Author: G. Wayne Dowdy
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 161423194X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
A tour of the Tennessee city filled with famous faces, fascinating trivia, and forgotten lore—plus a former mayor’s previously unpublished private papers. Step inside the fascinating annals of the Bluff City's history and discover the Memphis that only few know. G. Wayne Dowdy, longtime archivist for the Memphis Public Library, examines the history and culture of the Mid-South during its most important decades. Well-known faces like Clarence Saunders, Elvis Presley, and W.C. Handy are joined by some of the more obscure characters from the past, like the Memphis gangster who inspired one of William Faulkner's most famous novels; the local Boy Scout who captured German spies during World War I; the Memphis radio station that pioneered wireless broadcasting; and so many more. Also included are the previously unpublished private papers and correspondence of former mayor E.H. Crump, giving us new insight and a front-row seat to the machine that shaped Tennessee politics in the twentieth century. Includes photos
Hidden History of Memphis
Author: G. Wayne Dowdy
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 161423194X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
A tour of the Tennessee city filled with famous faces, fascinating trivia, and forgotten lore—plus a former mayor’s previously unpublished private papers. Step inside the fascinating annals of the Bluff City's history and discover the Memphis that only few know. G. Wayne Dowdy, longtime archivist for the Memphis Public Library, examines the history and culture of the Mid-South during its most important decades. Well-known faces like Clarence Saunders, Elvis Presley, and W.C. Handy are joined by some of the more obscure characters from the past, like the Memphis gangster who inspired one of William Faulkner's most famous novels; the local Boy Scout who captured German spies during World War I; the Memphis radio station that pioneered wireless broadcasting; and so many more. Also included are the previously unpublished private papers and correspondence of former mayor E.H. Crump, giving us new insight and a front-row seat to the machine that shaped Tennessee politics in the twentieth century. Includes photos
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 161423194X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
A tour of the Tennessee city filled with famous faces, fascinating trivia, and forgotten lore—plus a former mayor’s previously unpublished private papers. Step inside the fascinating annals of the Bluff City's history and discover the Memphis that only few know. G. Wayne Dowdy, longtime archivist for the Memphis Public Library, examines the history and culture of the Mid-South during its most important decades. Well-known faces like Clarence Saunders, Elvis Presley, and W.C. Handy are joined by some of the more obscure characters from the past, like the Memphis gangster who inspired one of William Faulkner's most famous novels; the local Boy Scout who captured German spies during World War I; the Memphis radio station that pioneered wireless broadcasting; and so many more. Also included are the previously unpublished private papers and correspondence of former mayor E.H. Crump, giving us new insight and a front-row seat to the machine that shaped Tennessee politics in the twentieth century. Includes photos
Memphis Mayhem
Author: David A. Less
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1773055674
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Memphis gave birth to music that changed the world — Memphis Mayhem is a fascinating history of how music and culture collided to change the state of music forever “David Less has captured the essence of the Memphis music experience on these pages in no uncertain terms. There's truly no place like Memphis and this is the story of why that is. HAVE MERCY!” — Billy F Gibbons, ZZ Top Memphis Mayhem weaves the tale of the racial collision that led to a cultural, sociological, and musical revolution. David Less constructs a fascinating narrative of the city that has produced a startling array of talent, including Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Al Green, Otis Redding, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Justin Timberlake, and so many more. Beginning with the 1870s yellow fever epidemics that created racial imbalance as wealthy whites fled the city, David Less moves from W.C. Handy’s codification of blues in 1909 to the mid-century advent of interracial musical acts like Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the birth of punk, and finally to the growth of a music tourism industry. Memphis Mayhem explores the city’s entire musical ecosystem, which includes studios, high school band instructors, clubs, record companies, family bands, pressing plants, instrument factories, and retail record outlets. Lively and comprehensive, this is a provocative story of finding common ground through music and creating a sound that would change the world.
