History Burgoo

"Faux Sawyiers" discovered in KHS collections

Last winter the Museum Collections and Exhibition (MC&E) team spent several weeks re-cataloging the Paul Sawyier painting collection. Sawyier, an Impressionist from Frankfort, is known for his watercolor landscapes of central Kentucky and the Catskill area of New York. As we “waded” through painting after painting of images of the Elkhorn Creek and the Kentucky River, we began to get a sense of Sawyier’s style and technique. That’s why when we came across a painting entitled Main Street at Calvert Corner we realized something was not quite right. The lines weren’t as straight or crisp as Sawyier’s and the skill level wasn’t the same.

Main Street at Calvert Corner (1980.40.19)

After a bit of research we discovered that Main Street at Calvert Corner was a copy of Sawyier’s painting entitled A Rainy Day in Frankfort that we also have in the collection. Although each painting depicts the same scene it was obvious (even to us non-art historians) that they were done by two different people. As we continued to work our way through the collection we were able to identify five more so-called “faux Sawyiers.” Some were even signed with Sawyier’s signature! We know that Sawyier had students. We also know there were art classes in the 20^th century who copied Sawyier’s work as an exercise in technique. Although we don’t know who painted our copies, we do know who one of the Sawyier copyists was.

After writing about these “faux Sawyiers” in the fall 2011 issue of the Chronicle, I received an email from a KHS member in Louisville who had another copy of A Rainy Day in Frankfort. This one, painted by Eva Graham of Frankfort, had Sawyier’s signature but more importantly had been signed “copy by Eva S. Graham.” By looking at the photograph one can tell that Mrs. Graham was a much better artist that the person who painted the copy that we have. Eva Scottow Graham was born in 1878 and died in 1971, so it’s possible she either studied with Sawyier himself or she could have been a student later in the 20^th century. Graham also painted a copy of Sawyier’s Old Louisville Road that I think is better than the original.

A Rainy Day in Frankfort (2008.21.4)

I think it would be fun to do a mini-exhibition of the copies hanging next to the originals giving folks the opportunity to compare the two. One of the other items on our “things to do when we have time” list is to determine if Mrs. Graham painted any of the copies that we have. To be honest, only a couple of them would qualify as good enough to have been done by her. Most would fall in the category of “folk” or “primitive.” Unfortunately those ideas will have to wait until some time in the future. In the meantime, here are images of Sawyier’s A Rainy Day in Frankfort and the copy entitled Main Street at Calvert Corner. Can you tell which is the real Sawyier?

-Sara Elliot, KHS Curator 

 

Behind the scenes at the opening of "The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships"

        I’ve had some interesting assignments in the two and a half years I’ve been a volunteer at the Kentucky Historical Society. One of the most enjoyable was spending an evening with Bobby Osborne and the Rocky Top X-Press.

        Since I’m a bluegrass music fan it wasn’t a hard decision when the call came for volunteers to help with the September 15th opening of ”The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships” exhibition and the concert to mark the Bill Monroe centennial.

     Bob Gates, director of the Kentucky Folklife Program, surprised me with the assignment of looking after the musicians -- showing them where the food and soft drinks were and making sure they could get in and out of the locked doors to their tour bus.

     What a nice group of guys!

     When I informed Bobby Osborne about the cold sweet tea in the “green room” (the education rooms off the main lobby), he told me how he had gone off tea while fighting as a Marine in Korea. He said he had gotten too many cups of lukewarm tea when what he really wanted was something cold. 

     Bobby passed on the food and tea, but other members of the band dug into the fried chicken box suppers.

     While waiting with the band members until time to go onstage, I spotted a small electronic device clipped to the neck of Joe Miller’s guitar. Miller explained that the digital readout allowed him to tune his guitar, even when the rest of the band was playing. Bobby Osborne Jr. also had one on his five-string bass.

     It was a great concert! One of the highlights was the appearance with Osborne and the X-Press by Cory May, a young musician from Kentucky.

     I had a chance to talk to Cory early in the evening. It’s easy to tell he’s very passionate about his music. His talent and long hours of practice were evident when he played both guitar and mandolin and sang with Osborne and his band.

     "The Makings of a Master: Kentucky Folk Art Apprenticeships" will be open at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History through December 10 and will then tour the state through 2014.

