The Filson is excited to announce the release of Benefactors of Posterity: The Founding Era of the Filson Historical Society 1884-1899 written by Daniel Gifford. Founded in 1884, the Filson Club quickly grew into a preeminent arbiter of Kentucky history, eventually becoming today’s Filson Historical Society.

This book, released in commemoration of the Filson’s 140 years of preserving, collecting, and sharing the region’s history and culture, reexamines this crucial founding era, pulling back the layers of accomplishment and disappointment, illumination and obfuscation. Drawing from a wide range of sources, historian Daniel Gifford places readers in Gilded Age Louisville at a time of heady opportunity for some and growing subjugation for others.  In the middle of it all was the Filson Club, whose multifaceted origin story provides a window in to Louisville’s growth and he evolution on historical study at the dawn of a new century.

Purchase your copy today through Butler Books online or in person at the Filson Historical Society.  Filson members can receive a 20% discount at checkout using code Filson20.