Resurrecting the First American West

FAIN: ZRE-283698-22

Filson Historical Society (Louisville, KY 40208-2306)
Patrick A. Lewis (Project Director: May 2021 to March 2024)
Jennie Cole (Co Project Director: November 2021 to March 2024)

The development of digital programming and administrative records of the Filson Historical Society, which documents the history of the Ohio River valley, retaining nine jobs.

This project will "resurrect" the former Library of Congress American Memory Project, First American West, the Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 (FAW). The Filson holds metadata and images of the Filson’s collection items from FAW, which the Library of Congress returned to us in 2016. This project will retain current Collections Department staff, adding two new PT hires, who will work remotely to clean up the data and involve the Filson's membership base and community in transcription work and name/subject indexing using a service called From the Page. Filson staff will then upload the improved materials into Omeka, our open-source platform for digital content. This project will in turn incorporate staff from other departments such as the Development and Educational departments, by leading to further related programming, publications, and educational content.

Associated Products

First American West (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: First American West
Author: Hailey Brangers
Author: Marissa Coleman
Author: Jade Wigglesworth
Abstract: The Filson Historical Society has re-launched the First American West, an online collection of letters, financial records, sermons, books, maps, and objects relating to the Ohio River Valley in the mid-1700s through the early 1800s, that was originally a collaboration with the Library of Congress and the University of Chicago. In our relaunch, an NEH-funded research team has expanded the project to highlight the experiences of those originally excluded, including the voices of women, those enslaved, and the Indigenous communities that called our region home. On this site, you can browse the vast collection of documents by theme, subject, or item type. You can also explore themes and learn more about the project through the digital exhibit Encountering the First American West: 1750-1820.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: http://filsonhistorical.omeka.net/first-american-west
Primary URL Description: First American West online collection
Access Model: Open Access

Violence, Greed and Great Hope: A History in Verse of Frontier Kentucky (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Violence, Greed and Great Hope: A History in Verse of Frontier Kentucky
Abstract: Violence, greed, great hope. There were the lives and the dreams of Kentucky's earliest white settlers. Lynnell Edwards will read from and discuss her research for her newest collection of poetry, This Great Green Valley. Drawing on archival documents from the Filson collections related to both her early ancestors in Kentucky, the McAfees, as well as better-known pioneers such as Daniel Boone, Benjamin Logan, Simon Kenton, and Richard Henderson, Edwards re-imagines these founding stories through dramatic poetry that weaves together the pastoral and the historical to bring light and life from across the centuries. Lynnell Edwards’ most recent collection of poetry is This Great Green Valley (Broadstone Books, 2020), a book of documentary poetry based on revisionist narratives of Kentucky’s pioneer founding in the 18th century. She is the author of three additional full-length poetry collections and a chapbook, Kings of the Rock and Roll Hot Shop, which chronicles the work and art of a glass-blowing studio. Her work often investigates the deep connections between a people and their place, including the natural, political, and family narratives in its history. She is the Associate Programs Director for the Spalding University MFA in creative writing where she teaches and lectures in poetry.
Author: Lynnell Edwards
Date: 03/10/2022
Location: Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xEYfBivmIY&t=26s
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: Violence, Greed and Great Hope: A History in Verse of Frontier Kentucky by Lynnell Edwards

A Celebrity in Kentucky during the War of 1812 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: A Celebrity in Kentucky during the War of 1812
Abstract: James Ogilvie is the most important early American celebrity you've never heard of. As a performer and public speaker, he wowed American audiences with his grace and eloquence, allowing him to travel to virtually every corner of the United States before 1820. And yet after his death, he was forgotten. This talk examines the period he spent in Kentucky, giving lectures and serving with the Kentucky militia during the War of 1812. Based on her new book, The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The World of the United States' First Forgotten Celebrity (2021), the author speaks about how collections at the Filson and other Kentucky archives allowed her to flesh out this remarkable story. Carolyn Eastman is a professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of early America and the Atlantic world, political culture, gender, and the history of print, oral, and visual media. She is the author of the prizewinning A Nation of Speechifiers: Making an American Public after the Revolution (Chicago, 2009), and is currently a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the New-York Historical Society.
Author: Carolyn Eastman
Date: 04/14/2022
Location: Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q6iSySvSmc
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: A Celebrity in Kentucky during the War of 1812 by Carolyn Eastman

Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780-1845 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780-1845
Abstract: Most Americans today would not think of their local church as a site for arbitration and would probably be hesitant to bring their property disputes, moral failings, or personal squabbles to their kin and neighbors for judgment. But from the Revolutionary Era through the mid-nineteenth century, many Protestants imbued local churches with immense authority. Through their ritual practice of discipline, churches insisted that brethren refrain from suing each other before "infidels" at local courts and claimed jurisdiction over a range of disputes: not only moral issues such as swearing, drunkenness, and adultery but also matters more typically considered to be under the purview of common law and courts of equity, including disputes over trespass, land, probate, slave warranty, and theft. In Law in American Meetinghouses, Jeffrey Thomas Perry explores the ways that ordinary Americans—Black and white, enslaved and free—understood and created law in their local communities, uncovering a vibrant marketplace of authority in which church meetinghouses played a central role in maintaining their neighborhoods' social peace. Churches were once prominent sites for the creation of local law and in this period were a primary arena in which civil and religious authority collided and shaped one another. When church discipline failed, the wronged parties often pushed back, and their responses highlight the various forces that ultimately hindered that venue's ability to effectively arbitrate disputes between members. Relying primarily on a deep reading of church records and civil case files, Perry examines how legal transformations, an expanding market economy, and religious controversy led churchgoers to reimagine their congregations' authority. By the 1830s, unable to resolve doctrinal quibbles within the fellowship, church factions turned to state courts to secure control over their meetinghouses, often demanding that judges wade into messy ecclesiastical disputes.
Author: Jeffrey Thomas Perry
Date: 05/24/2022
Location: Filson Historical Society and Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaAhOpG6Bq4
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780-1845 by Jeffrey Thomas Perry