     The next concert in the Folklife series will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, and feature the Reel World String Band, Carla Gover and Jeri Katherine Howell. The exhibition and concert are free with admission to the Kentucky Historical Society.

     I’m looking forward to it!

-Jim Gill, KHS volunteer since 2009. Jim also blogs at Searchin' for Kinfolk.

All photos by the Kentucky Folklife Program.

Crowdsourcing: using technology to build community

I just got back from lovely Maysville, Kentucky, where the Kentucky Museum and Heritage Alliance is holding its annual meeting.  This year the theme was "Negotiating the Rapids:  Celebrating our Strength, Service and Stewardship".  Months ago I submitted a program presentation on the topic of crowdsourcing and, amazingly, they selected my topic for the annual meeting.

So you may well ask, just what is this thing you call crowdsourcing?  Wikipedia defines crowdsourcing as the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee, to an undefined large group of people or community, through an open call.  Translated that means telling the world that you are looking for a solution to a problem and waiting for some unknown person to solve that problem, usually for free.  Software developers and programmers have long used this method to fix glitches in programs, like "does anyone know how to..."

This can be really useful but, sometimes you get what you paid for, which is to say, not much.  Now I don't have any immediate programming needs nor am I designing any software, so you might wonder what use museums and archives could have for this technique.  Well, if you tweek the parameters just a bit this process can be transforming.  If you broaden the model to a "creative services exchange" where the institution vets the crowd in advance, and the staff facilitate the exchange between staff and crowd, then this can be a melding of staff and crowd knowledge which benefits everyone in the end.

 We are in the process of using this model with the William C. Ogden Photographic Negatives project.  We, the staff at the Kentucky Historical Society, were responsible for caring for, housing and inventorying this collection of over 10,000 photographic negatives.  However, the original housing for these negatives were glassine envelopes on which the photographer, Bill Ogden, had written sometimes cryptic notations.  

We had the knowledge to do a basic inventory, but we needed more contextual information to truly process the collection and make it accessible and usable.  For example, the envelope for the image below stated "Clay W. Buckner" but the image is of a woman in a wedding dress.  Is this Clay Buckner's daughter?  His bride?  We, at KHS, lacked that information.

 
Enter our partner, the Bluegrass Heritage Museum, with director Sandra Stults and her community of volunteers.  This museum is in Winchester, Kentucky, where Ogden resided for over 60 years.  His photographic studio was well known throughout Clark County and neighboring Bourbon, Fayette, Woodford and Franklin Counties.  Many of Sandy's volunteers knew Ogden or had seen photographic portraits created by him.  And better yet, they knew their community, their neighbors and the stories that provided the context for these photographic negatives.

So Sandy and I met and cooked up a plan to bring these two groups together to share their knowledge and to build on that knowledge.  We both wanted to learn more about the collection and to make it useful to researchers and community members alike.  KHS wanted to inventory the collection and to digitize the images.  Bluegrass Heritage Museum wanted to make the collection, or a portion of it, available locally in Winchester through an exhibit.  And so this is the way we used crowdsourcing to inventory, describe, digitize and exhibit this wonderful collection.  

First, we got the older community members to come to KHS to view the collection, and to work with staff to better describe the images.

Then, working with students from George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, KY, Sandy and her volunteers selected the images they wanted to research, scan and exhibit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then they researched.

And they scanned.

And they described the results of their research and added this to the digital collection.

And we have the beginnings of a finished product.  Just the beginnings, mind you, as there are 28 images up online and 10,000+ in the collection.

And we also have a group that can't wait to come back and do more research, scanning and description.  And now that images are up online and on exhibit at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum in Winchester, we hope that others with knowledge about this photographer and his subjects will also share that information with us.  

A true exchange.  Two organizations working together to make these historic images available to their communities.  Ahh, this is what we are talking about when we say "crowdsourcing".

For further information about the Bluegrass Heritage Museum, visit their website at www.bgheritage.com.

To view selections online, please go to our Digital Collection at www.kyhistory.com.

If you have information that can help us further identify the subjects of these images, please contact us at Refdesk@ky.gov.  Please remember to identify the image by its accession number, so we can add your infomation to the correct image.

-- Louise Jones

 

 

 

 

 

Renovated “Hall of Governors” Will Open on Boone Day!

Boone Day, the KHS event that takes place annually on the first Saturday in June, will be even better than usual this year.   

