LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A new exhibition at the Frazier History Museum puts a spotlight on the origins of the Newburg neighborhood.

What You Need To Know

  • Origins of the Newburg neighborhood exhibition unveiled at the Frazier History Museum

  • The “She Did What She Could: Eliza Tevis and the Origins of Newburg” exhibition is designed by students at the University of Louisville

  • A descendant to Tevis, Janis Carter Miller said Tevis paved the way to what’s now seen as the current Newburg neighborhood

  • The exhibition is on display at the Frazier History Museum for the next six months

The “She Did What She Could: Eliza Tevis and the Origins of Newburg” exhibition is designed by University of Louisville (UofL) students. 

"Eliza was a community builder," said Janis Carter Miller, a descendant and spokesperson for the Eliza Tevis Society. "We talk about a community activist before we knew what a community activist was. Eliza Tevis was that, and she's someone that we should be very proud of because she laid the foundation, I mean, literally laid the foundation for the city known as Newburg. To learn more about Eliza, to connect the roots of Newburg to a woman who purchased 40 acres of land, which she developed an area that was known to a lot as a free zone for other slaves that became emancipated." 

Miller said much of Tevis' life was shared orally. 

"When she was emancipated and she still worked in the house of her enslavers, but they didn't pay her," Miller said. "So she took them to court. Eliza was no joke. So she spoke to me." 

She said Tevis paved the way to what’s now seen as the current Newburg neighborhood.

"It's to find as many resources as we can to help us discover information, to research deeds and about the land and about some of that oral history that we can document as being so instead of just words passed there," Miller said.

Now, there’s an exhibition on display of Tevis’s life, an enslaved woman who gained her freedom in the 1830s, purchased land and built a home in the “Wet Woods,” now Newburg, in south Louisville. 

Ben Botkin is one of the UofL students who helped with the exhibition. It’s a project part of their Introduction to Public History course. 

"What this project taught me was that a lot a large portion of Louisville was built by people in communities," Botkin said. "It was built by people, and it was built by communities and it was those people and communities that made Louisville what it is." 

Frazier History Museum curator Amanda Briede said this display is just part one of the story.

"While this exhibit tells the story of Eliza, the next one will kind of expand on the Newburg neighborhood and the legacy that she left behind," she said.

The exhibition is on display at the Frazier History Museum for the next six months.

Related Stories