Surveying in Early America (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Surveying in Early America
Abstract: Co-Authors Dan Patterson and Clinton Terry will be hosting an eye-opening presentation on their publication Surveying In Early America. The event will begin with an author lecture/presentation and will be followed by a Q & A section for anyone to ask questions directly to the authors. Dan Patterson is a photographer, graphic designer, and filmmaker. He has published over 40 books, mostly about aviation history. Clinton Terry teaches American History and Liberal Studies at Mercer University in Georgia.
Author: Daniel L. Patterson
Author: Clint Terry
Date: 06/09/2022
Location: Filson Historical Society and Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_S2MXm8lVA
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: Surveying in Early America by Daniel L. Patterson and Clint Terry

Women in the First American West (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Women in the First American West
Abstract: What do the Filson’s collections reveal about the women who lived in the First American West? Maureen Lane, Curator of Museum Collections will share some of the manuscripts and artifacts that document the lives of women who colonized Kentucky. As part of a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, the Filson is reimagining a 2002 project originally funded by the Library of Congress. No longer accessible, The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 digitized historical material including maps, books, manuscripts, and artifacts which documented the lives of entrepreneurs, landowners, women, Indigenous, and the enslaved from the Colonial to Early Republic. The reboot of the project will include additional documents and artifacts not included in the previous iteration and will feature material representing previously excluded groups. The project will be publicly accessible online. Maureen Lane has an M.A. in American Studies with a focus on American Art and Material Cultural from Penn State University. She also has an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. Her interests include women’s history, American textiles, and American art. She is inventorying, researching, and cataloging the Filson’s museum collection and working toward making the museum collection accessible online. She is part of the First American West project team.
Author: Maureen Lane
Date: 08/05/2022
Location: Filson Historical Society and Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0ua5SzZ6nU
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: Women in the First American West by Maureen Lane

Crowdsourcing Early America (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Crowdsourcing Early America
Abstract: The Filson’s NEH-funded First American West project uses the power of its members and supporters to provide greater access to its early Kentucky collections than ever before. Large-scale volunteer transcription, “crowdsourcing,” is an exciting way for students, researchers, and learners of all ages to participate in archival and historical work. Join the Filson’s Patrick Lewis and our partners at FromThePage, Sara Brumfield and Ben Brumfield, to discuss the Filson’s crowdsourcing effort and the successes and challenges of other FromThePage projects. This program is presented through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and its Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan initiative. Sara Brumfield is a software engineer and entrepreneur. She co-founded FromThePage, a crowdsourced transcription platform that allows institutions to share documents for transcription.  Prior to founding FromThePage, she spent 17 years as a software engineer with IBM, inventing or co-inventing eight patents.  She has a BA in Computer Science and the Study of Women and Gender from Rice University. Ben Brumfield is a partner at Brumfield Labs, a software consultancy specializing in crowdsourcing and digital editions.  In 2005, he began developing one of the first web-based manuscript transcription systems.  Released as the open-source tool FromThePage, it has since been used by libraries, museums, and universities to transcribe literary drafts, military diaries, herpetology field notes, and punk rock fanzines.  He has written and presented on crowdsourced manuscript transcription for over a decade.  He received a B.A. in Computer Science and Linguistics from Rice University. Patrick A. Lewis is the Director of Collections and Research at the Filson Historical Society.
Author: Sara Brumfield
Author: Ben Brumfield
Author: Patrick Lewis
Date: 11/01/2022
Location: Virtual
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WdLjndnfFQ
Primary URL Description: Recording of lecture: Crowdsourcing Early America by Sara Brumfield, Ben Brumfield, and Patrick Lewis

Re-Launching The First American West (Article)
Title: Re-Launching The First American West
Author: Patrick Lewis
Abstract: Announcement of the re-launch of the First American West project and progress made so far in the project and invitation to Filson supporters to help with transcription of materials. (pg. 2)
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://filsonhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/filson_22-3_muse.pdf
Primary URL Description: The Filson newsmagazine Volume 22, Number 3
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Filson
Publisher: The Filson Historical Society

National Endowment for the Humanities Project Update (Article)
Title: National Endowment for the Humanities Project Update
Author: Patrick Lewis
Abstract: Announcement on updates of the First American West project. (pg. 11)
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://filsonhistorical.org/wp-content/uploads/filson_22-4_muse.pdf
Primary URL Description: The Filson newsmagazine Volume 22, Number 4
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Filson
Publisher: The Filson Historical Society

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