Revolution to Statehood

Kentucky's founding, and how it has been remembered.

Revolution to Statehood: Kentucky's Founding in History and Memory is the Kentucky Historical Society's exhibition for the America 250 commemoration. It follows Kentucky from European settlement to statehood against the backdrop of the American Revolution, and asks how that founding story has been told and retold since.

Period artifacts sit beside commemorative art made generations later: the Burgoyne Cannon, a survey George Washington drew for a Kentucky land claim, an 1850s painting of Simon Kenton, and the doodled margins of a constitutional convention journal. One case is left deliberately empty, acknowledging the gaps in the museum's Native American collections.

Encore worked with the Kentucky Historical Society as interpretive planner, content creator and exhibit designer, and directed fabrication and installation through trusted partners.