On Saturday, June 4, the renovated “Toyota Kentucky Hall of Governors” will open in conjunction with Boone Day.  Boone Day will take place at the Center for Kentucky History, and KHS guests that day will be the first to experience the new Hall of Governors, along with related programming that day.  

Why is this renovation such a big deal? 

Well first, a word on the history of the Hall of Governors—affectionately referred to as the HoG. 
Re-opening the HoG on Boone Day closely mirrors the roots of the Boone Day tradition and the existence of the exhibition itself.  On June 7, 1897, Gov. William O. Bradley presided over the first annual meeting that reestablished KHS after it was nearly abolished in 1889. (Each governor also serves, by statute, as the Chancellor KHS during his/her term.) 

During the meeting, Bradley requested that the Society’s portraits of Governors Letcher, Metcalfe, Scott, Powell and Blackburn be assembled for display.  

Now, portraits are commissioned during each governor’s term and are hung when he leaves office. The previous configuration of the HoG was becoming crowded, and did not allow for the addition of more portraits.  

The new, improved exhibition, however, allows for these additions and much more!  KHS is lucky to hold many governor-related artifacts, including personal items that belonged to many governors. The new HoG will allow for the display of these items, and will let KHS tell the story of the commonwealth’s heads of state more fully. 

For example, KHS holds in our collections the watch Isaac Shelby carried when he fought the English in the War of 1812.  We also have the ring Luke Blackburn presented his wife on their wedding day in 1857; a cane Thomas Bramlette carried during the Civil War; and, perhaps most infamously, the shirt William Goebel was wearing when he was shot by an assassin in 1900. All of these will be on display in the newly renovated exhibition. 

 And on Boone Day, our guests will have the opportunity to hear from the living governors, from Ford to Fletcher, on a variety of topics relating to the governorship. This panel discussion will be moderated by Bill Goodman from KET. 

Tickets for Boone Day are $18 for KHS members and $23 for all other guests, and include the exhibition opening, the panel discussion and lunch.To purchase your tickets, email Julia Curry or call Julia at
502-564-1792. 

While we anxiously await Boone Day, stay tuned to the KHS Facebook page for governor-related trivia!

--Laura Coleman

Top image: The HoG has been painted, and KHS staff are reinstalling portraits today. Second image: The upper text rail in the exhibition contains the oath of office.  

Where Have all the Governors Gone?

 

Some of you might have heard that we are in the process of re-conceptualizing the Toyota Hall of Governors off of Commonwealth Hall in our building. If you have visited recently – say, last week when we reopened to the walk-in public after our 1st seasonal closing – then you would have noticed the walls are bare in that hall. Where have all of our governor’s portraits gone? We took them down to get ready for the redesign. They are currently in museum storage, some are being photographed and all are being checked over and just generally rested. The walls are currently being cleaned and prepped and the room itself looks VERY large and empty.

What now? The exhibits staff, with input from various advisors, is currently finishing up the exhibit script – yep, think of it like a play, all of the characters have lines – and finalizing images to include with the text and also, which oral history clips to help illustrate who these governors were and what their time in office meant for the state. A few big questions floating around is what does it mean to be a governor in Kentucky? How has that role changed over the last 200+ years? How does a governor get elected? How do they accomplish things once in office? How do party politics play into this whole process  and what are the individual legacies of specific governors? Every question that is discussed brings up 10 more to be answered. As with every exhibit, the information gathered way exceeds the space available to share. For every governor, we are looking at about 50 words to sum all of these questions up. Pretty big challenge, how would you do it?

As for my part, I have been working (along side our wonderful intern, Marcy Werner) on sorting through our oral history collections to attempt to find interviews that help illustrate (concisely) the points being made in the script. So, out of a 3 hour interview, I am looking for 30 second clips. Or, in the case of Governor Combs – out of something like 8 hours of video interview from the raw footage of a documentary, we are

2002OH02.1d - Bert Combs

looking for a 30 second clip. I have to say, both Marcy and I feel like we have had a crash course in the complexities of Kentucky politics. We have listened to legislators, special interest groups, state workers (the list goes on) all of which have opinions and experiences with these governors. For me, at least, it has really made these powerful folks (not just men, remember Martha Layne Collins! ) more real and definitely more human.

