African Americans; education; public service; schools; teachers;
James Ashton Hayes, distinguished Memphis educator, was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1865. Hayes received his A.B. degree in 1911 from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, where he was an active participant in scholastic and athletic groups. --...
activism; African Americans; authors; Beale Street; business; civil rights; desegregation; education; Elks; insurance; military; politics; post office; public service; public speaking; race; Republican Party; writers;
The George W. Lee Collection was given to the library by his daughter Gilda Lee Robinson in 1985. The large collection includes extensive and wide-ranging correspondence, copies of many of Lee’s speeches, hundreds of newspaper and magazine...
Donated to the Memphis Public Library in 1989 by Marie Connor, the collection contains a wide range of aviation news and memorabilia from the Memphis area. These include articles clipped from local newspapers about aviation events and history,...
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...
African Americans; annexation; censorship; city budget; civic clubs; consolidation; engineers; fire department; government; hospitals; housing; mayors; parades; police department; politics; power plants; public service; race; segregation; slums;...
Frank T. Tobey was born in 1890 in Memphis and attended the Memphis Military Institute, Christian Brothers College and Captain Collier’s School. He pursued studies in engineering at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, South Dakota State...
annexation; arts; city council; crime; development; economics; farm marketing; government; law enforcement; municipal government; painting; politics; public service; sanitation workers strike; social issues; tourism;
Robert B. James served on the Memphis City Council from 1968 to 1988. During his twenty years as councilman, he accumulated many documents related to council business, as well as material from other organizations and events with which he was...
"A first in film biography is being created in Memphis. -- It is the story of Memphis jazz musician Charles Lloyd, being filmed by Eric Sherman of Los Angeles, a Yale student. -- It all began when Mr. Sherman, a student of sociology with an...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Congress established the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, or Freedmen’s Bureau as it was commonly known, in March 1865 as the end of the Civil War drew near. An agency of the War Department, the Freedmen’s Bureau had two main...
Blair Theodore Hunt prominent Memphis educator, clergyman and civic leader, was the son of former slaves Blair Theodore and Emma Clark Hunt. He was a graduate of LeMoyne College and also received degrees from Morehouse College, Roger Williams...
One of the most colorful chapters in the history of American journalism began in the late 19th century. In New York, fierce battles for circulation raged between newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, who ran screaming...
agriculture; Bedford family; cotton; Duke family; education; family; finding aids; Germantown, Tennessee; immigration; Nashoba; newspapers; public service; Shelby County; slavery; social life;
The Britton Duke Papers are a chronicle of an early Germantown, Tennessee, family. The papers were donated to the Memphis and Shelby County Room by Louise Duke Bedford, great granddaughter of Britton Duke, and her nephew, Edward C. Duke. The...
"When stocky Bill (Count) Basie sits down behind his piano, he seems to grow a foot. If his reception at the Club Paradise is any indication, he has a Memphis following to match his musical stature. -- An estimated 1,500 fans gathered last...
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...
community planning; corrections; government; land use; parks; prisons; public service; traffic; volunteerism; women;
Ruth Friedman Loewenberg grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended George Washington University. While in Memphis visiting her sister, she met William A. Loewenberg, and she described their meeting as “love at first sight.” They later married...
African Americans; baseball; Birmingham Black Barons; business; death; entertainment; funeral homes; public service; recreation; sports;
Thomas Henry Hayes, Jr., was born in Covington, Tennessee in 1902. His father, Thomas H. Hayes, Sr., founded T.H. Hayes Funeral Home, which was the oldest African American-owned business in Memphis when his son joined as funeral director in 1928....
