The first event hosted by the recently relaunched UofL Family Business Center (FBC) provided a touchstone for every business that hopes to have a successful future: the opportunity to study details of its past.
     UofL archivist Tom Owen delivered a program that attracted a diverse group of individuals who shared an appetite for history.  They were treated to a presentation Owen called “the bread and butter” of business background research tools.

     “This is where you’d start,” he said.  “You can’t believe all the stuff we have here.  Sometimes I can’t believe it.”
     Owen’s haunt is the Records and Archives department in the university’s Ekstrom Library. It’s one of three special collections available to researchers focusing on Louisville’s past. The other two—Rare Books and Photo Archives—were quick stops on the program’s tour.
     “We are the memory of UofL,”said Owen, who’s been at his post 34 years. “And we’re the partial memory of the City of Louisville.”
     The free event was staged by the center to encourage owners of family firms to discover FBC’s programs and services, including roundtables, workshops, seminars and guest speakers as well as mentoring and one-to-one consulting. (The center’s schedule of events is updated regularly at Business.louisville.edu/fbc.)
     Memories were the order of the day. Multi-media producer Stephen Brown attended the program hoping to uncover profiles of 19th century Butchertown lifestyles for a project he’s developing.  Allen Steinbock, CEO of family-owned Whip Mix Corporation, was seeking information about his family’s roots. Bruce Zoeller came in search of details about his family’s pump company. Rogers Group chairman Dan Recter was looking for nuggets of legend and lore that might have slipped through the cracks in the company’s 100-year history book.  And Margaret Clemments and Angela Doyle wanted to learn all they could about the earliest days of Boys Haven and its iconic leader, Father Maloney.
     Owen offered the group a lavish menu of search tools and tactics.  They sampled City Directories dating back to 1832, amazingly detailed neighborhood maps from 1867 to 1970, a searchable index of oral histories voiced by business people, newsmakers and everyday people, volumes of unexpected thematic reference books and decades of monthly journals published by the Louisville Chamber of Commerce and its predecessors.
     At times it was difficult to know who enjoyed the presentation more: the guests who eagerly waded into the depths of the library’s resources or Owen, who shares the information with relentless enthusiasm.
     “Look at this—you won’t believe this,” he teased.  “From 1916 to 1988, librarians indexed Courier-Journal stories by names and topics.  They created 76,000 index cards and they’re all available on microfilm. I use them almost daily. Can you imagine anyone doing that today?”
     He delighted in paging through a quirky collection of student-written papers from 1938 through 1942.  The five-volume treasure was assembled by a UofL professor who required students to write an essay on their neighborhood, a business they knew about or a club they belonged to.
     “Some were written the night before they were due, others show great research and preparation,” said Owen.  “But each is a snapshot of the city I guarantee you won’t find anywhere else.”
     Another one-of-a-kind collection assembled the work of an artist who penned caricatures of mid-1920’s business leaders enjoying their hobbies.  The original cartoons appeared in the city’s other daily newspaper of the day, the Herald-Post.
     Owen reminded the group that the archives continue to grow with the addition of personal papers and historical documents provided by individuals and businesses, and encouraged them to consider donating appropriate materials in the future. He said materials contributed by educator and desegregation leader Lyman Johnson and by author-historian George Yater included fascinating and frivolous facts.
     He sat a computer to display digital collections and databases the library offers and urged the seekers to go on line and get familiar with all the library resources before launching a search.
     “Make a researcher happy,” he suggested.  “When you come in here and know what you’re looking for, it’s a wonderful thing.” 
     Owen conceded that while plentiful, the library’s materials are only a portion of what’s available locally.
     “So where do you go from here?” he offered.  “If you don’t find it here, try the Filson Club, the Board of Education, Louisville Water Company and Metro Government-City of Louisville. Churches can be great sources, too.
     But when the two-hour long program ended promptly, none of the guests headed for the exit. Instead each gravitated to materials Owen had handled or recommended and began plotting a future for their past. 
     For more information about the UofL archives, visit Louisville.edu/libraries. To learn more about the Family Business Center, visit Business.louisville.edu/FBC or call FBC Director Kathleen Hoye at 502.852.1048