So, when you come to KHS for a visit, maybe even on Boone Day when the exhibit will first open, check out the text, examine the images of documents, artifacts and people and listen to the oral history clips. Then think about what else you might like to know about these individuals or their terms in office. Come up to the library and check out our books, check out our manuscript collections and definitely listen to more than 30 seconds of our oral histories. It is definitely worth your time.

 

--Sarah Milligan

Images, top left, KHS collection. 1904.2. Governor Thomas Metcalfe (1828-32) of Nicholas County. (I have to admit, one of my favorite portraits down there, completely for the hair-SM) above left, KHS collection. 1975.17. Governor Bert T. Combs (1959-63) of Clay County. above right, KHS collection. 1988.4.3. Governor Martha Layne (Hall) Collins (1983-87) of Shelby and Woodford Counties.

Women’s History Month and the KHS Pamphlet Collection

 

 

 KHS Collection. 378 L888 Pamphlet. Catalogue of the officers and students of the Louisville Female College for the year 1873-74, including the names of the students who have been connected with the institution between April, 1872, and April, 1873.

Women’s history thrives in the collections of the Kentucky Historical Society, with interesting treasures found in each of our collection areas, ranging from diaries and letters, to photographs and portraits, as well as oral histories, and material collections of clothing and artifacts.  My favorite nuggets are found in the rare books and pamphlets. We have several pamphlets from a variety of early female colleges and academies in Kentucky.  Family historians relish the lists of students and faculty that some of these pamphlets include, but these small volumes also reflect the character of women's education during their respective time periods.

As I mentioned in a blog from July 26, 2010, 
it is always a treat for us to recommend and retrieve pamphlets for library patrons; this is especially true for any of the school pamphlets.  These school catalogues and announcements allow us to visit the specific school at the time of the pamphlet’s publication, briefly becoming a part of its intended audience.

The Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Hocker Female College, Lexington, Kentucky, 1873-74, includes a two-page article about Hocker Female College, signed “Home and School, for July, 1872.”  This article gives insight into the school’s founder, James M. Hocker, as well as a thorough description of the physical make-up of the facility.

Another glimpse into women’s history can be found in the 1887 Annual Announcement and Catalogue of the Millersburg Female College, Millersburg, Bourbon Co., Kentucky. These pages show an example of a liberal arts curriculum that female students followed at the time.

The list of graduates and students found in pamphlets like the one from the Catalogue of Georgetown Female Seminary, Kentucky, 1887-1888, is often used by researchers to verify names or dates.

This online sampling from our pamphlets is a nice little treat, but it is much more satisfying to read them in our library.  We hope you can visit us after our seasonal hours end. We will return to our regular schedule on March 12, 2011.

Happy Trails,
Brenda Smith

 

 Images - Top Right. KHS Collection. 976.902 K37-4 Pamphlet. Live stock show and fair of the Latonia Agricultural Association. Top Left. KHS Collection. 378 H685 1873-74 Pamphlet. Annual catalogue of the officers and students of Hocker Female College, Lexington, Kentucky.  Above Right. KHS Collection. 976.902 B766-1 Pamphlet. 1887. Annual announcement and catalogue of the Millersburg Female College, Millersburg, Bourbon Co., Ky. Above left. KHS Collection. 378 G351 1887-88 Pamphlet. Catalogue of Georgetown Female Seminary, Kentucky.

 

 

 

First Day of Seasonal Public Closing...Mark I on the Wall

 - view from my office window this morning. Great weather to start data entry! (hey, I mean that!)

So, it is the first day of our seasonal closing. (Yes, we are still working here at KHS. The seasonal closing doesn't mean the organization is shut down or that we are turning off any lights.) To be honest, the staff here at KHS has been working towards this day in anticipation for weeks now, so it is a bit surprising to wake up this morning to find us actually here - those of us not snowed out, that is. I know we have been talking in this blog about what we plan on doing and how we are setting goals to make sure we accomplish those plans as we are sacrificing continual public hours for 3 months.

To give you some insight into the minds of the worker bees, I can tell you we are disappointed to not be able to keep the doors open for everyone to come in and see us for these winter months. We enjoy our interaction with the public and truly want to offer access to our collections and continue on with those educationally encouraging moments with youth of various ages. That is the bitter part of the closing, the sweet part is that we can now devote some serious time to making those collections accessible in the future.

