Good Monday morning,

What a wonderful time of year to be in the business of igniting the human spirit! I can’t tell you how delightful it is to see so many of you visiting the museum, interacting with our staff, and enjoying our exhibitions, programs, and events.

In just 10 days, we’ll host our first in-person Masters Series Bourbon event since the start of the pandemic. I have already pre-interviewed all of our masters and I can assure you it is going to be special. As I write this letter, there are only 6 seats still available.

Summer Beer Fest at Frazier is now less than a month away, and we have great news for you and your besties: buy three tickets between now and July 23 and get a fourth at no cost. That’s right, four admissions — including 40 tastings, great music from Brother Smith and Eric Bolander, and much more — all for the cost of three.

Proceeds from the event will support the museum’s exhibitions and educational programs, including free or reduced admission for Title 1 students, Bridging the Divide: Let’s Talk programs, summer camps, family days, and live storytelling provided by our education and engagement team.

Today’s Virtual Frazier Magazine is another Kentucky gem! From recent acquisitions in our Curator’s Corner to Megaphone Monday, Archaeology Day @ the Frazier, and a Story Time Tuesday book about the secret engineer behind the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Frazier really is where the world meets Kentucky.

Stephen Yates gets things started, taking his Sippin’ With Stephen on the road for the very first time at Wilderness Trail in Danville. I hope you enjoy!

Wilderness Trail Lady in Red Recipe:

Fill Old Fashioned glass with ice
Add 2 oz. Wilderness Trail Wheated Bourbon, Frazier Museum Barrel Pick
Add 2 oz. pomegranate juice
Add 1 oz. blood orange simple syrup
Stir & strain
Garnish with lime juice

This Week in the Museum

Curator’s Corner: Recent Acquisitions to Spotlight

In today’s Curator’s Corner, I want to show off some recent additions to our collection. Collections Manager Tish Boyer and I are constantly looking for interesting pieces to add to the Frazier’s collection to help us better tell the story of Kentucky. Although most new additions are donations made by individuals and other institutions, we also spend time looking at various auctions to find the perfect pieces to add.

Here are some of my favorites that have come in recently.

A 1940s wedding dress that was hand-made from a parachute. Wedding dresses such as these were often made from the parachutes that were used by the bride’s husband-to-be, guiding them to safety during World War II. Donated by Frances Lussky.

An 1890s organ made by the Adler Organ Company, established by Cyrus L. Adler in the late 1800s, previously on display in Celebrating the Sounds of Kentucky. Donated by Marvin Maxwell.

A 1930s silver pickle fork from the Galt House, made by J. Dolfinger & Co in Louisville. Donated by Dr. Ted Ligibel.

A dance card from J. M. Atherton High School. Because it was an all-girls school at the time, all of the names in the dance card are girls’ names. Donated by Mary Anne Gallahue.

A silk pant suit brought back by Sam Faulkner of Middlesboro, Kentucky after serving in World War II. The suit was gifted to his high school sweetheart, Lois, whom Sam married shortly after the war. Donated by Susan Benner.

Acquisitions - Haucks Plate.jpg — Hauck’s plate

A plate inscribed “Compliments of Fred Hauck, Cor. Goss Ave. & Spratt St.” Hauck’s Handy Store opened in 1912 and is still a staple in the Germantown neighborhood, hosting the annual Dainty Competition. Museum purchase.

If you have any items that you would like to donate to the museum that you think will help tell the incredible and diverse stories of Kentucky, please contact us at info@fraziermuseum.org.

Summer Camps: The Museum, the Myth, the Legend

Summer campers visiting the Muhammad Ali Center, 2021

It’s hard to believe, but we’re officially past the halfway mark of summer camp season! After a brief break for the Fourth of July holiday, we are back at it this week with the Museum, the Myth, the Legend — a camp based around all things legendary, from Persephone to Percy Jackson.

