Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series

Join researcher and collector Mack Cox as he shares the story of the marriages, mentorship, and geography that entwined the lives of two of Kentucky’s most important artists: Matthew Harris Jouett (1788-1827) and Oliver Frazer (1808), and their descendants. This lecture will tell that story and the travels and adventures of these paintings as they moved from the first owners to the present with the backdrop of war, financial crises, and cultural revolutions in American history.

Mack Cox is a Kentucky native, received BS and MS degrees in geology from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, and pursued an oil and gas career from which he retired in 2017. He and his wife Sharon have collected early Kentucky material since 2005, and their collection was covered in the July/August 2011 issue of the Magazine Antiques (“The Kentucky Collection of Sharon and Mack Cox” by Daniel Kurt Ackermann). In 2013, their collection was described as “one of the finest assemblages of antebellum Kentucky material” in the book “Collecting Kentucky 1790-1860” by Lacer & Howard.

Mack currently serves on the executive committee and board of the Henry Clay Memorial Foundation in Lexington, Kentucky. He also serves on advisory boards for the Colonial Williamsburg Art Museums in Virginia, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in North Carolina, and The Magazine Antiques in New York City.  He, along with his wife, Sharon are regional representatives for MESDA’s Object Database and have submitted over 100 surveys of Kentucky material.  He has lectured at numerous KY locations and for the Decorative Arts Trust in Philadelphia, the Washington, D.C. Decorative Arts Forum, Winterthur Museum and Gardens in Delaware, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in North Carolina, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts. Mack’s primary mission in retirement is to discover and document early Kentucky furniture and he is considered a leading authority on the subject.  He has authored numerous articles about early Kentucky furniture, and “An American Story - The Redd Family Portraits,” as part of Into the Bluegrass, Art and Artistry of Kentucky’s Historic Icons by Mel Stewart Hankla, published by American Historic Services, LLC in 2020.

To honor the 250th anniversary of the establishment of Leestown in July 1775, this presentation and accompanying booklet will offer a brief look into Leestown, the first settlement of Franklin County, and shares the stories of the many people and elements which have made up its rich history. A book signing will follow, with copies available for purchase.

A Frankfort native, Patty Norris Peavler spent her early years as a summer river rat on the family houseboat. She considers daughters Penny and Maggie her finest accomplishments in life and granddaughters Scout and Izzy to be most delightful creatures. A product of the Franklin County Schools and Kentucky State University, her first career was as a local florist, with flower-arranging still being a favorite endeavor. Joining Farmers Bank in 1983, Patty enjoyed 34 years there in the Marketing Department. Nowadays, she heads the Board of Trustees at the Frankfort Cemetery and chairs the Housing Authority of Frankfort Board. Working at the Capital City Museum, serving as an Elder at First Christian Church, and reading books about Kentucky make this retiree very happy.

Although the saying "Dog is man's best friend," is well known, the man who originally coined the phrase is less celebrated in modern times. However, in the late 1800s, George Graham Vest was a distinguished attorney and politician widely admired for his skills in oration and debate. George Graham Vest--The Life and Times of Dog's Best Friend provides a detailed look at Vest, who was born and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky but later practiced law in central Missouri, serving the "Show Me State" in the Missouri House of Representatives, the Confederate Congress, the Confederate Senate, and later the U.S. Senate, with more than 30 years in public office. Vest was known as a champion for the rights of Native Americans, helped establish Yellowstone National Park, and was called a man of genius by his contemporaries whose skill in debate was never equaled. Written by Stephen M. Vest, a descendant who is also known for his command of the English language, George Graham Vest--The Life and Times of Dog's Best Friend is a fitting biography to one of America's best statesmen, long overdue.

Stephen M. Vest is the editor and publisher of Kentucky Monthly, a Governor Award in the Arts (Media) honoree. Founded in 1998, Kentucky Monthly has more than 100,000 readers. He is the author of Unexpected Inheritance (Butler Books, 2014), a memoir about being raised by older parents and a hard-to-please grandmother, two collections of columns, including THAT Kind of Journalist (2008), and the publisher of the 2012 anthology Kentucky's Twelve Days of Christmas with editor James B. Goode.

Vest holds journalism and English degrees from the University of Louisville and Murray State University (MFA-Creative Nonfiction). His work has appeared in newspapers nationwide, including The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Still, and the anthology Of Woods and Waters (2005) by Ron Ellis. A frequent speaker, Vest teaches communications at Campbellsville University, public speaking at Midway University, and feature writing and storytelling at Eastern Kentucky University. He and his wife, Kay, live in Frankfort, Kentucky. They have four grown children - Christopher, Katy, Molly and Sydney.

Registration begins July 1.

For the first time, Denis Fleming's book demonstrates the influence of Thomas Jefferson on Kentucky's Constitution from direct references to Jefferson in the rarely if ever used papers of George Nicholas at the University of Chicago Library. Nicholas was chair of Kentucky's constitutional convention in Danville in 1792 and his handwritten notes at this convention show the influence of Jefferson on Kentucky's separation of powers clauses. These clauses are not found in our federal constitution and the influence of Jefferson on Kentucky's Constitution has long been in doubt.

