Archive for category: Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Filson Historical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 History Inspires Fellowship (HIF). This unique program allows artists to interpret the Filson’s collections with a creative filter.

In recent years, the Filson has established relationships with regional artists, either through the artist’ donations of materials to its collection or by artists conducting research for creative projects. The HIF program will build upon those relationships by promoting the Filson Historical Society as a resource for artistic scholarly research and inspiration while strengthening the bond with the creative community.

For the 2025 cycle, 13 applications featuring a wide array of creative project ideas, were reviewed by a cross-departmental committee made up of six Filson staff members. Of the 13, three were selected to receive the fellowship. The candidates are as follows:

Lori Larusso is an American visual artist working primarily with themes of domesticity and foodways.  Lori will find inspiration from the H. Harold Davis collection of food photography and the KY cookbook collection to create a series of paintings and small installations.

Moria Magre is a Mixed Media and Cosplay Artist and will explore articles of clothing in the Filson’s collections predating the ready-made paper sewing patterns that began in the late 1910s and virtually deconstruct the clothing and create downloadable patterns for sharing.

Sarah Pennington an artist and writer will research the Filson’s materials related to suffrage in Kentucky and use a docupoetic approach, a style of writing that incorporates poetic techniques such as erasure, collage, found poetry and poetic retellings of events to create a manuscript that will showcase the history of voting rights and disenfranchisement in the region.

The History Inspire Fellows began their research in January 2025 and meet with Filson staff on a regular basis to discuss their progress. Each project for this cycle will conclude in Fall 2025 with an event sharing their project. These events will be open to the public and dates will be announced in the second half of the year. In 2026, an exhibit will be planned that will feature several of the artists’ work alongside the items utilized from the Filson’s collection.

To learn more about the Filson’s fellowship programs, please visit filsonhistorical.org/about-us/fellowships.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Filson Historical Society is pleased to announce that Director of Curatorial Affairs Kelly Hyberger has been appointed by Governor Andy Beshear to the Native American Heritage Commission. Hyberger replaces Mason Bishop, who has resigned, and will serve for the remainder of the unexpired term expiring Sept. 1, 2025.

Joining the staff in 2022, Hyberger first served as the Native American Collections Specialist for the Filson, guiding the organization through repatriation efforts as they complied with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). In July 2024, she was named the Director of Curatorial Affairs for the organization.

For more information about the Filson, please visit www.filsonhistorical.org or email gro.l1744611237aciro1744611237tsihn1744611237oslif1744611237@ofni1744611237.

About the Native American Heritage Commission

T​he Kentucky Native American Heritage Commission was established in 1996 (KRS 171.820-171.822) to recognize and promote Native American contributions and influence in Kentucky’s history and culture. The commission has 17 members (the Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet Secretary or designee, plus 16 members appointed by the Governor), eight of whom are required to be of Native American heritage. The commission also includes representatives from institutions of higher learning, archaeology, Native American arts and the public.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – What happens when one of the nation’s most venerable historical societies confronts its own legacy, including the distortion and erasure of African American and Native Nations history?  That question lies at the heart “Benefactors of Posterity: The Founding Era of the Filson Historical Society 1884-1899” (Butler Books, 2024). Written by Dr. Daniel Gifford during the Filson Historical Society’s 140th anniversary, “Benefactors of Posterity” is an explicit and intentional reckoning with the Louisville organization’s past, one that echoes the challenges facing our communities in the 21st century.

In the fading years of the Gilded Age, the Filson Club (now the Filson Historical Society) fostered discussions and launched Kentucky history initiatives that can seem strikingly modern today, including the role of female, Jewish, and Catholic members. Dubbed “Benefactors of Posterity” by one founder, the Filson was often in the vanguard of collection and commemoration in Kentucky, rivaling more established historical societies in the East. But its output was also deeply mired in systemic racism and Jim Crow culture, topics that are directly addressed in the new book.

Written as an accessible and exciting 360-degree look at Louisville and Kentucky history, “Benefactors of Posterity” is filled with unearthed surprises including Enid Yandell’s Daniel Boone statue; the Southern Exposition; the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893; the aftermath of the Civil War; Louisville’s public parks; the tornado of 1890; and even the Ku Klux Klan.

When asked about his experience researching and writing the book, Dr. Gifford had this to say: “It was a pleasure and a privilege to write ‘Benefactors of Posterity’. The research led me to very real, very human stories about ideals and shortcomings; noble instincts and blinding prejudices all rolled together inside people that are brought to life 140 years later. This is an eye-opening window into what it meant to preserve Kentucky history in the late 1800s.”

“The time and talent embodied in this book are a significant gift from Dan to the Filson,” said Dr. Patrick Lewis, Director of Collections and Research and incoming President and CEO of the Filson. “Knowing our institutional past lets us move ahead with confidence, seeing how we have always been at the forefront of our fields, nationally, and letting us reflect on how we can always work harder to better and more inclusively live our mission to preserve and share the history and culture of this region.”

