COLLECTIONS FINDING AIDS

The Collections Department of the Filson holds primary source material such as letters, diaries, business and institutional records, photographs, scrapbooks, architectural drawings, and other material unique and rare. Ephemera such as newspaper clippings, family files, genealogy collections, sheet music, theater programs, and broadsides are also part of the collection. The Filson has been collecting and preserving Kentucky and the Ohio Valley region’s significant stories since 1884.

For decades, staff at the Filson have been creating finding aids for many of our manuscript collections and photo collections, along with inventory lists of many of our library vertical files. The finding aids include descriptions of the collections and their creators, as well as full folder listings for each. Please note that these guides only cover a portion of our manuscript and photograph collections; please use the Filson’s online catalog or manuscript database for a more thorough search online. Feel free to contact the department for more information.

To search by keyword, family, or company name that may span multiple collections, use the search tool below. For a complete listing of all finding aids and indexes, please click on the “Browse All Finding Aids” button.