One Kentucky Supreme Court opinion asserted Nicholas met Jefferson at Monticello where Jefferson gave him the draft clauses but later opinions question that account with one calling it "a hoax”. But Fleming found in the Nicholas papers, including handwritten drafts of his speeches to the convention, direct attribution of these clauses to Jefferson from his book Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1787

Fleming traces how these clauses were used in the modern era to uphold Kentucky's greatest public policy wins, including education and criminal justice reform. He also discusses the work of Jefferson with Nicholas and John Breckinridge and Jefferson's secret authorship of the "Kentucky Resolutions" passed by Kentucky's legislature in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. There were riots across Kentucky in opposition to these acts and Fleming's tale of these turbulent times in central Kentucky makes for compelling history.

Denis Fleming, Jr., a native of Louisville, Kentucky, received his bachelor’s degree with distinction from the University of Kentucky and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law. After receiving his law degree, he practiced law throughout Kentucky with the firm Barnett & Alagia.

Later, he served in Kentucky state government as general counsel to the Economic Development Cabinet under Governors Wallace Wilkinson and Brereton Jones (1988-93), general counsel to the governor and deputy secretary of the executive cabinet under Governor Paul Patton (1995-2003) and chief deputy attorney general under Attorney General Greg Stumbo (2003-2004).

In 2004, Fleming was appointed chief of staff to Congressman Ben Chandler (Ky-6th) in Washington, D.C. with the U.S. House of Representatives. After the 2012 elections, Fleming worked with Almost Family, Inc. a Kentucky-based homecare provider that later merged with LHC Group where he now works as senior vice president and legislative counsel.

He resides in Washington D.C. and Miami, enjoys travel and running and has written published book reviews. This is his first book.

Registration begins August 1.

Join Dr. Hasken-Wagner as she presents some of Frankfort's odd phenomena from the historical record and invites consideration for how to approach these bizarre occurrences as a folklorist and historian. Not strictly storytelling, not strictly debunking, and not strictly verification, this presentation offers tools for handling the weirder moments from our past. 

Dr. Eleanor Hasken-Wagner is the Museum and Historic Sites Supervisor for the city of Frankfort. She holds a Master’s Degree in Folk Studies from WKU and a Doctorate in Folklore & Ethnomusicology from Indiana University. Her graduate work produced two publications: a dissertation titled: The Migration of a Local Legend: The Case of Mothman and a thesis titled "Performing Gender in Bowling, or, 'I Was in Shock Other Girls Could Bowl."

Throughout her graduate programs, she was well-known for her love of teaching, which has led her to continue to teach an Introduction to Folklore Course at University of Kentucky as a lecturer in the Modern and Classical Languages Department. As the Museum and Historic Sites Supervisor, her primary responsibility is to manage administrative duties, plan events, ensure the preservation of the historic Fort Hill at Leslie Morris Park, and curate exhibits at the Capital City Museum. She is a graduate of Leadership Frankfort, class of 2023, and a Kentucky Colonel. She is a frequent community lecturer and the writer/host of the award-winning, Kentucky Deceased: Hauntings of Frankfort podcast. In her spare time, she can be found tinkering on vintage mopeds and doing fiber-based arts.

Registration begins September 1.

Kentucky was the site of one of the most important slave markets in the Upper South. Enslaved Kentuckians played an important role in developing the Commonwealth. Join Dr. Vanessa M. Holden as she explores this vital role and the ins and outs of how slavery bolstered Kentucky's economy.  

Dr. Vanessa M. Holden (She/Her) is an associate professor of History and serves as director of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky (UKY). She is also the director of the Central Kentucky Slavery Initiative. Dr. Holden’s book, Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner’s Community (University of Illinois Press), is the winner of the 2021 James Broussard Best First Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). Her writing has been published in Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies; Perspectives on History; Process: A Blog for American History; and The Rumpus. Dr. Dr. Holden serves as a faculty adviser on several public history and digital humanities projects including Freedom on the Move and The Digital Access Project (DAP). Her current research focuses on slavery and enslaved people in Kentucky.

Registration begins October 1.

Join Dr. Charlene J. Fletcher as she highlights the experiences of Black women at the Frankfort Penitentiary during the turn of the 20th century. She will examine how these women resisted and redefined the concept of confinement through their interactions with the public, social, and political entities of their time. Additionally, she will explore how they challenged Victorian ideals related to race and femininity in the late 19th century.

Dr. Charlene J. Fletcher is the Frances Shera Fessler Assistant Professor of History at Butler University. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Indiana University.

Before entering the academy, Dr. Fletcher led a domestic violence/sexual assault program and a significant prison reentry initiative in New York City, assisting women and men in their transition from incarceration to society, and served as a lecturer of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. Her forthcoming book Confined Femininity: Race, Gender, and Incarceration in Kentucky, 1865-1920, explores the experiences of confined African American women in Kentucky from Reconstruction to the Progressive Era, explicitly illuminating the lives of confined Black women by examining places other than carceral locales as arenas of confinement, including mental health institutions and domestic spaces.

Dr. Fletcher's newest research project is rooted in her grandmother's memories, takes a transnational approach to race and confinement in the American South, and builds on her interest in Italian history. The project, Down in the Delta: Race Relations between African and Italian Americans in Mississippi, 1880-1940 explores Italian migration and experiences in the Mississippi Delta between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It interrogates the Italian padrone system as a form of confinement and examines relationships between Italians and African Americans because of their shared proximity and experience in the rural Jim Crow South.

In addition to her research, Dr. Fletcher serves on the editorial boards of The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society and the North Meridian Review. She is an elected member of the National Council of Public History (NCPH) Board of Directors.

Registration begins November 1.