The Filson Historical Society will host a book event on Tuesday, October 8 at 6:00 p.m. Dr. Lewis will interview Dr. Gifford about the truths revealed, major historical findings discovered, and skeletons uncloseted in “Benefactors of Posterity’s” 272 pages. This event is free for Filson members and $18 for potential members. All participants are encouraged to register in advance. To register for this event, please visit filsonhistorical.org/events/upcoming-events.

For more information about the book or to schedule an interview with the author, please contact Jamie Evans, Marketing and Public Relations Manager, at gro.l1744611237aciro1744611237tsihn1744611237oslif1744611237@snav1744611237ej1744611237. For more information on this and other Filson events, please visit filsonhistorical.org.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Filson Historical Society will host the Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series on Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 p.m. at The Kentucky Center – Bomhard Theater, featuring “New York Times” bestselling author Evan Thomas’ book, “Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II.” This program will be moderated by his wife, Osceola Freear Thomas.

At 9:20 a.m. on the morning of May 30, General Groves receives a message to report to the office of the secretary of war “at once.” Stimson is waiting for him. He wants to know: has Groves selected the targets yet?

So begins this suspenseful, impeccably researched history that draws on new access to diaries to tell the story of three men who were intimately involved with America’s decision to drop the atomic bomb—and Japan’s decision to surrender. They are Henry Stimson, the American Secretary of War, who had overall responsibility for decisions about the atom bomb; Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, head of strategic bombing in the Pacific, who supervised the planes that dropped the bombs; and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo, the only one in Emperor Hirohito’s Supreme War Council who believed even before the bombs were dropped that Japan should surrender.

Henry Stimson had served in the administrations of five presidents, but as the U.S. nuclear program progressed, he found himself tasked with the unimaginable decision of determining whether to deploy the bomb. The new president, Harry S. Truman, thus far a peripheral figure in the momentous decision, accepted Stimson’s recommendation to drop the bomb. Army Air Force Commander Gen. Spaatz ordered the planes to take off. Like Stimson, Spaatz agonized over the command even as he recognized it would end the war. After the bombs were dropped, Foreign Minister Togo was finally able to convince the emperor to surrender.

To bring these critical events to vivid life, bestselling author Evan Thomas draws on the diaries of Stimson, Togo and Spaatz, contemplating the immense weight of their historic decision. In Road to Surrender, an immersive, surprising, moving account, Thomas lays out the behind-the-scenes thoughts, feelings, motivations, and decision-making of three people who changed history.

Evan Thomas is the author of eleven books: “The Wise Men” (with Walter Isaacson), “The Man to See,” “The Very Best Men,” “Robert Kennedy,” “John Paul Jones,” “Sea of Thunder,” “The War Lovers,” “Ike’s Bluff,” and “Being Nixon,” “First,” and “Road to Surrender.” “John Paul Jones,” “Sea of Thunder,” “Being Nixon,” and “First” were “New York Times” bestsellers. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at “Time” and “Newsweek,” including ten years (1986–96) as Washington bureau chief at Newsweek, where, at the time of his retirement in 2010, he was editor at large. He wrote more than one hundred cover stories and in 1999 won a National Magazine Award. He wrote “Newsweek’s” fifty-thousand-word election specials in 1996, 2000, 2004 (winner of a National Magazine Award), and 2008. He has appeared on many TV and radio talk shows, including “Meet the Press” and “The Colbert Report,” and has been a guest on PBS’s “Charlie Rose” more than forty times. The author of dozens of book reviews for “The New York Times” and “The Washington Post,” Thomas has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton, where, from 2007 to 2014, he was Ferris Professor of Journalism.

Osceola Freear Thomas met her husband Evan at the University of Virginia law school, where they were classmates. In 1977, she joined Donovan Leisure, a litigation firm, in New York and Washington DC, before moving to AT&T, retiring as a Federal Government Affairs Vice President in 2000. Since then, she has worked with Evan on his books as an editor and researcher.

The Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series will be held on Wednesday, April 10 at 6:00 p.m. at the Kentucky Center – Bomhard Theater, 501 West Main St., Louisville. Tickets are free for Filson members and $26.62 for non-members (taxes and fees included). This lecture is offered both in person and virtually. Parking fees are separate. Tickets for this event must be purchased from The Kentucky Center Ticket Service. Please call (502) 584-7777 or visit kentuckyperformingarts.org for tickets.

Initiated in 1993 as a memorial to the life of Gertrude Polk Brown and made possible by the generous support of her children and grandchildren: Dace Brown Stubbs, Marshall Farrer, Dace Polk Brown, Laura Lee Brown, Garvin Deters, Polk Deters, Laura Lee Gastis, Garvin Brown IV, and Campbell Brown. The Gertrude Polk Brown Lecture Series has brought both nationally and internationally recognized historians and journalists to Louisville, many of them Pulitzer Prize winners. Speakers are selected based on their overall excellence in research, writing, and speaking and are not restricted to historians. The Filson hosts up to three lectures per year in this series.