2011 Fair Update: We are all reminders of the past.
150 years ago today, in a nation much like ours, minus the skyscrapers and Toy Story movie marathons, traffic delays and weekly trash pickup, our ancestors started a war amongst each other. Cannons boomed in the early morning hours in Charleston, S.C., bombarding Fort Sumter, plunging the nation into the Civil War on April 12, 1861.
The War Between the States, as it was initially called, grew ripe with stories of countrymen killing fellow countrymen. Noticeable, material reminders of the conflict still linger today. They’re in Civil War graveyards, battlefield sites and museums; in aged family diaries, heirlooms and keepsakes; and in bullet holes in houses and barns.
Around 4 a.m. this morning, a single beam of light was aimed from Fort Sumter kicking off the first sesquicentennial commemoration of The Civil War. Then about a half-hour later — around the time of the first shots of the war — the beam split into two beams, signifying a nation torn in two.
We, as citizens of this nation and we as the Kentucky State Fair, are drawn by the stories of sacrifice and honor contained in our nation’s battlefields, and we too hear the echoes of the soldiers in blue and gray hoping to not be forgotten. As we plan our events for the 2011 State Fair, we want to embrace this sesquicentennial remembrance period as an opportunity to improve our perception on the past and create a tangible tribute to the memory of the brave soldiers.
The Kentucky State Fair will mark the remembrance period with United We Stand, Divided We Fall: Kentucky and the Civil War +150, a 10,000-square-foot exhibition that will feature Union and Confederate encampments as settings for living history re-enactors and artifacts as well as graphic panels that introduce various aspects of Kentucky’s Civil War story. The exhibition, located in South Wing B of the Kentucky Exposition Center, will also engage visitors with touch-screen computer learning stations and a content-rich interactive exhibition exploring Civil War communications and the development of the telegraph.
On a stage adjacent to the exhibition, an original mini-musical chronicling Kentucky’s compelling Civil War story, Kentucky’s Civil War Song: From Reveille to Tattoo, will outline Kentucky’s involvement in the Civil War, including Louisville native Robert Anderson’s command of Fort Sumter, examples of divisions in a Kentucky family and telegraph activity in Kentucky battles and skirmishes. Primary source documents – music, letters, newspaper articles, speeches and publications – will serve as the heart of the performance, written and produced by faculty, alumni, and students of Louisville’s Youth Performing Arts School.
