun and engaging options. The kids will be having such a good time, they won’t even realize they are also learning in spades!

Students look at miniatures in the Stewart Historic Miniatures Gallery as part of a summer field trip, undated. Credit: Megan Schanie.

Our summer field trip groups will be able to choose from three guided programs, including: The Lewis and Clark Experience, Time Travelers, and Cool Kentucky. To learn more, or to inquire about available dates, click here.

Please contact education@fraziermuseum.org with any questions.

Megan Schanie
Manager of School & Teacher Programs

Introducing the Frazier’s New Events Team Members

Greetings from the Frazier events team!

From corporate receptions and meetings to weddings, fundraisers, birthday parties, and everything in between, we offer something for everyone! The Frazier has eight event spaces of varying sizes and styles, with a ninth space opening May 19 as part of the new second-floor exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall.

In addition to our event coordinators who offer meticulous pre-production support for your venue, our friendly events staff members greet and help direct your guests as they arrive and ensure a seamless day-of experience from load-in to load-out. With housekeeping and security, our events team handles most of the details on site so that you’re free to enjoy your special occasion and create lasting memories.

Without further ado, it is our absolute pleasure to introduce you to the new staff who comprise the events team at the Frazier History Museum:

“I am a Kentuckian born and raised, so I’m happy I have the opportunity to work somewhere devoted to Kentucky and its history. I previously worked at the Louisville Water Tower Park helping with events, mostly weddings, and giving tours of the WaterWorks Museum. That experience made me realize just how much I enjoy being a part of the planning and coordination of events. Since childhood, I’ve always enjoyed the “behind-the-scenes” aspect of things, from movies to events: I’m fascinated by all that goes into making something happen. Now, I get to channel that passion in my role at the Frazier History Museum. Whether it’s working with clients on event floor plans or just showing them the different venue options the Frazier has to offer, I work hard to make sure the client has the event they’ve always imagined. I look forward to all the events at the Frazier that are still to come!”—Madison Bates, Event Coordinator

“A native Kentuckian, I spent eight years in technical theater, helping performers take flight over stages and throughout arenas around the globe, before coming to the Frazier. Along with coordinating the technical side, I spent years performing and creating original theatrical pieces. Now, I’m extremely excited to bring my love for the arts, production experience, and a genuine verve for history to the Frazier—a beautiful and historical setting. Plus, the idea of working at a museum felt very, very cool!”—Steve Rockhold, Event Coordinator

As for me, my events background has mainly been in the corporate world: traveling 365 days a year managing staff and logistics for sponsorships at events such as Sundance Film Festival, Byron Nelson Championship, US Open of Surfing, and more.

I am motivated by the energy at events and look forward to making each one a day you and your guests continue to rave about for years to come.

As the captain of the Boston University women’s ice hockey team, I always stood out as an unexpected force, standing at 5’2” as the smallest on the team. I started playing ice hockey with the boys in, of all places, Louisville, Kentucky.

I hope to also be a force here at the Frazier as we continue to build on the incredible history the museum offers, with its beautifully curated and custom-built exhibits, while introducing the world to Kentucky.

We’d love to schedule a site visit and show you our event spaces!

Please click here to inquire about booking your event at the Frazier.

For more information, visit our events web page. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook @eventsatthefraziermuseum!

Erine Sato
Special Events Manager

Welcoming the Dream Hotel Louisville to Ninth and Main Streets

Last week, many of you may have seen the news that a 168-room hotel is moving in next door to the Frazier between 811 and 823 West Main Street. As president and CEO of the Frazier History Museum, I would like to thank the West Main Street Architectural Review Committee and developer Royal Investments for working through a compromise with an eye on both the past and the future.

Rendering of the 800 block of West Main Street, facing west toward Ninth Street, that includes the Frazier, left, and the Dream Hotel, submitted March 14, 2022. Credit: Cube 3.

Rendering of the 800 block of West Main Street, facing east toward Eighth Street, that includes the Frazier, left, and the Dream Hotel, submitted March 14, 2022. Credit: Cube 3.

As you might imagine, this wasn’t a topic taken lightly by either our board or our staff. Preserving history is at the very foundation of what we do, and it has been from the very beginning. So, how do you paint the fine line between preservation and progress? When are old, dated, and deteriorating buildings standing in the way of new, innovative, and progressive development?

When grappling with difficult questions like these, I like to go back to the museum’s mission, as Frazier Museum founder Owsley Brown Frazier stated it:

“With a greater knowledge of history, we can fully appreciate the great difficulties and the great opportunities that lie ahead. By reconnecting with our past, we can renew a sense of who we are, what we stand for, and where we are headed.”

Detail of Sanborn fire insurance map of the north side of the 800 block of West Main Street, 1892. Occupants of the addresses spanning 811 to 823 included Crescent Tobacco, Louisville Tin and Stove, manufacturers of iron and heavy hardware, and Tapp Co., who produced leather and denim clothes. *Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky*, Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 1, 1892. Credit: Library of Congress.