This doesn’t mean that we have lost or misplaced any collections, I know we keep talking about “finding” things, but what we are really saying is that we are going to do a more detailed inventory. All of those records from 50 years ago that say “flag” or “journal” or “image of man on horse,” we are going to go through and detail a flag of what, a journal by whom and what was that guy doing on a horse anyway?  We are also planning on getting more of these collections – at a more detailed level – in our catalog, where you can search for them from home. OR in our digital catalog, where you can view them from home.

(IMAGE, right: The special collections and library staff are working on cataloging microfilm for all of the counties. You can tell what we have done as of today.)

Unfortunately, because of budget cuts in the last few years – as I am sure you are tired of hearing about – we don’t have the staff to effectively do both--keep the doors open year round AND created detailed level of online access for our collections. To strike a balance between the two, here we are – doors closed to walk-ins for a few months. BUT, for groups of 10 or more, including researchers, school groups, etc… we will open up for you with some advanced notice. We are also open the second Saturday for January and February, so plan your trips around that. We would love to show you what we have been doing while we were away.

(Image, left-- Behind the scenes, the museum collections and exhibition team is keeping track of their progress on this wall-size chart. You can see the points already accomplished.)

My goals are developing projects and writing lots of grant applications, as well as catching up on our recent oral history collections donations in our record keeping software, PastPerfect, as well as beginning my new skill of cataloging oral history collections into our catalog. I want you to know what the 10,000 items we have in our oral history archive are – other than awesome, that is. I don’t want a repeat of what a student doing research in our library told me a few months ago, which was “the only reason I knew this oral history collection was here was because someone told me about it.”

I can’t wait for the day when that isn’t an issue. Thanks to the tough decision to adopt seasonal hours for 3 years, hopefully that will be a non-issue by 2014.

Of course, we will be updating you on our “findings” as we move on with the inventory/cataloging process. Keep checking back in and don’t be afraid to let us know what you think…seriously.

Sarah Milligan

Postcard Progress

 
At a time when most people are thinking in terms of instant messenger, email and texting to send short notes, Ronald Morgan sees the value in preserving the early history of the “short note.”  Mr. Morgan collected over 11,000 examples of Kentucky postcards over a twenty-year period, starting with his very first postcard, a scene of Lancaster, Kentucky.  He donated his collection to KHS in November, 2009, and since then the staff of the Special Collections and Library have been processing the postcards, inventorying them and, in general, readying them for researchers.  

 

The Morgan Postcard Collection is believed to be on of the largest collections of postcards dedicated to documenting Kentucky in a US repository, and is a spectacular view of life in Kentucky during the 20th century.   Pick a topic, theme or place particular to the bluegrass state and we guarantee you there will be something in this collection to help illustrate it.  After that first image of Lancaster, Mr. Morgan focused his collecting on scenes of Kentucky before 1940.  Among his favorites are those that show a Kentucky few remember, with street scenes showing dirt rather than paved surfaces, and agricultural scenes showing hemp growing side by side with tobacco.

All summer long the Special Collections and Library staff and our summer interns have been inventorying the collection and selecting images for inclusion in our Digital Collection Catalog (DCC).  To date we have six boxes completely inventoried and over 700 postcards digitized and added to the DCC.  Because we are scanning both sides of every postcard, there are now over 1400 images added to the database since July.

You might ask, how do you decide which images get included in the DCC?  Well, we have some projects going currently, and we are using these subjects to help us make the difficult choice of which get added and which wait to be added at a later date.  First, we want to make sure that one postcard representing every town, village or city gets included.  In some cases, there are postcards for towns, villages and areas that have disappeared off modern maps because they have been incorporated into another town or city.  

Then we look for subjects like:  horses (Kentucky has a bit of a reputation for this industry), distilleries (again, bourbon is a huge part of Kentucky’s economy), local businesses, schools, prominent figures (governors, military, and musicians) and rivers.   

We have only begun to scratch the surface of this collection, but it has proven to be a rich treasure trove of Kentucky history.  Stay tuned for additions to both the DCC and the inventory as we strive for the halfway mark in this amazing project.

The Special Collections and Library Staff, with special thanks to our summer interns and volunteers, because without their help, this project would not have progressed so quickly.

Kate Sowada
Jordan Schauer 
Adrienne Willoughby
Bill McHugh
Jim Gill
Evan Patrick
Dave Carpenter

 

Collecting the Future...What Would You Do?

