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Although the title Commercial Appeal dates from 1894, the roots of this newspaper reach back to the early decades of Memphis's history. One ancestor, the Weekly (later Daily) Appeal, began in 1841 under Henry Van Pelt. A strongly sectional and…

Following the organization of cotton exchanges in New York (1870) and New Orleans (1871), Memphis cotton buyers pushed for an exchange in Memphis. Initial attempts to organize the institution failed, though, because most of the cotton factors feared that the…

Founded in 1888 by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale, the Memphis Free Speech was published on the grounds of Nightingale's church, the First (Beale Street) Baptist Church. The name of the paper changed to Free Speech and Headlight when J. L.…

Memphis has long celebrated a rich musical and cultural heritage. Its rhythm-n-blues, soul, and rock-n-roll foundations are exemplified by Beale Street, Stax Records, and Graceland, respectively, while jazz and gospel have also historically called Memphis home. In the 1940s and…

Founded in 1917 and edited by owner and publisher Jake Cohen (1877-1945), this weekly newspaper served as the official organ of the Memphis Trades and Labor Council, an American Federation of Labor affiliate. Prior to his journalistic efforts, the Russian-born…

The musical legacy of the Bluff City is exciting, diverse, and extremely significant in the history of American culture. Today Memphis's best known landmarks are two places--Beale Street and Graceland--intimately associated with the city's place in American music history, especially…

Aviation at this facility, the largest inland naval base in the world, dates back to World War I, when the U.S. Army created Park Field as a training ground for air and ground crews. The navy's presence began in 1942…

Associated with the Progressive era and City Beautiful Movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the development of the Memphis Park and Parkway System laid the foundation for municipal park systems across Tennessee. The Memphis system also represented…

The history of the Memphis Press-Scimitar is shorter, though no less convoluted, than that of its main rival, the Commercial Appeal. In 1880 George P.M. Turner (1839-1900), owner-editor of papers in Mississippi and Arkansas, leader of Texas troops under Nathan…

The only major league professional basketball team ever based in Tennessee during the twentieth century was the Memphis franchise of the American Basketball Association (ABA). Known by different names from 1970 to 1975 and playing primarily at the Mid-South Coliseum…

On May 1-2, 1866, Memphis suffered its worst race riot in history. Some forty-six African Americans and two whites died during the riot. A Joint Congressional Committee reported seventy-five persons injured, one hundred persons robbed, five women raped, ninety-one homes…

The newest music museum in Tennessee, the Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum, opened in 2000. Located in the Beale Street Entertainment District on the second floor of the Gibson Guitar Factory, the museum features six galleries. The primary installation is…

When African American sanitation workers in Memphis began a strike on February 12, 1968, few then suspected the walkout would escalate into one of the climactic struggles of the civil rights and labor movements of the 1960s. By the time…

The Memphis University School dates to September 1893, when E. S. Werts and J. W. S. Rhea founded the school with seven students and high hopes. The school opened in a city recovering from successive bouts of yellow fever and…

Launched in 1931 by the Southern Newspaper Syndicate as a tri-weekly under the editorial direction of Lewis O. Swingler (1906-1962), the World later claimed to be the "South's Oldest and Leading Colored Semi-Weekly Newspaper." Though the World emphasized racial pride,…

As soon as the first proposal to build a transcontinental railroad reached Congress in 1845, Memphis area leaders launched a campaign to become the Mississippi terminus. Their city was neither as old nor as powerful as New Orleans or St.…

Though the two groups of Mennonites in Tennessee share a religious background, only one functions as a distinct cultural and ethnic community. As Anabaptists, they trace their roots to the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation, and nearly all are…

The Meriwether Lewis National Monument, located along the Natchez Trace Parkway in Lewis County, was designated in 1925 by the federal government to mark the grave of Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), a Virginian who was one of the coleaders of the…

Tennessee suffragist, temperance activist, publisher, and author Elizabeth Avery Meriwether was born in Bolivar on January 19, 1824. Her father Nathan Avery was a physician and farmer, while her mother Rebecca Rivers Avery was the daughter of a Virginia planter.…

A leader of the first generation of southern feminists and social activists, Lide Smith Meriwether was president of the Tennessee Woman's Christian Temperance Union, serving from 1884 until 1897, and then as honorary president for life. Having organized the first…