Piecing Together History: The Rosenwald School of Frankfort, KY

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Please join the Kentucky Historical Society for a community Knowledge Sharing open house celebrating the opening of a new exhibition about the Rosenwald School in Frankfort, Kentucky!

  • When: Thursday, September 26, 2013: 6-8 pm
  • Where: Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History, 100 West Broadway, Frankfort, KY
  • What: Tour the new exhibit and help KHS curators better document our photograph, oral history and object collection by sharing your stories and memories of the Rosenwald School.

This event is being held as part of an insightful new exhibit on the African American education experience now open at the Kentucky Historical Society’s Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History. The exhibit was curated by a 17-year-old junior Julia Bache at Kentucky Country Day School in Louisville. Bache assembled “Lessons from Rosenwald Schools” for her Girl Scouts of America Gold Award project. The exhibit illustrates the story of the Rosenwald schools in Kentucky through text, images, artifacts and comments from former students. It will hang in the Center’s Keeneland Gallery through Dec. 14.

The Rosenwald rural school building program was a major effort to improve the quality of public education for African Americans in the early 20th century. The initiative dates to 1912, when Sears president Julius Rosenwald gave Booker T. Washington permission to use some of the money he had donated to Tuskegee Institute to construct six small schools in rural Alabama. In 1917, Rosenwald set up the Julius Rosenwald Fund to help fund construction of similar schools throughout the South, including many in Kentucky.

To access some of the Rosenwald items in our collection, please visit the KHS Digital Collections at www.history.ky.gov. Specific questions about the event can be directed to the KHS Reference Desk at 502-564-1792, ext. 4460 or KHSrefdesk@ky.gov.