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Time to Stand United: The Frazier History Museum Takes a Diverse Look at Kentucky’s History in New Permanent Exhibtion Amanda Briede
Time to Stand United: The Frazier History Museum Takes a Diverse Look at Kentucky’s History in New Permanent Exhibition
Amanda Briede, Curator, Frazier History Museum
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On behalf of the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, I am proud to announce that our newest permanent exhibition, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, officially opened to the public on June 1, 2022. The exhibition tells the history of Kentucky from its Natives Peoples through the early 1900s. The project was generously funded through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the James Graham Brown Foundation.
Though we began preliminary work on the exhibition a few years ago, most of the work on this 5,500-squarefoot exhibition began in the fall of 2021. Our goal was to revolutionize the way Kentucky’s history is told by making it as diverse and inclusive as possible.
A view of the Town Clock Church clock face and the deconstructed slave cabin aboard a replica steamboat. The exhibition begins with an interactive experience created in collaboration with local company Infinity Productions. I wanted to begin not only with the histories of Kentucky’s Native Peoples but with their traditional stories. For this installation, we interpreted the creation stories of some of the tribes that had originally occupied the land that we now know as Kentucky. Working with representatives from Cherokee, Shawnee, and Chickasaw tribes, we were able to share their stories through animation, soundscape, voiceover, and dioramas. The installation includes an interactive floor that mimics a creek bed and features native Kentucky species that are prominent in the tribes’ creation stories. In addition to this installation, we have dedicated a significant portion of the first section of the exhibition to telling the history of Kentucky’s Native Peoples and have been intentional about including their stories throughout the timeline of the exhibition.
Throughout the exhibition, we feature profiles of diverse Kentuckians in as many areas as possible. It
The entrance to The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall.
was my goal for every museum guest to be able to relate to someone in the exhibition. We included profiles of men, women, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, people with physical disabilities, members of the LGBTQ+ community and more. I am so proud of the many diverse communities that we were able to represent by profiling 30 Kentuckians from throughout the state’s history.
Perhaps the most significant object in the exhibition is the original clock face and columns from the Town Clock Church, located just across the river in New Albany, Indiana. The Town Clock Church was an important stop on the Underground Railroad and could be seen by enslaved people in Kentucky on their journey to freedom. To enter the room in which the clock face is displayed, visitors must pass over a nearly-lifesized interpretation of an early 1800s steamboat, which provides an incredible view of the clock face. This is intended to help visitors make the connection between the important role of the Ohio River in Kentucky’s growing commerce of the time, including the slave trade, and the significance the river held for enslaved people.
For The Commonwealth and other programs, we are very proud to partner with the (Un)Known Project. The (Un)Known Project is lead by artists Hannah Drake and Josh Miller in partnership with the Frazier and Roots 101 African American History Museum. The goal is to create artistic spaces and experiences to support learning, healing, reflection, reconciliation, and action by honoring the names and telling the stories—of both known and unknown—Black men, women, and children who were enslaved and hidden figures in Louisville, Kentucky and beyond. With support from the (Un)Known Project, we were able to tell the stories of African Americans in
Kentucky in ways that are not traditionally told. I primarily focused on stories of the Underground Railroad, slave revolts, and antislavery activism, while also telling the horrible realities of slavery in Kentucky.
For our portion of the (Un)Known Project, we hired local glass artist, Ché Rhodes, to create an installation that provided a space to reflect on the thousands of unknown enslaved people that lived in Kentucky. For his piece, Ché took 3D scans of objects that had been owned by enslaved people, made 3D prints, created molds, and blew over one hundred glass versions of each object. His clear glass installation evokes the often-unseen labor of the enslaved people of Kentucky. The piece is situated in a deconstructed log cabin made of antique barn wood that is about half the size of a typical slave cabin at a plantation in Louisville. As the exhibition moves into the Civil War, emphasis is placed on everyday soldiers rather than generals or the elite class. One case displays the uniform of a Union soldier along with an array of items the typical soldier of either side may have carried. This emphasis on the common Kentuckian continues throughout the rest of the exhibition. Text panels tell the stories of the farmers, miners, immigrants, and African Americans in Kentucky following the Civil War, particularly those of labor movements of the time.
One of the most impactful objects in the exhibition helps to tell the story of Reconstruction in Kentucky. It is a souvenir dessert spoon with an engraving that depicts the lynching of Tom Brown in Nicholasville, Kentucky, on loan from the Kentucky Historical Society. We did not want to shy away from such difficult objects, but also knew that the spoon, in particular, needed to be installed with sensitivity. The label accompanying the spoon includes a content warning and a button needs to be pressed to light up the case, allowing for the viewing of the spoon.
At the end of the exhibition, an interactive country store allows children to engage with an important part of the history of rural Kentucky. We also recreated a typical neighborhood bar, allowing us to contrast an
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urban space with a rural space. The bar allows guests a place to rest at the end of the exhibition and provides a venue for bourbon tastings offered by museum staff. Profiles on the walls of the bar tell the stories of men who immigrated to Kentucky, including Isaac W. Bernheim, who started a successful distillery.
I am incredibly proud of the work that our small team accomplished to reimagine the way we tell Kentucky’s history. While the people that you expect to hear about— Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, etc.—are included in the exhibition, we were able to share the stories of so many more Kentuckians with unique perspectives and diverse backgrounds. I invite everyone from our SEMC community to visit The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall to learn some of the incredible histories that we have the privilege of sharing with our visitors.
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