2024 PROGRESS
2024 PROGRESS
DEAR FRIENDS
Once a year we share with you how South Union Shaker Village has progressed during the previous season. SUSV’s goal is to make consistent advancement toward being a better historic site and museum. We strive to continue to discover more effective educational tools, to search for innovative opportunities for outreach and development, and to utilize the best of historic preservation practices.
You will see in the enclosed material that we have made significant strides toward all three of those goals during the previous year. 2025 holds even more opportunities for SUSV but we need your help. This once-a-year appeal is one of the most impactful ways to help “keep the wheels rolling” at South Union.
We hope that you will continue to partner with South Union Shaker Village in our quest to preserve Kentucky history.
Please support South Union Shaker Village by contributing toward our SUSV Annual Appeal Campaign for the 2025 season.
Contributions may be made by check or credit card. There will be a 4% processing fee for credit card use. By visiting our website, you may donate online. SouthUnionShakerVillage.com
Setting up monthly payments is also an option!
Give us a call at: 270-542-4167.
HISTORIC PRESERVATION
1854 WASH HOUSE RESTORATION
A gift of $117,000.00 from Brian Lankford allowed SUSV to begin interior restoration on the main level of the structure. Reproduction doors, both interior and exterior, have been crafted to match the few existing originals and are currently being installed. Missing interior trim is also in the process of being milled. Additional windows have been restored with funding from George and Darlene Kohrman, Ted and Arlene Miles, Jim and Martha Sawyer.
NEW RANGE FOR THE KITCHEN
Thanks to a $5,000.00 grant from Americana Corners, the 1833 brick range has been reconstructed in the Centre House kitchen. A variety of craftspeople were involved with the project, including masons, blacksmiths, iron fabricators, and tinsmiths. Removed in the mid-20th century, the range was reconstructed using evidence found in the building and oral history interviews from the 1970s.
1869 SOUTH UNION HOTEL RESTORATION
Work began in 2024 on a major restoration of South Union’s railroad hotel. An $82,000.00 grant from the E. Rhodes & Leona B. Carpenter Foundation will allow SUSV to make improvements to the building while accomplishing a more accurate restoration of both the interior and exterior. A project to restore eight windows on the building’s façade was generously funded by Wayne and Dottie Metcalf.
education
Online resources continued to be an important education component in 2024, the most ambitious of which was the bi-monthly video series, “Objects from the Outer Branch.” Exploring seldom seen and newly acquired artifacts in the South Union collection, the videos, sponsored by Case Auctions, are available on social media and archived on our website.
Jobi Ayers Givens was honored with SUSV’s annual Deedy Hall Volunteer of the Year Award in November. Tobi volunteered time at the museum on a weekly basis, taking on tasks that included leading children’s programs, working with customers in the gift shop, using her photography skills, painting platforms, and even polishing silver.
The museum opened a new exhibit, “An Affinity for Color: Shaker Paint at South Union” in March. The exhibit explores the variety of brilliant paint colors that the South Union Shakers chose to apply to some of their furniture and the colors they painted architectural elements as well. Invaluable assistance from Dr. Susan Buck, conservator and paint analyst, is gratefully acknowledged.
acquisitions
WOOL BLANKET / 1860s
Woven in South Union’s woolen mill, with distinctive red and blue stripes on each end. The blanket includes the cross-stitched letters “OF,” signifying its use by Shakers who lived and worked in the Trustees Office. A rare, near perfect example.
Donated by Currie and Judy Milliken.
SOUTH UNION FURNITURE: including ROCKING CHAIR, ca. 1840 SIDE TABLE AND BUREAU, ca. 1850
Three examples of classic South Union Shaker style and form, purchased at the 1922 auction by family members of the donor. In addition to the furniture, there were three ca. 1870 blue willow plates, also purchased at the 1922 sale, and an 1877 manuscript letter from South Union member Urban Johns to the donor’s great-grandfather.
Bequest of the estate of Thomas N. Moody.
SHAKER THEOLOGY / 1879
First edition, by South Union Elder Harvey Eads, inscribed to Mary Whitcher, February 1st, 1889, Canterbury, New Hampshire.
Purchased with acquisition endowment funds.
MANUSCRIPT LETTER / 1875
From South Union Shaker Jackson McGown to E. D. Hicks, Nashville, concerning business related to cattle. McGown used South Union letterhead that includes a lithograph of a patented sash balance the Shakers marketed in the 1870s.
Purchased with acquisition endowment funds.
COLLECTION OF SHAKER PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCE MATERIAL
One of the largest known private collections of printed material, manuscripts, photographs, and recordings relating to the history of the Shakers. From a lifetime of collecting, this important material arrived at the museum in 200 boxes, weighing 8,000 pounds.
Donated by Kenneth Hatcher.