Baseball Commissioner “Happy” Chandler, 1920s Louisville Kid’s Valentine, Appalachian Courting Customs, and More
Bridging the Divide: Chandler & Robinson: Breaking Baseball’s Color Barrier graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
I was flipping around on TV the other night to see what caught my eye, and it was the movie 42.
Chad Boseman portrays Jackie Robinson as he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. The movie depicts the vitriol that came with that decision.
The other key character in the movie is Branch Rickey, the legendary manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Robinson. Another key figure during that time was baseball commissioner A. B. “Happy” Chandler of Kentucky, who had to approve the contract. His was a much lesser role in the movie.
But as the nation gears up for baseball season once again, we’re going to explore more of his role with his grandson, Ben Chandler, at a special program on March 26.
Happy Chandler poses with his family at the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1982.
“Happy” Chandler spoke extensively about his decision when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. Ben was with him that day and has heard all the stories. Ben has also spoken to Jackie’s wife, Rachel Robinson, as well as legendary players like Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella, who shared stories of his grandfather.
I’ll interview Ben along with two baseball heavyweights, Tad Myre and Dr. Wayne Tuckson, both with the Society for American Baseball Research, about this historic time.
Dorian Hairston. Credit: Dorian Hairston.
Detail of front cover of Pretend the Ball Is Named Jim Crow: The Story of Josh Gibson by Dorian Hairston, 2018. Credit: University Press of Kentucky.
Lexington author Dorian Hairston will join us to read from his new book, Pretend the Ball Is Named Jim Crow: The Story of Josh Gibson. Hairston’s powerful debut poetry collection explores the Black American experience through the lens of Gibson’s life and seventeen-year baseball career, giving voice to Gibson and so many others. He will sell copies of his book at our program.
Louisville Bats Baseball president Greg Galiette will round out the night, previewing the upcoming season and sharing how the Bats are highlighting diverse stories.
Click here for ticket information. This program is more than just baseball—it’s about our humanity.
In today’s Frazier Weekly, we’re celebrating Valentine’s day with a pop-up card from the 1930s, learning about courting traditions from Appalachia (a kiss is coming if your nose itches!), and discovering how a lock of hair survives us like love. And, on Lincoln’s birthday, we’re talking about his underpants!
Rachel Platt
VP of Mission
Frazier History Museum
This Week in the Museum
From the Collections: Louisville Grade Schooler’s Valentine, c. Late 1920s
This week from the collection we wanted to look at a beautiful Valentine’s Day card that was exchanged between school students. But first, it might be a good idea to take a brief look at the origins of the holiday and the tradition of card giving.
Front of Valentine’s Day card Harold Blair gave to Anna Frances Reichart in Louisville, c. late 1920s. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
Back of Valentine’s Day card Harold Blair gave to Anna Frances Reichart in Louisville, c. late 1920s. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
The holiday of Valentine’s Day goes all the way back to the end of the fifth century when Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 a day to celebrate Saint Valentine. If you suspect this was done in an attempt to reclaim an ancient festival, you’d be right. In Rome, February 13 to 15 was celebrated as the feast of Lupercalia—the fertility festival. But Pope Gelasius I declared the day for Saint Valentine. (Which specific Saint Valentine is unclear and debated amongst historians, so I wont attempt to make an argument here for which one it might have been.) It would be several hundred years later that the celebration of Valentine’s Day would really take off.
It was in fifteenth-century France that the annual feast day of Valentine’s Day became a time to celebrate romantic love. In fact, the oldest surviving Valentine’s Day greeting is from a Frenchman: the Duke of Orleans, who was imprisoned at the time in the Tower of London, sent his wife a Valentine’s greeting. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that the first Valentine’s Day cards were widely sent. These cards and messages were handmade efforts decorated with flowers, puzzles, and lovers’ knots; they were often slipped under the door of the beloved or tied to the door-knocker.
Industrialization in the early nineteenth century brought advances in printing, and making mass production of the Valentine’s Day card immensely popular. While often romantic in nature, these early cards were not necessarily limited to couples. In fact, there’s a longstanding German tradition of friendship cards that some historians suggest started the notion of the Valentine’s Day card. Sometime in the eighteenth century, Americans began exchanging friendship cards on Valentine’s Day.
