Tagged: Memphis

Shopping in Memphis is hard. Recently in a large supermarket, a shopper of close acquaintance discovered that the shelves were bare of skim milk. She found an employee and asked if they had any more. He went the storage area, then returned after several minutes to say that they were still looking.

I'm not sure which is worse: that they had no skim milk in the store, or that they had it, but did not know where it was.

Also recently, I dropped-in at a car dealership to look at new SUVs. There were two shiny ones in the showroom.

In 1839, the invention of daguerreotype made it possible to capture and preserve a photographic image. The public was thrilled with the opportunity to be recorded for posterity, and the business of professional photography blossomed.

Memphis quickly embraced this new technology. Newspaper ads in the mid-1840s promoted itinerant daguerreotypists, but the earliest known advertisement for a permanent photo studio appeared in 1843 in the periodical American Eagle.

The ad stated:

The four Martin Brothers, W.S., J.B., A.T., and B.B., were remarkable men. Born in Mississippi in the 1880s, they moved to Memphis to attend LeMoyne.

The became important figures in medicine, politics, and sports. Two were doctors; two were pharmacists.

One, Dr. J.B. Martin, opened his own drug store in 1920. All were active in Republican politics.

The Martins owned the Memphis Red Sox, as well as the stadium in which the team played. They were the only African Americans in baseball to own both.