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1773055674
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
Memphis gave birth to music that changed the world — Memphis Mayhem is a fascinating history of how music and culture collided to change the state of music forever “David Less has captured the essence of the Memphis music experience on these pages in no uncertain terms. There's truly no place like Memphis and this is the story of why that is. HAVE MERCY!” — Billy F Gibbons, ZZ Top Memphis Mayhem weaves the tale of the racial collision that led to a cultural, sociological, and musical revolution. David Less constructs a fascinating narrative of the city that has produced a startling array of talent, including Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Al Green, Otis Redding, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Justin Timberlake, and so many more. Beginning with the 1870s yellow fever epidemics that created racial imbalance as wealthy whites fled the city, David Less moves from W.C. Handy’s codification of blues in 1909 to the mid-century advent of interracial musical acts like Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the birth of punk, and finally to the growth of a music tourism industry. Memphis Mayhem explores the city’s entire musical ecosystem, which includes studios, high school band instructors, clubs, record companies, family bands, pressing plants, instrument factories, and retail record outlets. Lively and comprehensive, this is a provocative story of finding common ground through music and creating a sound that would change the world.
African Americans in Memphis
Author: Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738567501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Memphis has been an important city for African Americans in the South since the Civil War. They migrated from within Tennessee and from surrounding states to the urban crossroads in large numbers after emancipation, seeking freedom from the oppressive race relations of the rural South. Images of America: African Americans in Memphis chronicles this regional experience from the 19th century to the 1950s. Historic black Memphians were railroad men, bricklayers, chauffeurs, dressmakers, headwaiters, and beauticians, as well as businessmen, teachers, principals, barbers, preachers, musicians, nurses, doctors, Republican leaders, and Pullman car porters. During the Jim Crow era, they established social, political, economic, and educational institutions that sustained their communities in one of the most rigidly segregated cities in America. The dynamic growth and change of the post-World War II South set the stage for a new, authentic, black urban culture defined by Memphis gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues music; black radio; black newspapers; and religious pageants.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738567501
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132
Book Description
Memphis has been an important city for African Americans in the South since the Civil War. They migrated from within Tennessee and from surrounding states to the urban crossroads in large numbers after emancipation, seeking freedom from the oppressive race relations of the rural South. Images of America: African Americans in Memphis chronicles this regional experience from the 19th century to the 1950s. Historic black Memphians were railroad men, bricklayers, chauffeurs, dressmakers, headwaiters, and beauticians, as well as businessmen, teachers, principals, barbers, preachers, musicians, nurses, doctors, Republican leaders, and Pullman car porters. During the Jim Crow era, they established social, political, economic, and educational institutions that sustained their communities in one of the most rigidly segregated cities in America. The dynamic growth and change of the post-World War II South set the stage for a new, authentic, black urban culture defined by Memphis gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues music; black radio; black newspapers; and religious pageants.
Memphis
Author: Tara M. Stringfellow
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN: 0593230507
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy. “A rhapsodic hymn to Black women.”—The New York Times Book Review “I fell in love with this family, from Joan’s fierce heart to her grandmother Hazel’s determined resilience. Tara Stringfellow will be an author to watch for years to come.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush. Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
ISBN: 0593230507
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • A spellbinding debut novel tracing three generations of a Southern Black family and one daughter’s discovery that she has the power to change her family’s legacy. “A rhapsodic hymn to Black women.”—The New York Times Book Review “I fell in love with this family, from Joan’s fierce heart to her grandmother Hazel’s determined resilience. Tara Stringfellow will be an author to watch for years to come.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush. Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.
