The Civil War Letters and Documents Collection is a compilation of several small groups of papers acquired by the Memphis and Shelby County Room at different times and from various sources. The collection includes correspondence, business...
authors; clergy; historians; public service; religion; travel;
The Revered Marshall Wingfield was a distinguished minister, historian, author, poet and a passionate activist for peace and justice. He was the senior minister of the First Congregational Church in Memphis from 1937 to 1958 and served as...
business; corrections; criminals; employment; entertainment; immigrants; Jews; labor; law enforcement; parole; prisons; public service; television; volunteers;
Leo M. Seligman, who committed himself to helping men and women lead responsible and productive lives after prison, grew up in Germany in the early decades of the 20th Century. He was born in 1900 in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany and served in the...
Berl Olswanger, known as “Mr. Music,” was a highly talented and popular musician and civil leader in Memphis from the 1940s through the 1970s. During his career he worked as a performer, composer, band leader and music teacher. -- Olswanger...
appropriations; Crump, E. H.; government; immigration; law; legislation; military; pardons; parole; passports; politics; post office; public service; rural routes;
Kenneth McKellar was born in 1869 near Richmond, Alabama. In 1892, after receiving a Bachelor’s, Master’s and law degree from the University of Alabama, he moved to Memphis. He began his extensive political career when he was selected as a...
arts; Beethoven Club; entertainment; music; performing arts; theater;
Miss Martha Trudeau, a piano teacher, couldn't have dreamed of the possibilities when she invited three women to tea on October 27, 1888. They discussed the lack of classical music opportunities in Memphis and they decided to start a club, the...
Sara Beaumont Cannon, a descendant of several prominent Revolutionary War soldiers, was born in Somerville, Tennessee in 1859. She was educated at St. Mary’s Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina, and began writing poetry while still a school girl. --...
clubs; education; entertainment; Farrow family; neighborhoods; philanthropy; public service; recreation; social life; social organizations; study clubs; volunteerism; Whitehaven; women;
Whitehaven in the early 1900s was a small community with two churches, a school with some forty pupils, two stores and about twenty homes. Each afternoon a group of young ladies who called themselves the Whitehaven Walking Club took a walk...
Ethel Taylor Maxwell was born in Memphis in 1915 and enjoyed a long and prominent career as a musical singing star and later as a teacher of music. She credited her parents with encouraging her early interest in music and supporting her artistic...
bridges; casualties of war; family; fashion; government; law; mayors; military; parks; public service; railroads; recreation; social life; women; World War I;
Harry H. Litty was born in 1862 in Toledo, Ohio. After attending North Kentucky College, he began his business career with the Toledo, Cincinnati, and St. Louis Railroad. His work with the railroad brought him to Memphis, where he was an engineer...
The firm of S.B. Williamson and A.S. Hancock, Grocers and Commission Merchants, was established at 49 Front in Memphis around 1850. Like similar businesses of their day, they sold a variety of items including groceries and farm supplies, and also...
agriculture; authors; Bartlett, Tennessee; Bond family; business; Cordova; cotton; family; farming; government; medicine; politics; public service; railroads; slavery; writers;
Among the most prominent citizens of early Shelby County were three brothers, Samuel, John and Washington Bond. Samuel, born in 1804, was a practicing physician. During the late 1840s or early 1850s, he and his wife, Mary Lucy, built a splendid...
civil engineering; drafting; drainage structures; engineering; expressways; floods; highways; land use; levees; mayors; public service; public works; railroads; rivers; sewage; streets; zoning;
Thomas E. Maxson was born in LaBette County, Kansas in 1901 and grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. He graduated from Texas A&M College in 1922 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. After receiving his degree, Maxson worked for a year...
downtown; entertainment; fires; Goldsmith family; hotels; recreation; social life;
In the mid-19th century, the Gayoso House was known up and down the Mississippi River for its elegance and hospitality. Nestled in a grove of trees above terraces and landscaped gardens, it had a view of the river for fifteen miles. From the...
architecture; Belmont Park; Boyle Investment Co.; Brennan, Harry W.; business; Chickasaw Gardens; clubs; Galloway Golf Course; homeowners; Hyde Park; neighborhoods; parks; public service; real estate; Red Acres; Richland Place; Thomas, James...
Harry W. Brennan was born in Nashville in 1869. As a young man, his interest and ability in math led him to study engineering, and his first business venture was in the field of engineering and contracting. He moved to Memphis in 1904 with his...
Morris Solomon was born in Lomza, Poland in 1894. As a young man he moved to Memphis, where his relatives owned a small grocery store called the Sunset Market. Solomon became a police officer in 1919, starting out as a patrolman and going on to...
agriculture; business; clubs; festivals; law; military; public service; secret societies; social life; warehouses;
A. Arthur Halle was born in Memphis in 1889. He attended the Linden Street School, Memphis University School, Betts Academy in Stamford, Connecticut, and Yale University, where he studied law. Halle’s time at Yale ended prematurely because of his...
books; celebrations; disease; entertainment; epidemics; festivals; insurance; Mardi Gras; public service; recreation; social life; yellow fever;
A leading citizen of Memphis in the decades after the Civil War, Colton Greene is best remembered as the originator of the Memphis Mardi Gras. Little is known of Greene’s early life other than that he was born in South Carolina in 1832. Greene...
Henry Loeb, III was born into a wealthy and prominent family in Memphis in 1920. After graduating from Brown University and serving as a Naval lieutenant World War II, he returned to civilian life in Memphis. As Secretary of Loeb’s...
The William Fowler collection was given to the Memphis and Shelby County Room by Fowler’s grandson, John W. Fowler, in 1985. William Bingham Fowler, born in 1886, served the city of Memphis as an engineer over a span of 69 years. During this...
