Time to Stand United: The Frazier History Museum Takes a Diverse Look at Kentucky’s History in New Permanent Exhibition Amanda Briede, Curator, Frazier History Museum On behalf of the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, I am proud to announce that our newest permanent exhibition, The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall, officially opened to the public on June 1, 2022. The exhibition tells the history of Kentucky from its Natives Peoples through the early 1900s. The project was generously funded through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the James Graham Brown Foundation. Though we began preliminary work on the exhibition a few years ago, most of the work on this 5,500-squarefoot exhibition began in the fall of 2021. Our goal was to revolutionize the way Kentucky’s history is told by making it as diverse and inclusive as possible.
A view of the Town Clock Church clock face and the deconstructed slave cabin aboard a replica steamboat.
The exhibition begins with an interactive experience created in collaboration with local company Infinity Productions. I wanted to begin not only with the histories of Kentucky’s Native Peoples but with their traditional stories. For this installation, we interpreted the creation stories of some of the tribes that had originally occupied the land that we now know as Kentucky. Working with representatives from Cherokee, Shawnee, and Chickasaw tribes, we were able to share their stories through animation, soundscape, voiceover, and dioramas. The installation includes an interactive floor that mimics a creek bed and features native Kentucky species that are prominent in the tribes’ creation stories. In addition to this installation, we have dedicated a significant portion of the first section of the exhibition to telling the history of Kentucky’s Native Peoples and have been intentional about including their stories throughout the timeline of the exhibition. Throughout the exhibition, we feature profiles of diverse Kentuckians in as many areas as possible. It 43