…that after World War II, Memphis “adopted” a Dutch town known for its cotton manufacturing? School children around Memphis filled cigar boxes with household items to ship to the families in Enschede, Netherlands, while clothes and books were collected to help replace that which was lost in the war. Read all about it here:
For more information, the Memphis – Enschede Ties collection is available in the Memphis Room. Come take a look!
The Britton Duke Papers are being scanned and uploaded, making this the first manuscript collection to be added to the archive.
The Papers provide a unique chronicle of an early Germantown family, with family letters and business papers dating back to the 1830s. Most papers belonged to Britton Duke, a prominent citizen and cotton planter, who owned the property adjacent to the Nashoba Plantation (a utopian community founded by Frances Wright). He was also extremely interested in education and served as the long-time school commissioner for the 11th district of Shelby County.
For now, we have digitized all of the correspondence files, a broadside from the Civil War, and the slave records. We’ll probably add some examples from the business files, but if you want to see the collection in its entirety, stop on by the Memphis Room.