It’s not too late to sign up for camps due to expanded class sizes — we have one more week each of Cool Story Y’all and The Museum, the Myth, the Legend, plus day camps deep-diving into our favorite Frazier galleries for Around the Frazier in Five Days. Cool Story Y’all, a tribute to our Cool Kentucky exhibition, wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to some of our fellow Museum Row attractions that make downtown Louisville such a special place. This picture was taken on a field trip to the Muhammad Ali Center, which is always a highlight of the summer.

If your rising first through sixth grader is looking for some summer fun, be sure to check out what we have to offer here!

Museum Store: Good Times at Wilderness Trail

Community & Corporate Sales Manager Stephen Yates at Wilderness Trail

We had fun picking our barrel and look forward to sharing it with you at our our July 22 Masters Series program. Don’t miss this event or your chance to get a bottle of this special Bourbon — arriving in the museum shop next week!

New Frazier Events Team Members

(L to R) Special Events Manager Alyssa McKenna and Events Coordinators Savion Duke and Alex Harvey

Hello from our new Events Team!

You might have seen some new faces around the Frazier recently. Three new team members have joined the Events Department over the past couple of months. Please meet Alyssa McKenna, our new Special Events Manager, along with Savion Duke and Alex Harvey, our two Event Coordinators.

The team is happy to take over the execution of previously scheduled events in addition to meeting and working with potential new clients. Frazier is a wonderful, multi-use space — one that can accommodate a variety of functions. With at least one event space on each of the four floors of the building as well as a scenic rooftop garden overlooking the Louisville skyline, the Frazier is the perfect venue for weddings, galas, meetings, conventions, and other social and corporate happenings.

For additional information on hosting an event with us, or to schedule a tour, please reach out to events@fraziermuseum.org. In the meantime, check out the Frazier Museum Events social media accounts to see photos of previous events and happenings.

Megaphone Monday: Brian West, Teaching Artist

Want to know more about the folks who make the Frazier tick? Tune in to Megaphone Monday! In each episode, Curator of Guest Experience Mick Sullivan interviews one of the Frazier’s staff members — across the room, through megaphones. It’s a fun and silly way to learn about the good folks who work here at the museum.

Today, Brian West does some Kentucky-based word association, talks about his favorite movies, and gives a pretty great recommendation on a Frazier experience.

Story Time Tuesday: Secret Engineer

When talking about incredible women, we can’t forget Emily Roebling, a monumental force behind the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. Author and illustrator Rachel Dougherty has brought new life to Emily’s story with Secret Engineer: How Emily Roebling Built the Brooklyn Bridge, a 2019 children’s book that is now in the rotation for Story Time Tuesday readings.

Dougherty’s book highlights Emily’s journey to becoming the head engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge project. After her husband, Washington Roebling, fell sick during construction, Emily insisted she would be his eyes and ears at the worksite. She read construction reports, studied equations, attended meetings, and essentially taught herself how to be an engineer. While people didn’t realize she was in charge because women weren’t accepted in esteemed positions like chief engineer, she was consistently around and dedicated to the completion of the bridge. On May 24, 1883, she became the first person to cross the bridge at its opening ceremony. She later went on to graduate from New York University’s Law School in one of its first classes in which women were enrolled.

Emily Roebling is an inspiring, commendable, and important woman, and I have absolutely loved getting to tell her story during story time on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. at the Frazier!

This story also has a notable tie to Kentucky: the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge that connects Covington, Kentucky to Cincinnati, Ohio is also a Roebling family bridge! Prior to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, this bridge, which is just under two hours from Louisville, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Whenever I read Secret Engineer at Story Time Tuesday, I also lead a PowerPoint presentation containing images of both the Brooklyn Bridge and the Covington-Cincinnati Bridge to further emphasize how cool Kentucky is!

