“He is a quiet man. -- We are sitting in a shadowed room, cut off from the street noises, the afternoon’s light barely creeping through a doorway window. -- An upright piano, framed with pictures and musical scores, waits patiently across the...
arts; business; entertainment; family; music; personal finance;
Jerry Lee Lewis was born to Elmo and Mary Ethel Lewis in Ferriday, Louisiana in 1935. Lewis sang and learned to play the piano in the local Assembly of God church, while also listening to Country music on the radio and Blues music in the African...
The African American Life in Memphis, Tennessee collection touches on the vast contributions of African Americans in the Bluff City. The papers address the early struggles of African American and reflect the rich and productive lives they have led...
business; charity; department stores; family; Goldsmith family; public service; retail merchandising; suburbs;
The Goldsmith Department Store Collection was given to the Memphis and Shelby County Room by descendants of company founder Jacob Goldsmith. Materials in the collection include family papers, letters, photographs and legal documents, as well as...
Edward Hull Crump was born near Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1874. He was raised by his mother, Mollie Nelms Crump, after his father, a cotton planter and former Confederate officer, died during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878. When he was 19...
David Skypeck and Richard Cushing were playing with The Midnight Syncopators every Wednesday night at Lafayette’s Corner in August of 1986, but by November the horn players had left the band. They played on even though members continued to leave...
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...
African Americans; arts; Beale Street; business; Club Ebony; Club Handy; Daisy Theatre; entertainment; Mitchell, Andrew "Sunbeam"; Mitchell Hotel; motion pictures; music; neighborhoods; New Daisy Theatre; Palace Theatres; Pantaze Drug...
The Beale Street Collection was donated to the Memphis and Shelby county Room in 1980 by the Beale Street Development Corporation. During the restoration of the 300 block of Beale Street, construction workers recovered many items which had...
A picture of road construction at Bellevue Blvd. and Lamar. Note the men on the poles on the left. There is a sign for a bakery on the left of the intersection and a sign for Kendall-Ranbo Drugs on the right. Notes on the back read: Bellevue...
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; entertainment; Playhouse on the Square; theater;
The Playhouse on the Square Programs Collection was donated to the Memphis Public Library & Information Center by several individuals over many years. The programs were then gathered together to create this collection. -- In 1975, Circuit...
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...
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...
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...
2011 flood; farms; Anderson Tulley, Arkansas; Sutton Brothers Farm; boats;
A woman is sitting on a small boat that is floating on flooded waters. Debris and other items are seen in the background also floating on the water. Taken in the small farm community of Anderson Tulley, Arkansas, near Paneway, Arkansas on highway...
Beale Street; Main Street; streets; businesses; 1950s;
A picture of the intersection of Beale and S. Main looking east. On the left is Weinman's. The sign reads "Clothes Jewelry on Credit." Beyond Weinman's is Bursk Dept. Store. On the right is Pantaze's on the corner, the Stork Shop and...
art education; arts; clubs; historic preservation; museums; neighborhoods; public service; women;
Florence Makin McIntyre is remembered as the First Lady of Memphis Art. She was born in Memphis in 1878 and grew up in her family home, the Pillow-McIntyre House, at 707 Adams Avenue in the historic Victorian Village neighborhood. As a child she...
clubs; family; Litty, Adele; Litty, Harry H.; mayors; social life;
Adele Litty was one of two daughters born to Harry H. Litty and his wife, Elizabeth Clarke Litty. Harry H. Litty served as the mayor of Memphis from 1917 to 1918. Adele was unmarried and rather shy, compared to her sister, Marion. Jimmy Blakely,...
The Captain Rees Vernon Downs Papers were donated to the Memphis and Shelby County Room by Captain Downs’ sister, Bess Jenkins. The primary emphasis of the collection is river steamboats. The collection contains scrapbooks devoted to stern and...
Roane Waring donated The Howard Association Collection to the Memphis and Shelby County Room in 1973. The collection consists of two important pieces relating to the history of yellow fever in Memphis. The first is the 1879 minute book of the...
