Institution

These Memphis-based firms were among the world leaders in cotton merchandising at the end of the twentieth century. Cotton marketing has been an important commercial activity in Memphis since the 1840s, thanks to the city's location on the Mississippi River…

Prominent Knoxville civic leaders established the East Tennessee Historical Society in 1834. These individuals included Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey, who served as perpetual recording secretary, and Judge William B. Reese, who was elected the first president. According to Ramsey,…

One of Chattanooga's earliest industrial ventures, the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company was a seminal force in the industrial development of the city and its surrounding area. Incorporated by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1847, the company benefited from the…

Located in Johnson City, East Tennessee State University evolved from East Tennessee State Normal School, which enrolled the first students in October 1911. In 1900 Tennesseans found their public schools in poor condition. State law required a minimum of one…

The Farmers' Alliance made its first appearance in Tennessee in the winter of 1887, when J. T. Alsup, a national lecturer, organized the first Alliance in Wilson County. Perhaps Alsup selected Middle Tennessee for his first attempts because West Tennessee…

Farms and farming in Tennessee have experienced great changes during two centuries of statehood. For example, the number of farms in Tennessee ranged from 72,735 in 1850 to 273,783 in 1935, before sliding to just under 80,000 in 1997. The…

The largest express transportation company in the world is FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. Frederick W. Smith, a Memphis businessman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, began a company named Federal Express in April 1973 with fourteen small aircraft flying from the…

Headquartered in Memphis, First Tennessee National Corporation was founded as the First National Bank of Memphis on March 10, 1864. During the Federal occupation of Memphis in the Civil War, Franklin S. Davis and his associates recognized the city's need…

Situated on the public square in Clarksville in the Arlington Hotel, the First Woman's Bank began operations on October 6, 1919. As a financial institution created, directed, and staffed entirely by women, its opening produced something of a sensation, and…

Fisk Free Colored School, predecessor of Fisk University, was established on January 9, 1866, in Nashville to offer education--as a means of building better lives--to formerly enslaved African Americans. African Americans, both slave and free, exhibited two related overriding concerns…

The Fly Manufacturing Company in Shelbyville, which operated from 1916 to 1985, is representative of many other small textile mills that once were commonplace in Tennessee's small towns and county seats. Like many small southern towns, Shelbyville's economy benefited from…

The 1927 merger of two black-owned and -operated Memphis banks which had been instrumental in launching and supporting African American businesses in the 1910s and 1920s created the Fraternal and Solvent Savings Bank and Trust Company. The bank's eventual failure,…

Named in honor of former presidents A. G. Freed and N. B. Hardeman, Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson represents the culmination of a succession of private schools reaching back to 1869. It is affiliated with the Churches of Christ. In 1907…

Even before the Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress realized that the government must offer assistance to newly emancipated slaves. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, attempted this task and…

A financial institution chartered by Congress in 1865 for the newly freed black population of former slave states, the Freedmen's Savings Bank was a key component of the African American struggle for equality and independence during Reconstruction. A total of…

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts opened in April 2001 in the former U.S. Post Office building in downtown Nashville. Constructed in 1933-34, the building, an example of Depression-era “Stripped Classicism,” was designed by the local architectural firm Marr…

An independent philanthropic organization, the Frist Foundation was established in Nashville in 1982 as the HCA Foundation by the Hospital Corporation of America. In April 1997 the foundation changed its name to the Frist Foundation in honor of its founding…

This invaluable collection dates to 1907, when Gates P. Thruston (1835-1912) donated his collection of prehistoric Native American artifacts to Vanderbilt University. Containing about one thousand objects, the collection remains a peerless assemblage of prehistoric Native American art from the…

One of the premier philanthropic foundations of the twentieth century, the General Education Board (GEB) invested heavily in Tennessee education. John D. Rockefeller Sr. created the GEB in 1902 in response to son John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s enthusiastic report of…

This Nashville-based company, which grew from a small local shoe manufacturer to one of the nation's largest apparel companies, has been an important Tennessee enterprise for over seventy years. With sales exceeding one million dollars its first year in business,…