Caitie Licciardi
Education Intern

Suffrage Exhibition Closing and Looking for Lilith Tours

Objects on display in What is a Vote Worth? Suffrage Then and Now — Objects on display in *What is a Vote Worth? Suffrage Then and Now*

We hope you’ve found time to come to our exhibition What is a Vote Worth? Suffrage Then and Now. We extended its run until August 1 due to COVID, but with that date rapidly approaching, time to see it is running out. The exhibition commemorates the centennial of the 19th Amendment, the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and the struggle that continues today. In addition to our exhibition, Looking for Lilith has another weekend of the Suffrage Driving and Walking Tour, which highlights the courageous women who fought for the right to vote. Click here to learn more about the tours offered this weekend.

Also, be sure to mark your calendar for a bigger celebration with Women’s Equality in August.

Flyer for Women’s Equality Day 2021, August 28 at the Frazier History Museum

Beer Fest: Samples of Dunkel, IPA, and Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout

Logo for Summer Beer Fest at Frazier

Each week in advance of the inaugural Summer Beer Fest at Frazier, which takes place August 7, we’ll be sharing some more details about the festival. This week, Teaching Artist Brian West is reviewing a samples of three beers to be served: Blue Stallion Brewing Company’s Dunkel and Goodwood Brewery’s India Pale Ale and Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout. For more info or to purchase tickets, visit fraziermuseum.org/beerfest.

The Frazier has been the official starting point for the Kentucky Bourbon Trail® since 2018. Now, in the spirit (no pun intended) of branching out, the Frazier will celebrate the best that Kentucky’s micro- and craft breweries have to offer with its inaugural Summer Beer Fest at Frazier in August.

But first, in order to get your taste buds ready for the festival, here’s a primer on a few of the products that the craft and micro-breweries to be featured at the event currently have to offer.

Blue Stallion’s Dunkel

5.4 percent ABV

Blue Stallion Brewing, Lexington

The Dunkel is a style of lager that goes back over 500 years. In 1516, a set of regulations was passed in the German Duchy of Bavaria, which set price controls on beer and strict guidelines on which ingredients brewers could use to brew their beer.

Known as the Reinheitsgebot, this purity law stipulated that “the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water.” Dunkels, therefore, have the distinction of being the first “fully codified and regulated” beer.

Blue Stallion Brewing Company’s Dunkel carries on that tradition with a dark beer that is smooth to the taste and quite sweet. This is because the Dunkel is brewed primarily with malted barley.

As Bourbon distillers use grains such as rye and wheat in a mash bill to enhance the spiciness and sweetness, respectively, of a Bourbon before distillation, brewers lean on hops and malted barley to enhance either the tartness or sweetness of a craft beer or microbrew.

The next beer has a more hoppy taste profile.

Goodwood’s India Pale Ale

6.9 percent ABV

Goodwood Brewery, Louisville

According to Wikipedia, India Pale Ale only goes as far back as the early 19th century, specifically the southeast coast of England. There, a local brewer was trying to meet demand from merchants of the East India Trading Company, who preferred a stronger hopped beer to the more malty October beer the brewer had also been selling to them.

In response to the demand, the brewer began to produce more of the hopped beer than the other. Over time, natives in India who conducted business with the traders also acquired a preference for this beer, and the ale was soon given the moniker “India Pale Ale.”

Goodwood’s India Pale Ale had an overhaul of sorts. Goodwood’s CEO Ted Mitzlaff said that while the brewery was closed to the public during the pandemic, Goodwood was hard at work upgrading and refining its IPA. The company bought out a microbrewery in Indiana and asked two of the brewmasters there to travel down I-65 to Louisville to offer their expertise in brewing a more potent IPA.

The result is a full-bodied IPA that, in Mitzlaff’s words, “knocks your socks off.” And with an IBU of 67 units, one could hardly argue with that description.

Another Goodwood offering also packs one helluva punch, but in a different way.

Goodwood’s Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout

8 percent ABV

Goodwood Brewery, Louisville

If IPAs are commonly known in the beer world as the most hoppy of beers, then stouts can be considered one the most malty of them. For Bourbon aficionados, an analogy here would be to compare a hoppy IPA to a spicy rye whiskey and a stout to a heavily wheated Bourbon (e.g., Maker’s Mark).