A Massacre in Memphis
Author: Stephen V. Ash
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0809067986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An unprecedented account of one of the bloodiest and most significant racial clashes in American history In May 1866, just a year after the Civil War ended, Memphis erupted in a three-day spasm of racial violence that saw whites rampage through the city's black neighborhoods. By the time the fires consuming black churches and schools were put out, forty-six freed slaves had been murdered. Congress, furious at this and other evidence of white resistance in the conquered South, launched what is now called Radical Reconstruction, policies to ensure the freedom of the region's four million blacks-and one of the most remarkable experiments in American history. Stephen V. Ash's A Massacre in Memphis is a portrait of a Southern city that opens an entirely new view onto the Civil War, slavery, and its aftermath. A momentous national event, the riot is also remarkable for being "one of the best-documented episodes of the American nineteenth century." Yet Ash is the first to mine the sources available to full effect. Bringing postwar Memphis, Tennessee to vivid life, he takes us among newly arrived Yankees, former Rebels, boisterous Irish immigrants, and striving freed people, and shows how Americans of the period worked, prayed, expressed their politics, and imagined the future. And how they died: Ash's harrowing and profoundly moving present-tense narration of the riot has the immediacy of the best journalism. Told with nuance, grace, and a quiet moral passion, A Massacre in Memphis is Civil War-era history like no other.
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0809067986
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275
Book Description
An unprecedented account of one of the bloodiest and most significant racial clashes in American history In May 1866, just a year after the Civil War ended, Memphis erupted in a three-day spasm of racial violence that saw whites rampage through the city's black neighborhoods. By the time the fires consuming black churches and schools were put out, forty-six freed slaves had been murdered. Congress, furious at this and other evidence of white resistance in the conquered South, launched what is now called Radical Reconstruction, policies to ensure the freedom of the region's four million blacks-and one of the most remarkable experiments in American history. Stephen V. Ash's A Massacre in Memphis is a portrait of a Southern city that opens an entirely new view onto the Civil War, slavery, and its aftermath. A momentous national event, the riot is also remarkable for being "one of the best-documented episodes of the American nineteenth century." Yet Ash is the first to mine the sources available to full effect. Bringing postwar Memphis, Tennessee to vivid life, he takes us among newly arrived Yankees, former Rebels, boisterous Irish immigrants, and striving freed people, and shows how Americans of the period worked, prayed, expressed their politics, and imagined the future. And how they died: Ash's harrowing and profoundly moving present-tense narration of the riot has the immediacy of the best journalism. Told with nuance, grace, and a quiet moral passion, A Massacre in Memphis is Civil War-era history like no other.
Enslavement in Memphis
Author: G. Wayne Dowdy
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467150142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
During the first forty-five years of the city's existence, slavery dominated the cultural and economic life of Memphis. The lives of enslaved people reveal the brutality, and their perseverance contributed greatly to the city's growth. Henry Davidson played a crucial role in the development of the city's first Methodist church and worship services for slaves. Mary Herndon was purchased by Nathan Bedford Forrest and sold to Louis Fortner, for whom she was put to work in the field, where she "chopped cotton, plowed it and did everything any other slave done." Thomas Bland secretly learned to read and write from a skilled slave and later used that knowledge to escape to Canada. Author G. Wayne Dowdy uncovers the forgotten people who built Memphis and the American South.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467150142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
During the first forty-five years of the city's existence, slavery dominated the cultural and economic life of Memphis. The lives of enslaved people reveal the brutality, and their perseverance contributed greatly to the city's growth. Henry Davidson played a crucial role in the development of the city's first Methodist church and worship services for slaves. Mary Herndon was purchased by Nathan Bedford Forrest and sold to Louis Fortner, for whom she was put to work in the field, where she "chopped cotton, plowed it and did everything any other slave done." Thomas Bland secretly learned to read and write from a skilled slave and later used that knowledge to escape to Canada. Author G. Wayne Dowdy uncovers the forgotten people who built Memphis and the American South.
