Women

Amy Grant has done more than blaze a trail for contemporary Christian music. Her later crossover and pop-rock albums determined the dialogue within evangelical popular music about what constitutes “Christian music.” She has been both the darling of the Christian…

Ann Rogers Grundy was born December 8, 1779, in Lunenberg County, Virginia, to John and Sarah Dougherty Rodgers. She married lawyer Felix Grundy on May 11, 1797, in Springfield, Kentucky. In 1808 she and her husband moved from Bardstown, Kentucky,…

Author of stories of mountain life, Mildred E. Haun was born in Hamblen County, on January 6, 1911, to James Enzor and Margaret Ellen Haun, but was raised in Haun Hollow in the Hoot Owl District of Cocke County in…

Painter of portraits and still lifes, Ella S. Hergesheimer was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Elamanda Ritter and Charles Patterson Hergesheimer. Hergesheimer was the direct descendant of Charles Willson Peale, artist and founder of Peale's Museum, part of…

Josephine Groves Holloway became the first African American professional worker at the Cumberland Valley Girl Scout Council (CVGSC) in Nashville in 1944. She began her interest in girl scouting in 1923, when, as a recent graduate of Fisk University, she…

Silena Moore Holman served as president of the Tennessee chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union during the period of its greatest influence on state politics. During her tenure as state president, the organization grew from 200 to over 4,000…

Julia Britton Hooks, an African American clubwoman known as the "Angel of Beale Street," was born free in 1852 in Frankfort, Kentucky. Her parents, Henry Britton, a carpenter, and Laura Marshall Britton, encouraged her training in classical music. In 1869…

Zilphia J. Horton, activist and artist, was born in Paris, Arkansas, as Zilphia Mae Johnson. A graduate of the College of the Ozarks, she grew up determined to use her musical and dramatic talents on behalf of the southern working…

The daughter of John Donelson and Rachel Stockley and wife of President Andrew Jackson, Rachel Donelson was born in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. In December 1779 her family set out for the West, arriving at Fort Nashborough (now Nashville) in April…

The wife of President Andrew Johnson, Eliza McCardle Johnson was the daughter of Sarah Phillips and John McCardle, a Greeneville shoemaker, who once also operated an inn at Warrensburg. After her father's death, Eliza McCardle helped her mother make quilts…

Catherine Talty Kenny, suffragist and political activist, was born in Chattanooga in 1874. She married John M. Kenny of Atlanta in 1899 and moved to Nashville, where her husband became president of the Nashville Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Catherine Kenny became…

An important early twentieth-century sculptor, Belle Kinney graced Nashville with works at the War Memorial Building, the State Capitol, and the Parthenon. Born in Nashville in 1890, one of four children of Captain D. C. and Elizabeth Morrison Kinney, she…

The Ladies' Hermitage Association was organized in 1889 to honor President Andrew Jackson by preserving his home, the Hermitage. Mrs. Andrew Jackson III and Mary C. Dorris suggested a women's association similar to The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association after Dorris…

This organization formed prior to the ratification of the Suffrage Amendment when thirty-five of the required thirty-six states had ratified the amendment. Tennessee suffragists attended the last national suffrage convention in February 1920 and returned home to Tennessee to organize…

Brenda Mae Tarpley, later known as Brenda Lee, was born in Atlanta's Emory University Hospital charity ward on December 11, 1944. By the age of three she was already showing a remarkable ability to memorize and sing songs she had…

Regent of the Ladies' Hermitage Association and woman suffragist, Louise Grundy Lindsley was born in Nashville on March 12, 1858, the daughter of John Berrien and Sallie McGavock Lindsley. She grew up in Nashville and graduated from the State Normal…

Influential regent of the Ladies' Hermitage Association, Sallie McGavock Lindsley was born in Nashville on July 19, 1830, the daughter of Jacob and Louisa Grundy McGavock. She married John Berrien Lindsley, the founder of the medical school of the University…

Before the Civil War, voluntary associations of women existed in Knoxville, Memphis, and Nashville, as well as in some rural areas. Most groups organized through local religious institutions to provide charitable services to the needy. With the establishment of these…

Influential female country music performer and songwriter and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame Loretta Lynn was born in Johnson County, Kentucky, in 1935. She married Oliver V. “Mooney” Lynn in 1948, and soon thereafter the Lynns moved…

Formerly the Tennessee and Alabama Female Institute, Mary Sharp College was chartered in Winchester in 1850. Opening in 1851, the school was named for an early benefactor. Under the direction of Dr. Z. C. Graves and the Baptist Church, Mary…