KHS Collection: 2007ph01.68. Students performing a Maypole dance at Pine Mountain Settlement School, ca. 1919-21.

So, you might remember earlier on I mentioned that the KOHC was pulling together a group of historians to talk about the 20th and 21st century topics that need to be covered in repositories through primary source documentation, in our case specifically, oral histories?  Well… thanks to those who were able to participate and for those of you who offered long distance input, I think we came up with a solid start for topics.

We started the morning with a discussion of what was already in archives – specifically academic institutions, but also governmental archives as well as public and county level institutions – either well covered, moderately covered, or touched on. From this we could see what was already being done or had a plan in place. Then we looked at what we needed to build on or start from no (or practically no) representation. I think we were all somewhat described to see a list of what was already being collected out there and I know we were all energized making our wish list of what we should start collecting.

Thanks again for all who participated, I am energized about this topic and look forward to continuing the conversation over the next year and also hope to find some avenues for cohesively and collectively beginning to documenting some of these themes.

Anyone out there know of suggestions for funding sources for these topics, let me know. I have a project model in mind and will be actively looking for avenues to make it work.

Here are our themes as of now:

Land Use Patterns:
Western KY Coal Industry
Wine growing in KY
Changing agricultural patterns
4H/FFA
Mountain Top Removal
Green building and living
Sustainability
Environmentalism
Back to Land movement
Slow Food
Organic Farming/Food   

Changing Technology:
Social Media
Newspapers – the way we get news
Communication

Race and Social Justice: 
Immigration
LGBT (rural and urban)
Tea Party
Conservative politics
Religion
Ethnic populations
Student clubs – ie: black student unions/LGBT student unions
Black Press
Defining Race/ Construction of Identity

Business: 
Industry
Labor
Economy
Recession
Government (state and local)
Judiciary Field
Entrepreneurship
Philanthropy
Economic Development and Globalization
International Industries in KY (ie: Toyota, Horse Industry)
Women in Business
   
Lifestyle and Culture:
Music – current and alternative
Alternative Lifestyle
LGBT
Alcohol Laws
Drug/Substance abuse and laws (Drug Culture) 
Health and Wellness – campaigns/movements and outreach efforts
Sports
Recession
Popular Culture
Modern Literary/Authors
Gambling
Community Transformation – migration, ethnicity economic
Kentucky Colonels
   

What do you have to add?

Images: KHS Collection

Postcard Collection: A Bit of Mountain Scenery

Coll #: 1995ph2.25AAFRA9.  Betty Fletcher, dressed as Brownie Scout, with Kentucky State College President Rufus Atwood, ca. 1958.

Coll #: 1990ph2.a6JEFL3. Carrie Van Natta in her used book store on Bardstown Rd., Louisville, Ky. ca. 1980s 

Coll#: 1998PH04.306. Clinical Services: staff member in pharmacy. ca. 1960

Fayette and Jefferson Counties are done!

Aaaaaand their off!  We have added two more milestones to the first (Franklin) of 120 counties of our microfilm collection.  We started this project in July and have continued to review film, create catalog records and rehouse boxes throughout the summer.   We are not sure we are going to make our STRETCH goal of 15,000 rolls of microfilm in 12 months but we will definitely be on our way!  

You might well ask, why so excited?  Well, we are librarians and we do get excited about putting records into the catalog where people all over the world can see them.  Of course, what really excites us is when people from all over the world come into the library to use those collections they found in our online catalog.

So what do our researchers gain by this project, other than 15,000 catalog records?  Well, let me tell you!  Access to our collections like you have never had it before!  We are cataloging the entire contents of each roll so that a researcher can search the catalog for a county record type (like Jefferson county marriage records) or for a particular manuscript collection that has local or regional importance (the Hummel’s store ledger from 1851-1860 from Jeffersontown, Ky.). 

Jefferson County, in particular, contributed some real gems for local historians and genealogists.  Our collection includes many early church records for the Louisville area from a variety of denominations, from Catholic to Episcopal to Evangelical.  Researchers find the early church records helpful as many predate the existence of governmental court records and therefore provide invaluable information to family historians trying to find information on early Kentucky settlers. 

This project is an integral part of our KHS strategic plan to make the resources at KHS available through the online catalog, thus making the catalog an important tool for people planning a visit to KHS.

We’ve got to get back to work, Madison county is next!  Stay tuned for periodic updates!

Your Reference Team