However, the early twentieth century sees the rise of the classroom exchanges of Valentine’s Day cards, with students trading homemade cards. But homemade cards would soon be replaced with printed cards. And those would give way to the punch-out cards some of us may remember from our own childhoods—or from helping our kids fill them out for their own Valentine’s Day school party.
Excerpt from a “News of the PTA” article published in the October 27, 1929, Courier Journal reports that classmates Harold Blair and Anna Frances Reichart helped lead a safety demonstration at their school, James Lowell Elementary School. Credit: Courier Journal.
One object in the Frazier’s permanent collection is an exquisite pop-up Valentine’s Day card. An inscription on the back shows Harold Blair gave the card to his classmate Anna Frances Reichart, who was born about 1921 and raised in Louisville. The card is undated; however, references in the Courier Journal indicate the two were classmates at James Lowell Elementary School in Louisville from at least first through third grade, 1927–29. (The two even performed “safety yells” in a program their class wrote!) You can see the card closed in the first picture and how it opens and sits in the second picture.
Enjoy, everyone—and happy Valentine’s Day!
Tish Boyer
Registrar & Manager of Collections Engagement
When our ancestors came to Appalachia, they brought with them a rich history of courtship from their mother countries. Coupled with the difficult conditions and ingenuity required to live in the rugged mountains, a unique code of courtship was created.
Appalachian oral history has numerous sayings about courtship:
If you name a fish hook after your sweetheart and then you catch a fish with that hook, the love is true.
If you itch, you want to be kissed.
If you tuck a four-leaf clover inside of your shoe, you will marry the next person you see.
If two people dip their spoons in the same cup at the same time, they will be married.
Communities were mostly isolated by the mountainous and rugged terrain, making it difficult to court someone from other communities, who were considered “outsiders.” Couples mostly met close to home, usually at school or at church. Because of the geographical seclusion, could be “slim pickin’s” in the community, making competition fierce for unmarried girls.
The church played an important role in courting. Frequently, courting began with a young man walking a young girl to church. Other ways of meeting were barn dances, fairs, and community picnics.
Appalachian dulcimer. Credit: folkart.com.
Appalachian love spoons. Credit: CBS News.
Courting was not usually a long affair, often lasting just a few weeks or months. The young man would bring gifts to the family, a custom known as “sparkin.” The preservation of a young girl’s chastity meant that the couple must be supervised at all times. One way for the young couple to be alone was by playing the courting dulcimer. The dulcimer is a stringed instrument that is played by strumming. The courting dulcimer allowed for the couple to play the dulcimer simultaneously. As long as adults heard music playing, they were assured that the young couple was remaining chaste. If a couple played the dulcimer well together, it was believed that they would make beautiful music in a marriage.
Once a young man decided to propose, he might show his romantic intent with the Welsh custom of carving a love spoon. These wooden spoons were often designed with Celtic knots, hearts, and wheels. Other elements included bells that signified marriage, crosses for faith, and locks for security. A love spoon demonstrated to the girl and her family that the young man was capable of supporting her.
The double wedding quilt has a rich tradition in Appalachia. Oral storytelling explains that a soldier was injured in the Civil War and his wedding was delayed. When he finally returned home, he was without rings for the ceremony. The grandmother of the bride had made a quilt of circles and she offered it to the couple as a symbolic representation of wedding rings.
Women of the community had their own ritual involving the wedding ring quilt, gathering in quilting bees to create them. When a quilt was finished, the single girls in the community would hold the corners of the quilt, put a cat in the middle of the quilt, and shake the quilt. Whatever corner of the quilt that the cat ended up on revealed the next girl to be married.
When a couple married, it was commonly at the family home. The community came together to “make” a wedding. One of the ways was to make the wedding cake communally. Ingredients were scarce and expensive. Wedding guests would each bake one layer, which would be stacked together, creating a stack cake, typically with a dried apple filling.
The customs of courting and marriage in Appalachia are rich in cultural heritage. Through storytelling and oral histories, people of Appalachia found a way to keep their histories and traditions alive in spite of challenging circumstances.
