Manuscript Collections

Manuscript Collections

There are approximately 2.1 million items in the Filson’s manuscript collection, which includes personal and family papers and diaries, business and organization’s records, scrapbooks, architectural records, and autograph collections.

The Filson began collecting historical material soon after its founding in 1884, when few other Kentucky institutions were doing so. With many of its early members belonging to Kentucky’s oldest and most prominent families, the Filson was able to begin assembling an important collection of original letters, diaries, business records, and other primary sources. Its holdings for the late eighteenth through mid nineteenth centuries are unrivaled in Kentucky.

The collection focuses on Kentucky, the Ohio Valley, and the Upper South, but is national and even international in scope, with researchers from across the nation and abroad visiting each year. Our unique holdings are an essential primary source for scholars.

Highlights include the Pleasant Hill Shaker records, Lewis and Clark Expedition letters, Henry Clay letters, George Rogers Clark’s Mason letter, and the two earliest known documents written and signed by Daniel Boone. To these must be added hundreds of other collections documenting America’s economic, military, political, and social history which give the Filson Historical Society the finest collection of pioneer, antebellum, and Civil War manuscripts in Kentucky. In addition, excellent collections containing information on women’s studies, African-Americans, and Louisville journalism dating up to the present day are also available to the research community.

The manuscript collection has three main access points, the Manuscript Database, which provides subject-level descriptions to content from each manuscript collection, the Finding Aids, which provide folder lists for some of our larger collections, and the Library Catalog, which provides collection level descriptions.

If you have a research question pertaining to manuscripts, please contact us at gro.l1711658022aciro1711658022tsihn1711658022oslif1711658022@hcra1711658022eser1711658022