activism; Burson, Josephine Wainman; Democratic Party; employment; family; government; Hadassah; Jews; labor; minorities; public relations; public service; social justice; social life; state government; volunteerism; women
Josephine Wainman Burson, community leader and social activist, was dedicated to significantly improving the quality of life for women, underserved individuals and minority populations. Her career focused on community service and political...
African Americans; agriculture; clubs; cotton; dentists; entertainment; mayors; police; public service; race; recreation; social life; women;
Dr. Ransom Q. Venson was a native of Rapides Parish, Louisiana. In 1912 he graduated from Meharry Medical School in Nashville and then moved to Memphis to establish a dental practice in this city. In 1934, he married Ethyl B. Horton, a native...
Prior to World War II, Enschede, the largest cotton manufacturing city in the Netherlands, and Memphis, the Mid-South’s cotton-exchange center, maintained firm business ties. Enschede, situated six miles from the German border, was completely...
airplanes; Battle of Memphis; Civil War; Korean War; martial law; mayors; military; planes; propaganda; public service; ration cards; war supplies; World War I; World War II;
The Memphians During War collection consists primarily of materials relating to the involvement of Memphians in the Civil War, World War I and World War II. -- The material on the Civil War largely relates to events which took place in Memphis and...
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...
airplanes; B-17; military; war bonds; World War II;
In September 1942 a new B-17 Flying Fortress was delivered to Bangor, Maine, to a crew of ten men led by Captain Robert Morgan. The airplane was named the Memphis Belle in honor of Margaret Polk, Captain Morgan’s fiancée in Memphis. -- The...
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...
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...
The Ernest B. “Tony” Vacarro Collection contains mementos reflecting a career of more than thirty years as a reporter for the Associated Press. Photographs taken from Vaccaro’s scrapbook and from an album given to him when he retired as...
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...
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...
"When George Coleman, Harold Mabern and Frank Strozier bring home their internationally known jazz music this weekend, they also will bring memories of why they had to leave Memphis to seek fame and fortune. -- The Manassas High School...
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...
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...
African Americans; Beale Street; cemeteries; Church family; Church Park; civil rights; Elmwood Cemetery; government; NAACP; parks; politics; public service; Republican Party; women;
Sara Roberta Church, daughter of Sara Parody Johnson and Robert Reed Church, Jr., was born in Memphis into one of the nation’s most prominent African American families. Her grandfather, Robert Reed Church, Sr., was acknowledged as the South’s...
Henry A. Montgomery was born in Fermanagh County, Ireland in 1829. At fifteen he began an apprenticeship with Thos. Karnahan & Sons, a timber, slate and iron dealership. He immigrated to Canada in the spring of 1848 and moved later that year...
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...
ALSAC; building construction; cancer; children; entertainers; disease; health; hospitals; medical research; medicine; public service; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; Thomas, Danny;
Danny Thomas was one of nine children of Lebanese immigrants. He was born Muzyad Makhoob in 1914 in Deerfield, Michigan and was raised in a loving, yet poverty-stricken home in Toledo, Ohio. His name was Americanized to Amos Jacobs, but in 1940...
Flooding impacted the society, business environment and ecology of the Mid-South. These mostly man-made disasters interrupted and permeated all aspects of life until the mid-twentieth Century. Floods were so frequent and sometimes so devastating...
Operettas and musicals provided a welcome escape from the hard realities of everyday life in the 1930s and ‘40s. They had unforgettable melodies such as Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life and Indian Love Call, as well as rousing choruses, comic relief,...
