Naff Collection, 1901-1956.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Organized into eleven series: (1) Advertising Announcements (2) Descriptive Folders (3) Letters & Telegrams (4) Librettos (5) Newspaper Clippings (6) Photographs [housed separately] (7) Posters (8) Programs (9) Realia (10) Scripts (11) Souvenir Booklets;,Some of the series are further organized into subseries by letters;,Numerical order within series or subseries.

Some posters from this collection are framed and hang on the walls in the hallways of the Nashville Public Library Conference Center.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: Advertising announcements, descriptive folders, letters and telegrams, librettos, newspaper clippings, photographs, posters, programs, realia, scripts, and souvenir booklets gathered by Lula Naff over her many years as manager of the Ryman Auditorium. The materials span Ryman performances between 1901 and 1956, and document Nashville appearances by such cultural, political, and entertainment notables as Gene Autry, Fanny Brice, Jack Dempsey, Nelson Eddy, Helen Hayes, Bob Hope, Guy Lombardo, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Will Rogers, and John Phillip Sousa.

Cite as: Naff Collection, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library.

Nashville Public Library retains all intellectual property rights to this collection.

Francis Robinson;,Gift;,1967;,Acc.RT-108.

Ryman Auditorium memorabilia is kept at the Ryman Auditorium and Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Nashville Room of the Nashville Public Library also houses the Ryman Auditorium Collection of later Ryman Auditorium materials (2000-ongoing)

Lula C. Naff (1875-1960) was a native of Fall Branch, Tennessee, and came to Nashville as a stenographer with the Rice Lyceum Bureau when that firm moved to Nashville from Johnson City in 1904. She booked speakers, concerts, and other attractions at several locations, one of which being Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, at that time a stageless gospel tabernacle. The Bureau dissolved in 1914, and Mrs. Naff went to work at the Ryman as an independent agent, and in 1920 began managing the hall under a board of directors. Over the next thirty-plus years, she brought hundreds of attractions to the famous venue, and reportedly never in that time witnessed a single performance and never operated at a deficit. She retired in her eightieth year, and died in 1960.

Finding aid: available in the first box of the collection. Inquire at the service desk.

Finding aid available in repository;,item level control,https://assets.library.nashville.org/documents/finding-aids/Special_Collections_Division_Finding_Aid_Naff.pdf.

Collected by Lula C. Naff during her career at the Rice Lyceum Bureau and as manager of the Ryman Auditorium. She bequeathed the collection to Francis Robinson, at that time the Assistant Manager of the New York Metropolitan Opera, who had begun his career as a Ryman Auditorium usher. Mr. Robinson formally presented the collection to the Nashville Public Library in a ceremony held March 27, 1967.

Book jacket image digital identifier: Naff 2-46 Anna Pavlowa