Susan Reed
Stories in Mind Facilitator
Victorian Hair Wreath Leaving Frazier’s Founder’s Gallery
Victorian hair wreath made c. 1875. On display in the Frazier’s Founder’s Gallery. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
In early March, the Frazier Museum will retire a nineteenth-century hair wreath from display in the second-floor Founder’s Gallery. Many who pass by this unique specimen are unaware of the medium, and it is fair to say that many feel an adverse reaction upon learning that this wreath is composed of human hair. Yes, that’s correct: this delicate and beautiful artwork in our collection is made of hair. While this tradition seems odd, macabre, or even creepy today, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, hairwork jewelry and crafts were wildly fashionable and directly linked to Victorian notions of sentimentality and romanticism. Victorians embraced hairwork as a form of art, and sharing hair with friends, family, and loved ones was a beautiful expression of love and friendship. Consider this quotation from a popular women’s magazine of the Victorian Era:
“Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials and survives us like love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that, with a lock of hair belonging to a child or friend, we may almost look to Heaven and compare notes with angelic nature, may almost say: ‘I have a piece of thee here, not unworthy of thy being now.’—Godey’s Lady’s Book, 1860
The popularity of hairwork jewelry is a direct result of high mortality rates and the desire to commemorate and remember lost loved ones. During the height of this period, average life expectancy was forty years, and women had a one in thirteen chance of dying during childbirth. Illness and death often took place at home and, as a result, people had a different relationship with loss and mourning than we do today. Mourning etiquette was observed across the social spectrum, and women carried the burden of stricter rules and extended mourning periods. Queen Victoria famously mourned her late husband, Prince Albert, from the time of his death until her own death forty years later. She is also known to have commissioned several pieces of hairwork jewelry made with his hair so that he would remain close to her even in death.
That being said, not all hairwork was jewelry, nor was it exclusively linked to bereavement. Friends and family members often exchanged locks of hair as a sign of amity and affection. It can be a way to capture a nostalgic and tender moment, much as a parent today might preserve a lock of their children’s baby hair. By the nineteenth century, women’s magazines and periodicals offered lengthy explanations on how to create hairwork art at home. Hairwork became a popular drawing room craft, much like embroidery, knitting, and crochet. This is likely the origin of our own hairwork wreath. One historian stated that “Shadowboxes containing wreaths created from the hair of family members served as a family tree of sorts and could take years to complete, generation on generation adding on additional elements.”
I suspect that the hairwork wreath at the Frazier Museum is an example of a family tree—each flower a beautiful representation of a different member of the family.
As this year’s Valentine’s Day approaches, you may not be convinced to gift a lock of hair to your partner; but I strongly encourage you to visit our Founder’s Gallery and see this sentimental, commemorative wreath before it goes off display March 4.
Leslie Anderson
Partnership Manager
Celebrate Honest Abe’s Birthday with I See Lincoln’s Underpants
Abraham Lincoln celebrated his birthday every February 12, and I feel certain that at any point in his life, he would have appreciated the gift of new underwear. From his early days in his Hodgenville, LaRue County, Kentucky, cabin to his last days in the White House, Lincoln wore plain, old, and often home-made underwear. We know this because his unmentionables made a few appearances on the campaign trail and in the field during the Civil War.
Artwork in I See Lincoln’s Underpants, written by Mick Sullivan and illustrated by Suki Anderson, 2022. Credit: Heart Ally Books.
These revealing moments led me to write the middle grade book I See Lincoln’s Underpants: The Times Underwear (and the People Wearing Them) Made History. Sixteen chapters and a collection of shorter vignettes introduce readers to notable figures like Kentuckian Garrett Morgan, Australian swimmer Annette Kellerman, and dress reformer Amelia Bloomer. For everyone involved, true stories of their underclothes play a role in each story. While some moments might be embarrassing, most are enlightening.
In 2023, the book won the gold medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards for children’s non-fiction and was featured in the most recent issue of Kentucky Living magazine.
Signed copies of I See Lincoln’s Underpants are available in the Frazier’s Museum Shop and online.
