Random Thoughts on History

If you have ever been to downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, you have likely seen Liberty Hall, the home of Kentucky's first senator, con...

Confederate wife Sabria Clack holding a photograph of husband Private W. R. Clack, Company B, 43rd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Cou...

This morning on my drive over to Madison, Indiana, to see my mother, I couldn't help but think that fugitive slave Henry Bibb must hav...

Back last summer I shared a captured runaway advertisement that was posted by the jailer of Franklin County, Kentucky. That notice was ...

I have wanted to read David Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World for quite some time now. When I was in Chattanoo...

Last November I presented a paper on my research on Kentuckians' reactions to John Brown's raid at the Symposium on the 19th Cent...

Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Last Friday night I went to see 12 Years a Slave at the theater. I had read Solomon Northup...

Image and interpretation courtesy of the Library of Congress. This print shows an idealized portrayal of American slavery and the c...

Not all of the former USCT soldiers that are buried in Greenhill Cemetery here in Frankfort were slaves before enlisting in the Union ar...

Reconciliation between the North and South has traveled a difficult road since 1865. One reason for this has been each side's continu...

If you are a Civil War enthusiast you have likely seen some images in the series that Kurz and Allison printed of the conflict's ba...

The famous horse Ten Broeck (pictured above) was named for noted turfman Richard Ten Broeck. Richard Ten Broeck had been the propriet...

Elizabeth Included in one of the many print collections in the Library of Congress are a plethora of images of 19th century women by ...

This photograph shows the slave quarters at Jefferson Davis's Brierfield Plantation in Warren County, Mississippi. Brierfield was onc...

In observance of Halloween tomorrow, I thought I 'd post this interesting image from Harper's Weekly , titled "Jeff Davis Re...

Continuing with our Kentucky horse history discussion, I thought I'd share the great tintype photograph above of African American j...

I have not posted much here on Random Thoughts about Kentucky's equine history. Until recently it is not a topic that has interested...

Currier and Ives produced a plethora of beautiful and inspirational lithographs covering a variety of topics during the 19th century. B...

While watching the latest PBS documentary by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, T he African Americans - Many Rivers to Cross: The Black Atlantic (15...

This image, drawn by Thomas Worth and printed and produced by Currier and Ives in 1868 creates a conundrum for me. I have mentioned in ...