One is drier, while the other sweeter to the tongue — and for a sweeter tasting beer, one can do no better than a stout. Originally used in 18th century England as an adjective to describe stronger than usual porters, the style came into its own later in the century with the introduction of stronger malts.

Bourbon stouts became a thing in America during the early 1990s. Brewers such as Goose Island, who was looking for a way to make stouts even more potent, discovered that aging stouts in used Bourbon barrels not only enhanced the taste profile of a stout, but increased the ABV, too. Some of the most potent stouts run at about 12 percent alcohol by volume.

Goodwood’s iteration is not quite as potent, but that was by design. Ted Mitzlaff wants beer connoisseurs to be able to enjoy more than one of his Bourbon Barrel Aged Stouts, if they so choose. The stout from Goodwood has notes of chocolate and cinnamon and a surprisingly smooth finish.

It also, to the author’s surprise, goes well with a bag of Doritos. But readers might want to pair Goodwood’s stout with more sophisticated fare.

This is just a sample of what two of the brewers to be represented at Summer Beer Fest at Frazier have to offer. These beers are available at local liquor outlets and neighborhood supermarkets. So, before the Fest is here, it might be a good idea to try one or more of these products!

Brian West
Teaching Artist

History All Around Us

Save the Date: Archaeology Day @ the Frazier

Corn Island Archaeology (CIA) Principal Investigator Anne Bader exhibits artifacts recovered from the Beecher Terrace Housing Project site to a group of Frazier Museum staff members. Credit: Megan Schanie.

When we hear the words “archaeological dig,” many of us imagine exotic, faraway places and artifacts that are thousands of years old. But right here in our own community, archaeological digs are happening “as we speak” — and they are helping uncover the fascinating stories of those who lived here before us.

As part of the West of Ninth exhibition community opening, the Frazier Museum is thrilled to partner with Corn Island Archaeology, Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville Metro Housing Authority, and others to offer a day of fun and discovery to share artifacts and stories unearthed at the Beecher Terrace Housing Project site in downtown Louisville — free of charge.

Archaeology Day @ the Frazier
September 18, 2021
11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Designed for all ages, the free day will include:

Hands-on archaeology stations
A presentation by Anne Bader, Principal Investigator with Corn Island Archaeology
A screening of the documentary The Beecher Terrace Story introduced by the documentarian behind it, local filmmaker Lavel D. White of Blu Boi Entertainment, in the Frazier’s Brown-Forman Theatre
A sharing session offered by JCPS teacher leaders on their development of Inquiry Design Models (IDMs) around the history and artifacts of the community
Access to all Frazier Museum exhibitions, including Cool Kentucky, The Lewis and Clark Experience, a case of artifacts from the Beecher Terrace dig site, and the new West of Ninth exhibition, opening the same day
And much more!

Please direct any questions regarding Archaeology Day @ the Frazier to education@fraziermuseum.org. There is more to come on the exciting West of Ninth exhibition and all it entails in future newsletters.

Special thanks to UPS and Louisville Metro Housing Authority for their generous support of this program.

In Memoriam

Bud Dorsey

Charles "Bud" Ford Dorsey Jr. (April 1941 – July 8, 2021), undated. Courtesy of Aukram Burton.

He was a Louisville icon, capturing so much of Louisville’s history through the lens of his camera, specifically African American communities.

Bud Dorsey has passed away at the age of 80. A self-taught photographer, he took photographs that illuminated so much about ourselves and our community.

His work was featured in a 2017 book by the Louisville Story Program, Available Light: Louisville Through the Lens of Bud Dorsey. Louisville Story Program captures his essence, both in the book and and in their statement on Bud’s passing.

Bud visited the Frazier for our program Black Girl Magic and took pictures of our discussion. We wanted to share just a couple.

Audience members at the Frazier’s Black Girl Magic program, January 16, 2020. Credit: Bud Dorsey.

Panelists at the Frazier’s Black Girl Magic program, January 16, 2020. Credit: Bud Dorsey.

These photos are priceless treasures.

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