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As America became a nation, Maysville became the threshold to a new continent. Pioneers, Native Americans, soldiers, and slaves on their way to freedom all came here, and they left a heritage unmatched in our Commonwealth.
At the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, you’ll find detailed depictions of the region’s past and fascinating insights into the men and women who played their parts in its rich history—people like Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton and his wife Martha Dowden, Henry Clay, Tecumseh, and many others.
Permanent exhibits bring the whole history of the region to life, but the museum is home to more artifacts, documents, and materials than can be displayed at any one time. Like our country, the exhibits here are always changing—there’s always something new and exciting to see.
The Museum Center also plays host to local collectors and traveling programs. Whether you’re interested in history, art, or the everyday life of an extraordinary community, you’ll find it here. Plan on visiting often to see the latest show.
1900's Dollhouse
December 21, 2007
Kay Miller, who recently relocated to Maysville, has lent the museum her historic dollhouse for display.
Her family purchased the house in Shanghai, China in 1948 and were told it had been made by a Chinese craftsman for a European family around 1900. She will be adding furniture to the house as she gets settled in her new home.
NEW HARMONIES: Celebrating American Roots Music
May 13, 2008
JUNE 21st - AUGUST 3rd New Harmonies is the sixth exhibition in an ongoing partnership between state humanities councils and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The partnership is known as Museum on Main Street, and it serves rural communities. Through a selection of photographs, recordings, instruments, lyrics and artist profiles, New Harmonies explores the distinct cultural identities of Gospel, Country, Blues and other forms of roots music as they record the history of the American people and set the foundation for many musical genres appreciated worldwide today.
Listen to America's music and hear the story of freedom. It's the story of people in a New World places they have left behind, and ideas they have brought with them. It is the story of people who were already here, but whose world is remade. The distinct cultural identities of all of these people are carried in song -- both sacred and secular. Their music tracks the unique history of many peoples reshaping each other into one incredibly diverse and complex people -- Americans. Their music is the roots of American music.
The music that emerges is known by names like blues, country western, folk ballads, and gospel. The sounds are as sweet as mountain air, and as sultry as a summer night in Mississippi delta country. The instruments vary from fiddle to banjo to accordian to guitar to drum. But a drum in the hands of an African sounds different than one in the hands of a European. And neither is the drumbeat of an American Indian. Yet all the rhythms merge, as do the melodies and harmonies, producing completely new sounds -- new music. The musics merge because this is America. New waves of music ride ashore in the hearts and heads of new immigrants and they create still new sounds from what they have brought with them and what they find here. And nothing expresses the tensions -- or the triumphs -- of this journey into democracy quite like the music that it spawns.
The main beat of the exhibition is the on-going cultural process that has made America the birthplace of more music than any place on earth. The exhibition provides a fascinating, inspiring, and toe-tapping listen to the American story of multi-cultural exchange. The story is full of surprises about familiar songs, histories of instruments, the roles of religion and technology, and the continuity of musical roots from "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to the latest hip hop CD.
Accompanying the exhibit will be a series of musical programs held in the museum and around town. On July 10th at 7:30 p.m. in the Maysville Auditorium will be “Fascinating Rhythm: Ragtime and Stride Piano” featuring Richard Domek, UK professor of music.
July 12th at 8 p.m. at the Washington Opera Theatre “Hootenany” will feature Roger Cooper, Lewis County fiddler; The Clack Mountain String Band and the Broadway Six gospel singers. The next afternoon, on the 13th, Ice Cream Social beginning at 1 p.m. and the Scottaires, under the direction of Rose Nelson, will perform at 2:30 p.m. here at the Museum Center. On July 24th at 7:30 at the museum Lily May Ledford, as portrayed by the Kentucky Humanities Council Chautauqua performer Sandy Harmon will bring her story and talent to the museum.
At different times during the length of the exhibit, local musician, Mike Duffy, will present programs for our youth where he will talk to them about instruments and offer instructions for them to make their own instruments. The museum shop will also offer books on Blues, cowboy music, ballads, Bluegrass, Kentucky country and folk songs of Appalachia. Simple Kazoos, jaw harps, penny whistles and ocarinas will also be sold.
New Harmonies is the second Museum On Main Street exhibit we have hosted. Key Ingredients was our first in 2005. New Harmonies is sponsored in part by the Hayswood Foundation, Limestone Youth Orchestra and the Kentucky Humanities Council.