People

John A. Merritt, one of Tennessee's most successful football coaches, was born on January 26, 1926, in Falmouth, Kentucky, the son of a stonemason, Bradley Merritt and his wife, Grace. After completing grade school, he moved to Louisville to live…

Born in Memphis on July 4, 1942, the Reverend Harold Middlebrook was a friend of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and an active member of the civil rights movement. Middlebrook received his bachelor’s degree from Atlanta’s Morehouse College…

Emma Bell Miles, artist, naturalist, and author of The Spirit of the Mountains (1905) as well as poems, stories, and essays, was born in Evansville, Indiana, on October 19, 1879, to schoolteachers Benjamin Franklin and Martha Ann Mirick Bell. She…

One of the most influential figures in Tennessee politics and law during the first half of the nineteenth century, Pleasant M. Miller was born the son of a tavern owner in Lynchburg, Virginia. Miller studied law under Judge Archibald Stewart…

Randolph Miller, former slave and newspaper editor, was emancipated with hundreds of other African Americans on June 9, 1864, in Newton County, Georgia, as General William T. Sherman's army swept through the region. Miller came to Chattanooga in October of…

Woman suffrage leader Abby Crawford Milton became involved in the suffrage movement after marrying newspaper publisher George Fort Milton, moving from Georgia to Chattanooga, and giving birth to three daughters. Milton received a law degree from the Chattanooga College of…

George F. Milton, Chattanooga newspaper publisher and Democratic political activist, was born in Macon, Georgia, and educated in Chattanooga. After attending the University of the South at Sewanee, Milton entered the banking business in Chattanooga. He left banking to become…

The late prehistoric cultures of the southeastern United States dating from ca. A.D. 900 to 1600 comprise the Mississippian culture. In general, Mississippian culture is divided chronologically into emergent, early, and late periods. Based on differences in culture traits, particularly…

Harry L. Mitchell, one of the founders of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and president of the National Farm Labor Union, was born near Halls, the son of James Y. Mitchell, a tenant farmer and Baptist preacher. Mitchell graduated from…

Confederate spy and, later, Memphis philanthropist, Virginia Bethel Moon was a student at an Ohio girls' school when the Civil War began. After initial resistance, school officials finally acquiesced to her demands and allowed her to leave school and join…

Grace Moore, popular soprano in opera, musical comedy, and film, was born December 6, 1901, in Slabtown, Cocke County, and christened Mary Willie Grace. She spent her youth in Jellico, where she sang in her church choir. After studying briefly…

William Moore was born in a fortified blockhouse on the Green River in Kentucky to early immigrants William Moore Sr. and Olivia Free. William Moore came to Lincoln County, Tennessee, around 1806. He first married Nancy Holman, by whom he…

Harcourt Morgan, thirteenth president of the University of Tennessee (1919-34) and second chairman of the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority (1938-41), was born in Kerrwood, Adelaide Township, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada, the child of a farming family.…

Confederate cavalry commander John Hunt Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama, on June 1, 1825. Educated at Transylvania University, he fought in the Mexican War as a first lieutenant in the Kentucky Mounted Volunteers and saw action at the battle…

Called the "father of health physics," Karl Z. Morgan was born in North Carolina and studied physics at the University of North Carolina and Duke, earning his Ph.D. in 1934. He chaired the Physics Department at Lenoir Rhyne College and…

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Mary Noailles Murfree depicted the scenery and people of the Tennessee mountains for a national audience. At a time when local color fiction was much in vogue throughout the country, she came…

John A. Murrell, a thief and counterfeiter, spent much of his short life in prison and was a notorious outlaw in antebellum Middle Tennessee. In 1844 he died in Pikeville at the age of thirty-eight, shortly after completing nine years…

Public health physician, author, and professor Harry S. Mustard became a national figure in the emerging field of public health in the early twentieth century through his work in Tennessee. Mustard was educated in his native state at the Medical…

William E. Myer was a leading figure in the early twentieth-century transformation of Tennessee archaeology from a casual hobby to a professional science and in the development of both overland and river transportation systems. Myer was born in Kentucky in…

Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives James O. Naifeh was born and raised in Covington. He attended local public schools, graduating from Byars Hall High School, and went on to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he took a…