Preston Taylor, a businessman and minister, was one of Nashville's most powerful black leaders. His wife, Georgia Gordon Taylor, was one of the original Fisk Jubilee Singers. Georgia was among the first group of singers to tour Europe when the...
A postcard of the Main Building on the Vanderbilt campus between 1898 and 1901. Vanderbilt University was made possible in 1873 through a one million dollar gift from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, a shipping and rail tycoon who had never even...
A postcard of the Main Building on the Vanderbilt Campus in 1901. Vanderbilt University was made possible in 1873 through a one million dollar gift from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, a shipping and rail tycoon who had never even visited the...
A postcard of Kirkland Hall, the building built to replace Vanderbilt's Main Building that burned in 1905. Vanderbilt University was made possible in 1873 through a one million dollar gift from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, a shipping and rail...
A postcard of a tobacco field near Nashville, Tennessee. Two people's heads are visible among the plants, one wearing a white hat and one holding an umbrella and wearing a reddish hat. Tobacco has always been a profitable crop for the state of...
An original political cartoon drawing created by Jack Knox, the Nashville Banner editorial cartoonist from the mid-1940s to early 1970s. As John Q. Public looks on, President John F. Kennedy holds a giant pair of scissors. One blade of the...
A photograph of the exposed interior walls of the Knickerbocker Theater in Nashville, Tennessee featuring birds-of-paradise frescoes on the walls (pictured in this photograph). The Knickerbocker was originally a magnificent movie house, located in...
An excerpt from an oral history interview with Nashville businessman David Swett, Jr., conducted on 17 July 2006 by John Egerton as part of a cooperative effort between the Nashville Public Library's Nashville Business Leaders Oral History Project...
A photograph of Green Street Church of Christ located at 146 Green Street in Nashville, Tennessee. The congregation was founded in 1892, and the present church building was completed in 1930 after the original frame structure burned in 1929. The...
A photograph of Mt. Nebo Baptist Church located at 2416 Clifton Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee. This congregation was founded in 1871 by Rev. Pharoah Benson, a former slave. The first church was built right across the street from the present day...
A photograph of Coast Guard sailor Victor Cooley (left) and an unidentified sailor aboard the destroyer escort, USS Mosley (DE-321), one of several Navy vessels manned by Coast Guard crews during World War II. The Mosley served on patrol in the...
A snapshot of a group of five soldiers posed casually in the woods outside of a large tent next to a tree serving as a signpost. Two homemade signs reading "5th Ave." and "Church Street," are nailed into the tree as if marking that intersection. ...
A photograph of New Hall Intermediaries, an insurance office, located at 1230 Second Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee. This building was constructed in 1873 by Morton Howell after he purchased the lot on Market Street (now Second Avenue). ...
A slave deed bill of sale for the acquisition of three slaves: "a woman named Betty about twenty one years of age, and her two children Louis-Randolph about four years of age, and William Henry about twelve months old." The document states that...
During the 1800s, educated young women in Nashville often collected sheet music. When a young lady had collected enough pieces of music, her assortment was generally published as a bound volume by one of Nashville's blank book manufacturers, with...
A postcard of the Nashville skyline at night reflecting in the Cumberland River. The prominent building in the skyline is the Life and Casualty Tower. In 1957 the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee moved into a new thirty-one-story...
During the years of World War II it was considered your patriotic duty to sacrifice and make do with what you had. There was rationing in food, gas and even fabrics for clothing. One of the ways women could help with the war effort was to be frugal...
A photograph of Ocean Way Nashville Recording Studios, formerly Church of the Advent, an Episcopal church located at 1200 Seventeenth Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee. The congregation was formed in 1857 and the church building was erected in...
A photograph of the land where the Old Hamilton Methodist Church used to stand near Murfreesboro Road in Nashville, Tennessee. In its place is a historic marker which reads: "Old Hamilton Methodist Church - 1834-1987 - Established in 1834 and...
A photograph of St. George's Episcopal Church located at 4715 Harding Road in Nashville, Tennessee. The cornerstone was laid in 1949. Donald W. Southgate was the architect for the project, and he designed the building in a Greek Revival style. ...