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All members receive free or reduced admission to events, subscriptions to Filson publications, and research access, all while supporting local history preservation.

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Your financial contribution provides powerful support for everything the Filson does, including historical preservation, educational programs, publications, and exhibits.

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Become A Member

All members receive free or reduced admission to events, subscriptions to Filson publications, and research access, all while supporting local history preservation.

Join Today

Make a Gift

Your financial contribution provides powerful support for everything the Filson does, including historical preservation, educational programs, publications, and exhibits.

Donate

Featured Event

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The Iron Horse in Indian Country: Native Americans and Railroads in the US West

– Dine & Dialogue –

February 19th 6 – 7 PM @ The Filson Historical Society

Historians have long pondered the railroad’s profound and far-reaching role in transforming the United States’ economic, political, social, and physical landscapes. Join Dr. Alessandra La Rocca Link to examine the relationships between Indigenous peoples and railroads that unfolded in the American West during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Iron Horse in Indian Country reframes this scholarship by spotlighting both the inner workings of railroad colonialism and how Indigenous peoples incorporated railroads into their own networks.

This project begins with a study of Indigenous contributions to the Pacific Railway Surveys of the 1850s and extends through to the rise of automobile travel and the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in the 1920s.

Alessandra La Rocca Link teaches at the Upper School of Louisville Collegiate School. She holds a PhD in history from the University of Colorado Boulder and was a fellow at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Tickets go on sale on December 10th, 2025.

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Research

Current Exhibits

Bustles To Blue Jeans: Highlights from the Filson’s Fashion Archive (Bingham Gallery) The Filson’s clothing collection contains over 5,000 objects from as early as the 1810s worn for every occasion. This April, we’re opening the closets wide with this new exhibit. We’ll be showing off some of our most unusual, storied, and beautiful garments.

Black Homecoming: Kentucky Kinship in Photography (Nash Gallery) In collaboration with the 2025 Louisville Photo Biennial, the Filson is launching an exhibition celebrating Black families through photographs in our archive. Through photographs dating from the 1850s to the present, explore how Black Kentuckians throughout history have intertwined family with community and built kinship beyond the confines of blood relations.

Inspired by history? Wear It.

Check out our online store to get T-shirts, posters, and more.

Your purchase supports the Filson’s mission of collecting, preserving, and sharing the history and culture of the Ohio Valley Region.

Ferguson Mansion Tour

The Mansion finished for the Edwin Hite Ferguson family in 1905 is now the home of the Filson Historical Society. Edwin Hite Ferguson commissioned the Louisville architectural firm Cobb and Dodd—the same firm responsible for designing the Seelbach Hotel and the Kentucky capitol building—to design his home in 1901. Learn more about the Mansion’s history and architecture from our online exhibit or sign up for a tour today.

Research at the Filson

The Filson has been collecting for almost 140 years, preserving the history of Kentucky and the Ohio Valley in order to share it with current and future generations. We welcome in-person and remote researchers to explore this website to discover our access points and to find answers to their questions! Set up a research appointment at the Filson, email our reference desk, or explore our collections online.

Visit the Filson

The Filson will be closed December 19 for staff meetings.

Our annual winter shutdown for the holidays and internal work will begin December 24, 2025. We will reopen to the public on January 20, 2026 after the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.

Open Monday through Friday, 9 am to 4:30 pm

The Filson is closed to the public the 3rd Friday of every month.

1310 S. 3rd St., Louisville, KY 40208
(502) 635-5083

Plan Your Visit to the Filson! To register or purchase tickets for our events, please visit our Events Page.

The Research Library is open Monday through Friday, 9 am to 4:30pm; we are closed on the third Friday of each month. Appointments are not required, but feel free to reserve a seat online – learn more here. We also provide remote research services; please complete our research request form online here.

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