LFPL's At the Library Series

Stephen Foster’s 1852 ballad “My Old Kentucky Home” conjures visions of home as a nurturing, humble environment, but for some Kentuckians during the Gilded Age, home was anything but nurturing. Charlene Fletcher (PhD candidate, Indiana University-Bloomington) will examine family violence in 19th century domestic spaces as she recounts the lives of two African American women from Lexington, Kentucky, Fannie Keys Harvey and Lila B. White, who were incarcerated at the Frankfort Penitentiary after fighting back against their abusive families. Using their stories, Fletcher will present home as a site of confinement for women and children in central Kentucky, an area plagued with various forms of domestic abuse, and pull acts of resistance from the archives to bring awareness to this dark chapter of history. This program is presented by MyLibraryU and the Kentucky History Room.