Mick Sullivan
Curator of Guest Experience
“Believe It or Not” Spring Break Camp Registration now Open
2024 Spring Break Camp graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
A fun thing about the education department this time of year is we’re already preparing for the upcoming season. Believe it or not, the vernal equinox is seven weeks away, and with spring break hot on those heels, we’ve already been planning some spring break camp fun!
For Spring Break Camp, we took inspiration from some strange and unbelievable stories from history. Did you know there is a word for the act of throwing someone out a window? (It’s “defenestration.”) Or that the mayor of NYC banned artichokes to fight the mob? Or that Abraham Lincoln was recognized by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992?
“Believe It Or Not” Spring Break Camp
Tuesday, April 2–Thursday, April 4
9 a.m.–4 p.m.
Doors Open: 8:45 a.m.
$65/day ($60/day for Members)
Open to students in grades K–6
Registration is open, and we hope you’ll join us as we explore the unbelievable, the weird, and the just plain phony. Mummy powder, mermaid hoaxes, petrified giants? History still gets stranger.
And if you’re already making summertime plans, summer camp registration is open. You better believe it!
Nicole Clay
Education & Engagement Specialist
Join Us February 21 for Bourbon’s Butterfly: Blue Run’s Brand Evolution
Bourbon’s Butterfly: Blue Run’s Brand Evolution graphic. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
When I first came across Blue Run Bourbon, I was struck by the beauty of the bottle, which features an iridescent butterfly floating atop the amber backdrop of Kentucky’s native spirit. Across cultures, butterflies evoke images of transformation, rebirth, and resurrection. The butterfly represents liberation of the soul and triumph of the spirit transcending the material world. There is an apparent contradiction in Blue Run’s attempt to “bottle” a creature whose nature encapsulates liberation. Perhaps Blue Run’s catching design is not a paradox at all, but an invitation to open the bottle and taste the liberation for yourself.
On February 21, we invite you to join us at the Frazier for our first barrel selection with Blue Run Spirits. Special guests Bourbon Hall of Famer Jim Rutledge and Trey Wade of Molson Coors will share the story of Blue Run’s metamorphosis and brand evolution while we enjoy complementary food parings from one of Louisville’s hottest new restaurants, Black Jockey’s Lounge. The discussion will be hosted by the Frazier Museum’s president and CEO, Andy Treinen. This evening promises to be a night you will not want to miss with three selections from Blue Run, including our exclusive barrel selection. Taste this triumph of the spirit with us and snare your own bottle of this highly sought-after Bourbon!
Leslie Anderson
Partnership Manager
Member Love & Appreciation: Celebrate Our Legacy!
This Valentine’s Day is not the only time we will show our members some love and appreciation. As this year marks our 20th anniversary, we are celebrating by offering $20 Individual memberships!
20/20 banner. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
With exclusive programming, giveaways, and special early on-sales of our biggest events of the year—you won’t want to miss out on this amazing celebration!
The benefits outweigh the cost of your membership in no time: complimentary admission, discounted parking, discounts in our Museum Shop (exclusions apply), special tours, access to our Collections Team and artifacts, plus so much more!
Gather your friends, coworkers, and neighbors and have them join the Frazier Family because here at the Frazier, not only do members experience more, but we like to have an anniversary and celebrate it in every way possible!
Experience the museum for yourself! Celebrate our legacy and become a member today!
PS: This Friday, Members will receive private early access to purchase tickets for our Night at the Museum presented by Fifth Third Bank! Make sure your membership is secured by Friday to unlock access to the event!
Amanda Egan
Membership Manager
Bridging the Divide
Frazier’s February Tours Include Catch Me If You Can and Black Americans in Bourbon
Just a reminder that throughout February I will be offering a special tour of our Commonwealth exhibition. Inspired by Frank X Walker’s collection of poems Load in Nine Times—especially the poem “Catch Me If You Can”—the Catch Me If You Can tour is both a walking tour of our permanent exhibition The Commonwealth: Divided We Fall and a live reading of some of those poems.
Brian West debuts his Catch Me If You Can tour at the Frazier, February 2, 2024. Credit: Frazier History Museum.