Memphis Type History
Author: Caitlin L. Horton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692308059
Category : Historic sites
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Older areas of Memphis are peppered with retro neon signs, murals with business names and logos, and other architectural remnants of the city's past. . . . Each chapter features a painting of an iconic sign by Rebecca Phillips, as well as historical images and additional current-day photographs by Jeremy Greene. The history of the sign and they places they represent are told through personal stories. Featured signs include the Universal Life Insurance Company sign on M.L.K. Jr. Avenue, the old Chicago Pizza Factory sign that was replaced with Chiwawa's "Midtown Is Memphis" sign, the sputnik sign at Joe's Wines and Liquors, the Drink-n-Drag sign on Club Spectrum, and the Skateland roller skate. -- Memphis Flyer.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692308059
Category : Historic sites
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Older areas of Memphis are peppered with retro neon signs, murals with business names and logos, and other architectural remnants of the city's past. . . . Each chapter features a painting of an iconic sign by Rebecca Phillips, as well as historical images and additional current-day photographs by Jeremy Greene. The history of the sign and they places they represent are told through personal stories. Featured signs include the Universal Life Insurance Company sign on M.L.K. Jr. Avenue, the old Chicago Pizza Factory sign that was replaced with Chiwawa's "Midtown Is Memphis" sign, the sputnik sign at Joe's Wines and Liquors, the Drink-n-Drag sign on Club Spectrum, and the Skateland roller skate. -- Memphis Flyer.
On This Day in Memphis History
Author: G. Wayne Dowdy
Publisher: History Press Library Editions
ISBN: 9781540208804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Far more than blues and barbecue, Memphis culture has evolved one day at a time. Author G. Wayne Dowdy pins an exact date to a host of important, quirky and forgotten events in the history of Tennessee's largest city--an entertaining footnote for each day of the year. Earth, Wind and Fire founder Maurice White entered the world in a Memphis hospital on December 19, 1941. On January 15, 1877, a severe thunderstorm mysteriously left the city covered in snakes. On December 31, 1902, a resident was murdered on Main Street after taunting a Native American named Creeping Bear. A day or a month at a time, enjoy a year of entertaining River City blasts from the past.
Publisher: History Press Library Editions
ISBN: 9781540208804
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
Far more than blues and barbecue, Memphis culture has evolved one day at a time. Author G. Wayne Dowdy pins an exact date to a host of important, quirky and forgotten events in the history of Tennessee's largest city--an entertaining footnote for each day of the year. Earth, Wind and Fire founder Maurice White entered the world in a Memphis hospital on December 19, 1941. On January 15, 1877, a severe thunderstorm mysteriously left the city covered in snakes. On December 31, 1902, a resident was murdered on Main Street after taunting a Native American named Creeping Bear. A day or a month at a time, enjoy a year of entertaining River City blasts from the past.
Memphis and the Paradox of Place
Author: Wanda Rushing
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807832995
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807832995
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther
Memphis
Author: Robert W. Dye
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439663718
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
The music that has been produced in Memphis over the past 100 years is as unique and diverse as the city itself. Growing out of the Mississippi Delta, the Memphis blues have been transported worldwide by such ambassadors as B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf. Rock's first baby steps were taken at the tiny Sun Studio by a group of artists who have inspired generations of musicians to follow in their beat. Soul music found its groove at Stax with a homegrown sound that exploded onto the American music scene. Music producers, including Sam Phillips, Willie Mitchell, Chips Moman, and Jim Stewart, found in Memphis a sound as distinctive as their individual personalities. Each one inspired, motivated, and encouraged their artists and, in doing so, produced a volume of work that has become the sound track of their generation.
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439663718
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
The music that has been produced in Memphis over the past 100 years is as unique and diverse as the city itself. Growing out of the Mississippi Delta, the Memphis blues have been transported worldwide by such ambassadors as B.B. King and Howlin' Wolf. Rock's first baby steps were taken at the tiny Sun Studio by a group of artists who have inspired generations of musicians to follow in their beat. Soul music found its groove at Stax with a homegrown sound that exploded onto the American music scene. Music producers, including Sam Phillips, Willie Mitchell, Chips Moman, and Jim Stewart, found in Memphis a sound as distinctive as their individual personalities. Each one inspired, motivated, and encouraged their artists and, in doing so, produced a volume of work that has become the sound track of their generation.