Commerce

John Armfield, slave trader and businessman, descended from North Carolina Quakers who were Loyalists during the American Revolution. While still a boy, Armfield ran away from home, vowing not to return until he had acquired more wealth than his father,…

Arrowmont, a visual arts complex in Gatlinburg in Sevier County, grew out of the manual arts curriculum of the Pi Beta Phi Settlement School. The Pi Phi teachers taught handicraft skills to the community while seeking to revive traditional crafts…

Stretching from the Mississippi River toward the east, Beale Street is Memphis's most famous avenue. On the infamous section of Beale Street between Main and Lauderdale Streets, the "Blues was born," and as Beale Street's reputation for a culturally rich,…

Duke C. Bowers was a Memphis businessman, philanthropist, and fervent opponent of the death penalty. Bowers was born in 1874 in Mobile, Alabama; his family moved to Kentucky when he was a young child. After a failed attempt in the…

African American business leader in cosmetology and civil rights activist Eva Lowery Bowman was born to William and Alice Lowery in Nashville on April 25, 1899. She attended Pearl High School, Walden University, and Tennessee A&I State Normal College. Her…

Henry Allen Boyd, founder of the Nashville Globe, was the son of Richard Henry Boyd, founder and manager of the National Baptist Publishing Board. As the son of one of Nashville's most prominent black businessmen and public figures, Boyd learned…

Richard Henry Boyd, a founder of both the National Baptist Convention and the National Baptist Publishing Board, was born in Texas late in the antebellum era. After receiving an education at Bishop College, an institution for black Baptist men supported…

The Brock Candy Company dates to 1906, when William Emerson Brock, a traveling sales representative with the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, purchased the Trigg Candy Company of Chattanooga. Three years later, he reincorporated the company as Brock Candy Company.…

Jake Butcher was a major figure in Tennessee banking and politics in the 1970s and early 1980s and the driving force behind the Knoxville International Energy Exposition (Knoxville World's Fair) of 1982. He also was the subject of a banking…

Rogers C. Caldwell founded Caldwell and Company in September 1917 to market southern municipal bonds. Few investment houses considered southern bonds a good risk because of their historic default rate. This placed Caldwell and Company in a unique position to…

Rogers Caldwell dominated southern financial circles in the 1920s to the point that he was often called the "J. P. Morgan of the South." In a career that spanned only twenty years, he built a financial empire that collapsed abruptly…

George L. Carter, rail and coal magnate and founder of modern Kingsport, shaped the economic transformation of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia. Known as the "empire builder of Southwest Virginia," Carter built the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway and envisioned…

By the end of the twentieth century, many Tennesseans were used to seeing the Central Parking logo hanging about urban parking lots; few realized it was the largest parking company in the world. It was originally founded as a side…

In 1879 Chattanooga businessman Zeboim Cartter Patten and a group of friends established the Chattanooga Medicine Company. Its first two products, Black-Draught and Wine of Cardui, were so successful that they were sold well into the twentieth century. Patten procured…

Robert R. Church Jr., a prominent Republican, civil rights leader, and businessman, was born in Memphis on October 26, 1885. He was the son of millionaire Robert R. Church Sr. and his wife Anna Wright Church. Robert Church Jr. married…

Robert R. Church Sr., noted Memphis businessman, philanthropist, community activist, and political leader, was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1839, the son of Charles B. Church of Memphis, who owned several Mississippi River steamboats. His mother, Emmeline, lived with…

In business since 1904, Citizens Bank is the oldest continuously operated African American bank in the United States. In 1902 Richard H. Boyd, James C. Napier, and other Nashville African American leaders formed a chapter of the National Negro Business…

On July 21, 1899, Chattanooga attorneys Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead signed an agreement with Asa Candler, president of the Coca-Cola Company, to receive exclusive rights to bottle the soft drink throughout most of the United States. Fellow…

Tennessee's early patterns of commercial exchange determined the location and growth of its urban centers. Commercial centers typically formed at some junction of land and water that required a break in the mode of transportation, usually from animal-powered overland wagons…

The Country Music Association (CMA) is one of Tennessee’s most important musical trade associations. The CMA is dedicated to guiding and enhancing country music’s development and demonstrating its viability to advertisers, consumers, and media throughout the world. During the late…