Postcard of the Tobacco District of Louisville, c. early 1900s. Depicted facing east from the 900 block of West Main Street with the tower and front side of the Doerhoefer Building, the 1898 complex the Frazier Museum now occupies, visible near the top left. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

In 2004, the year the museum opened, Mr. Frazier invested an enormous amount of time, talent, and treasure to our building on the corner of Ninth and Main Streets. The seven buildings to the immediate east have sat mostly vacant in the eighteen years since. Despite literally hundreds of efforts, no one could figure out how to make the nineteenth century warehouse buildings into viable twenty-first century businesses. So no one has done that.

That’s why I was so encouraged that Royal Investments—after the January 12 meeting at which the West Main Street Architectural Review Committee denied the original demolition plans for the buildings—went back to the drawing board. While the original proposal salvaged only the facades, the new and approved proposal includes retention of the front fifty-eight feet of the buildings and partial interior party walls. “[It] retains a significant portion of the original form, massing, and historic fabric of the facades which are visible from Main Street,” according to the report.

It’s clear to me the 1800s architecture along West Main Street tells a story, as do the boarded-up buildings that have sat undeveloped since the 1970s. Forging a connection with our past, both distant and recent, has paved the way for this great opportunity that lies ahead.

Bravo! I’d like to think Mr. Frazier would be pleased.

Bridging the Divide

Frazier and Ceredigion Museum in Wales to Present at ICOM UK

True story: when I received an email back in February asking me to take part in a UK museum conference (and the UK letters were in blue), I just assumed the University of Kentucky.

WRONG.

As I started to read more closely, I learned it was the ICOM UK Working Internationally Conference. ICOM stands for International Conference of Museums UK—as in, United Kingdom.

Say what?

As it turns out, one of the discussions in their two-day conference (April 7 and 8) is on bridging divides, and somehow they had heard about our programming at the Frazier History Museum on doing just that.

Street sign at the northeast corner of Ninth and Main Streets outside the Frazier History Museum, 2012. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

Our “Let’s Talk: Bridging the Divide” program series began in 2019. So far, we have tackled dozens of challenging topics to bridge divides on everything from race to gender, civil discord, policing, and education.

I will be presenting alongside Carrie Canham, the curator of the Ceredigion Museum in Wales. That museum has been leading important discussions on the future of uplands in Ceredigion, growing out of a project they did titled “Sheep.” Land usage tied to heritage, culture, sustainability, and the future has led to lively discussions with differing perspectives.

Museums are now part of the “landscape” with important community discussions.

Here’s a link with more information on the conference, as the Frazier bridges the international divide to find common ground among museums across the pond.

Louisville Water Celebrates Earth Month

This April, Louisville Water is raising a glass to all the amazing organizations that are helping make our city more sustainable. Sixteen area venues and attractions, including the Frazier History Museum, have installed touchless bottle-filling stations as part of a partnership with Louisville Water. These resources allow visitors to stay hydrated on the go—without having to reach for single-use bottled water!

Did you know that in the US nearly 1,500 plastic water bottles are consumed every second? That’s a lot of plastic waste! Fortunately, our city has a unique asset that can help us live a little more sustainably: high quality, award-winning tap water.

Louisville Pure Tap™ is delivered to millions of homes and businesses across the region—fresh from the faucet, no plastic required! Pure Tap is not only safe to drink (undergoing 200+ daily tests and exceeding EPA standards), it’s also produced specifically with taste in mind. In fact, Pure Tap frequently beats out popular bottled water brands in blind taste tests, and costs nearly 2,000 times less than the average packaged water! At Louisville Water, we want to help protect our city and our planet by making it easy for customers to ditch single-use bottled water for good. And we couldn’t do it without the help of the Frazier, and our other partner organizations, who are proud to help their visitors “drink like a local.” Be sure to bring a reusable bottle the next time you visit; help keep your body and the planet healthy and happy!

Check out our fun Earth Month video to see if you recognize any of your favorite spots!

Membership

Coffee With Casey RSVP Deadline Approaching Fast!

With April now here, our next member-exclusive program, Coffee With Casey, is on the horizon!

Logo for Coffee With Casey. Credit: Frazier History Museum.

On Saturday, April 9, members can meet the Frazier Museum’s director of exhibit ideation Casey Harden, who will present on the process of creating the upcoming exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall. While Casey presents, collections manager Tish Boyer will bring out items that will later go on display in The Commonwealth. Our members will be given that first look into this interactive exhibition, one that has been designed to engage visitors of all ages and feature objects related to Kentucky’s diverse history as a border state on the banks of the Ohio. Following the program, Casey will lead a tour of our most recent installment in West of Ninth: Race, Reckoning, and Reconciliation.

Doors will open at 10 a.m. Coffee, tea, and other light refreshments will be served, and the program will begin at 10:30.

This type of programming is a benefit to our Contributor-level members and above.

Become a member today in order to RSVP before the deadline!

If you would like to upgrade your membership in order to unlock benefits like this program, give us a call at (502) 753-5663.

The RSVP deadline is tomorrow, April 5.

Grab your seat before they’re all gone. RSVP now!

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