A monument to Pittsburgh native and pioneering songwriter Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was installed in 1900 and was removed in 2018. The essay was included in the volume accompanying the groundbreaking MONUMENTS exhibition, which opened at The Brick and MOCA, Los Angeles museums in 2025. Decommissioned monuments, many but not all Confederate, were presented alongside contemporary […]
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2024 James Beard Journalism Award Nominee in the Beverage category A historian uncovers the complex story of her home state’s famous spirit, one strong sip at a time. https://www.travelandleisure.com/kentucky-bourbon-trail-road-trip-8351260 Kentucky Bourbon Oct 23
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Kentucky’s first house museum and perhaps the first plantation not tied to a United States president to open to the public, this Bardstown tourist attraction will turn 100 in 2023. This essay chronicles its establishment and the way Kentucky embraced an Old South image despite its Civil War neutrality.
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May 2019 Louisville Mag PDF Amid intensifying anti-war sentiment and shifting party alignments, Richard Nixon, the first (and still only) sitting president ever to attend the Run for the Roses passed through a gauntlet of advocates for “Black Revolution” who had spent the night in jail after occupying the University of Louisville. Among their messages […]
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