The Catch Me If You Can tour will be offered three more times: Friday, February 16, at 3 p.m.; Saturday, February 17, at 1 p.m.; and Friday, February 23, at 3 p.m. Guests who would like to take the tour should gather at the second-floor landing, near the entrance to The Commonwealth.
The tour lasts 15–20 minutes, plus time for a Q & A afterwards. Access to the Catch Me If You Can tour is included with the cost of admission to the Frazier.
One more thing: tickets are still available for this month’s edition of Unfiltered Truth: Black Americans in Bourbon. This special Black History Month edition will take place at the second-floor classroom, Saturday, February 17, at 3:30 p.m. The run time for this Bourbon tasting/cultural experience is 45 minutes. Unfiltered Truth: Black Americans in Bourbon has limited seating and is priced at $34, including museum admission. The order cutoff for it is Friday, February 16, at 3:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here.
Brian West
Teaching Artist
Speed Art Museum Explores History of Kentucky Sugar Chests and Enslavement
Sugar has a long heritage in Kentucky. In the Frazier’s Commonwealth exhibition, we’ve got a sugar caster, 1732, and a sugar chest, c. 1830, on display. In our mobile app Frazier+, we’ve got short videos on the history of sugar in Kentucky and the relationship between sugar and the slave trade. Right now through April 7, the Speed Art Museum in Louisville is hosting a fascinating exhibition titled The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World, 1790–1865. We’ve asked the Speed’s Terra Foundation assistant curator Jennifer Downs to overview it for our readers.—Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist
Sugar desk made in the Mason County area, 1810–40. Made of cherry, poplar, and other woods. From the Noe Collection, gift of Bob and Norma Noe of Lancaster, Garrard County. Credit: Speed Art Museum.
It’s hard to imagine our everyday modern lives without the sweet taste of sugar. We add it to our coffee, seek sweet treats for comfort, and commemorate holidays with special desserts. Sugar is abundantly available today—dangerously added to many of the foods and beverages we consume—and responsible for many health crises. However, it was once called “White Gold” because of its rarity and expense.
The iconic Kentucky sugar chest was made from about 1790 to 1850, specifically for the safekeeping of sugar. Skilled Kentucky cabinetmakers used local materials to create this specialized form to store costly sugar grown, harvested, and processed by enslaved men, women, and children in the West Indies and sugar-growing regions of the Americas.
Prominently displayed in Kentucky parlors or dining rooms, an elaborate sugar chest reflected the wealthy status of its owner. It supported social rituals such as coffee, tea, and alcohol consumption, further reinforcing a prosperous economic standing. The powerful nostalgic sentiment long associated with Kentucky’s utilitarian sugar furniture, which often incorporates fanciful and regionally specific inlaid decoration, dates to the early twentieth century and contradicts the brutal and complex history of the sweet substance it was made to store.
Open now through April 7 at the Speed Art Museum, The Bitter and the Sweet: Kentucky Sugar Chests, Enslavement, and the Transatlantic World, 1790–1865 reexamines these chests within the broader, intertwined contexts of the Atlantic economy, the vicious human toll of enslavement, and the complex transportation and merchant systems that brought sugar to Kentucky from the West Indies and Louisiana.
The exhibition features sugar furniture, silver, ceramics, contemporary artworks, nineteenth-century tools, and archival materials that reflect the bitter reality of sugar production and trade from New World beginnings to the middle of the nineteenth century.
Planning, research, and development for this exhibition was supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Jennifer Downs
Terra Foundation Assistant Curator, Speed Art Museum
Guest Contributor
History All Around Us
20th Anniversary Photo: Tower Cupola Installed, 2003
A crane sets the large copper top on a new cupola at the Frazier Museum, November 7, 2003. Credit: Pat McDonogh, Courier Journal.
Erected in 1898, the Doerhoefer—the building the Frazier History Museum occupies—rounds Ninth Street with an oriel. For most of the past 126 years, a cupola-topped tower has perched on the oriel. The copper cupola you see here today was installed November 7, 2003, six months before the museum opened. Now, I’m one of the lucky few folks who’s gotten to poke my head inside that tower. But whenever I see this photo of the installation, and I spot the construction worker on the ladder, my knees turn to jelly!
Simon Meiners
Communications & Research Specialist
