The Demolition of Bojo’s

We’d like to thank our new friends at Biggs General Contracting for quite a few donations to the digital archive as of late.  We’ll be getting them all up soon, but for now, how about a quick video of the demolition of the legendary Bojo’s Antiques on Summer Avenue?

Video – Demolition of Bojo’s Antique Mall

If that’s not your cup of tea, perhaps you’d enjoy a 1920s booklet about Memphis and its potential for hosting conventions?  It has wonderful pictures!

Do you have something about Memphis that others might find interesting or helpful?  Contact us, and we can tell you about how you can help create collections in the Memphis and Shelby County Room.

Integrating the Libraries

On August 15, 1958, Jesse H. Turner, a bank cashier, filed suit against the Memphis Public Library in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee to force the library’s Board of Directors to allow equal access for African Americans to all facilities.  Filed by attorneys from the NAACP, the suit named librarian Jesse Cunningham (who retired that year, to be replaced by C. Lamar Wallis), library board president Wassell Randolph and all members of the library board as defendants.

Over the course of the next three years, the battle to integrate Memphis’ libraries would be waged primarily in the courts.  Ultimately, libraries and their restrooms would be fully accessible to all, as per the order by Judge William E. Miller.

The Library Integration Collection contains legal documents, letters and news reports related to the desegregation of the Memphis Public Library and Information Center.  These documents were saved by library staff and include papers from C. Lamar Wallis’ personal files, so although they are not an exhaustive record of that period of the library’s history, they are extremely telling in consideration of both the inclusions and the omissions.

 

Happy Holidays!

The Sinking of the Shiloh

Yesterday, while looking over the images Becky has added to the Pink Palace Photograph Collection, I enjoyed yet another surprise from the photos of the Mayor family – a sunken steamboat.  Two images of it, in fact.  And one image showed the cobblestones of the Memphis riverfront, so it appeared as though it sank right at the foot of Beale Street.

Sure enough, we found the Shiloh (labeled “Shilo” on the images) in Way’s Packet Directory, 1848-1983:

Shiloh

Stw p wh [Sternwheel packet, wood hull] b. Jeffersonville, Ind., by Howard, 1902.  178 tons.  150 x 28 x 4. Engines, 13′s- 5 ft.  Two boilers, each 40″ by 22 ft.  She was built for St. Louis & Tennessee River Packet Co. Came out in Savannah-Danville trade, Capt. Lon Kell, with pilots Charles R. Beard and Ed B. Beard; Sam G. Smith, purser; Tommy Latham, chief engineer; Al Aiken, second engineer; Charles Lewter, second clerk.  She was under charter to Delta Navigation Co., Memphis, Capt. Ed Nowland, Jr., and hit the levee while landing at Memphis with a heavy cargo, sank, and was lost, this in December 1913.

As you would imagine, since the steamer sank while being chartered by another party, a lawsuit followed.  For more information on St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Co. v. Nowland, please click here.

Politics in Memphis

 

Our current digital display in the Memphis Room features some of the political memorabilia we’ve accumulated over the years.  Local and national, current and historic – there is a little bit of everything in the Politics in Memphis display.  Enjoy!

Do you know something we don’t?

I bet you do!

As of today, it will be much easier for you to share what you know.  Comments, tags and ratings are now enabled for every item in Dig Memphis.  So, if you see something that you can identify or provide a suggestion about, you can tell us on that very page.  Even if it’s only a guess, we’d love to hear what you think about the documents and images in our collections.

Oh!  I almost forgot – You can download and print the images, too.  Enjoy!

A Brief History of Memphis

This week we celebrate the release of History Senior Manager Wayne Dowdy’s latest book.  We will, of course, have a copy here in the Memphis Room, but the book will also be available from local booksellers.  Don’t forget to take a look at other books from current and former staff members – They make wonderful Christmas presents!

