There's nothing like a trip to Lexington to have me appreciating anew what a rare gem the Keeneland Library is. There's far more to this wonderful place than the books and magazines on the main floor. Their basement is a storehouse of treasures that otherwise would mostly likely have been lost forever. Thanks to the Keeneland Association, generous donors, and the hard work of Library staff, they are preserved.
The importance of the Library's holdings cannot be understated, for while the collections are primarily dedicated to the history of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, the history of the horse is deeply tied in with the sweep of human history. One cannot delve into the accounts of great horses of the past without learning something of the world that they and their human associates lived in. Cultural shifts and attitudinal changes on everything from animal welfare to the role of women in society to the evolution of an agrarian society through the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars, and the Information Era can be discerned in the stories of those who have gone before us, both two-legged and four-legged. thus, the Library is not only a repository of equine history; it is a storehouse of our own.
I had only limited time to stop and research on this trip and added only a few fragments on the story of Chief Johnson to the material I already had, but the Library staff outdid themselves on something else: they found an unpublished master's thesis on Colonel E. R. Bradley in their holdings, and (thanks to the efforts of Library Project Curator Sarah Cantor), I now have a digital copy of same in my possession. The unlikely friendship between Chief Johnson and Bradley is a topic I'd like to explore further, and this thesis at the very least may be able to point me in some new directions for research. And that leads me to a final point: the greatest treasure the Library possesses is its people, who are preserving the past, making it available in the present, and holding it in trust for the future. If you ever have the chance to stop by and say hello to Library Director Roda Ferraro and her team, do so. They are some amazing folks!
The importance of the Library's holdings cannot be understated, for while the collections are primarily dedicated to the history of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, the history of the horse is deeply tied in with the sweep of human history. One cannot delve into the accounts of great horses of the past without learning something of the world that they and their human associates lived in. Cultural shifts and attitudinal changes on everything from animal welfare to the role of women in society to the evolution of an agrarian society through the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars, and the Information Era can be discerned in the stories of those who have gone before us, both two-legged and four-legged. thus, the Library is not only a repository of equine history; it is a storehouse of our own.
I had only limited time to stop and research on this trip and added only a few fragments on the story of Chief Johnson to the material I already had, but the Library staff outdid themselves on something else: they found an unpublished master's thesis on Colonel E. R. Bradley in their holdings, and (thanks to the efforts of Library Project Curator Sarah Cantor), I now have a digital copy of same in my possession. The unlikely friendship between Chief Johnson and Bradley is a topic I'd like to explore further, and this thesis at the very least may be able to point me in some new directions for research. And that leads me to a final point: the greatest treasure the Library possesses is its people, who are preserving the past, making it available in the present, and holding it in trust for the future. If you ever have the chance to stop by and say hello to Library Director Roda Ferraro and her team, do so. They are some amazing folks!