Meet the Mayor family

Our wonderful volunteer Becky Muska has been hard at work digitizing the images of the Pink Palace Collection.  She has discovered that a large number of the photographs were pulled from the same photo album, one that we now believe belonged to the Mayor family.  The photographs feature portraits and images from everyday life in Memphis in the very early part of the 20th century – a rare treat, since so many photographs remaining from that time period were staged by professional photographers.  Becky has been doing some digging and here is what she has discovered about this family:

Mencko Mayor was born in Mississippi in 1869 to M. Mayor of Germany and Theresa Levy of Alsace Lorraine.  He married Mamie Frank in Shelby Co. on February 11, 1896.  Mamie, born in 1870 in Tennessee, was the daughter of Henry Frank of Germany and Rosa Kalish of Poland.  Mencko was a cotton broker and co-owner of the Frank Godfrey Co. at 83 Union Ave., 2^nd floor along with his brother-in-law Abraham Frank and Raphael Bernhold.

The Mayor’s son, Godfrey Frank was born in 1898.  In 1910, the Mayor family was living at 1556 Poplar Ave. at N. Willett in a grand two-story home on the north side of Poplar.  It was built on Lot 38, 200 ft. deep and 108 ft. wide, in the Henry Lake Subdivision.  Mencko’s mother-in-law Rosa Frank, a widow, lived with them as well as a sister-in-law, Amelia “Millie” Frank Marx.  Mamie’s older sister Millie was born in Napolean, AR in 1858 and married 40-year-old Max Marx in Shelby Co. in 1881 when she was 22 years old.  She was widowed that same year and never remarried.  In her final years, Millie resided at the Parkview Hotel near Overton Park and died of coronary thrombosis on April 19, 1936.  The 1910 Census lists three household servants living with the Mayors; Lizzie McNeill, Lizzie Rollins, and Lem Veland.

Mencko died at age 60 on August 30, 1929 at Baptist Hospital due to heart-related problems.  He was buried in Children of Israel Cemetery which is now Temple Israel Cemetery located between Calvary Cemetery and Forest Hill Cemetery in southwest Memphis.  Mamie survived him, but she died before 1935 when son Godfrey and his wife, Dorothy Hart sold the family home on Poplar which had been deeded to him upon his mother’s death.  The homes on Lots 38 and 39 were torn down and replaced with a brick office building which now houses the Memphis Leadership Foundation, Inc.

Click here to view the images from the Mencko Mayor family.

Using the Dig Memphis site

Now that we have had the new site for a few weeks, I thought I would share a few tips and tricks that will make it easier to use the Dig Memphis site and to find what you need.

Browsing

If you just want to wander through one or more collection, you can use the browse function.  Unfortunately, some users have noticed that the page navigation sometimes disappears.  (Page navigation being the page numbers at the upper-right of the item list that allow you to jump from page to page.)  It’s awfully hard to browse when you can’t switch pages.  Turns out, the page navigation’s visibility is tied to the screen resolution.  Your display resolution must be over 1100 pixels in width for the page numbers to be visible.  Hopefully, this problem will be ameliorated with the next upgrade, but until then… Don’t forget your glasses!

Searching

You can search the entire archive or you can select which collections you would like to include in your search.  If you go to the landing page for a particular collection and type a search term into the box on that page, your search will automatically be limited to that collection.   You can add or remove collections from your search by checking/unchecking the boxes on the left hand of your search results page.

When keyword searching, remember to keep it simple — one or two words will usually be plenty to narrow down your results.   Unless, of course, your keyword is “Memphis,” which will not be quite as helpful.

One other note – The upgraded software has been having trouble with apostrophes, ampersands and quotation marks.  Hopefully, a software update in the next month will take care of it all, so once again I ask that you excuse our imperfections for the time being. 

Enjoy your dig!

Genealogy Workshops

Our biannual genealogy workshops are almost here.  Join us each Wednesday in October to learn more about how to research and explore your family’s history.  These free classes will take place in the library’s meeting rooms from 1-3 pm each week of October, with a different area of interest being explored each week.  If you plan to attend, please call the History Department at 415.2742 to reserve a seat and ensure that we have handouts for you.