Weakley scrapbooks, ca. 1890-ca. 1949 (bulk ca. 1928-ca. 1940)
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Organized into two boxed sets of scrapbook sheets that are numbered and cross-referenced to a subject file.

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

A subject index card file of various topics and references is available for this research collection. The clippings are laminated on numbered sheets in two boxed sets. There are a few pagination gaps.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: A collection of newspaper and magazine clippings, ephemera, correspondence, photographs, and postcards related to Nashville history, ca. 1890-ca. 1940. Includes more than 600 pages, comprised chiefly of illustrated published articles, several written by Mary French Caldwell. A few pages have handwritten notes about the Weakley family.

The documentary scrapbooks cover multiple topics, such as published aerial photographs of Nashville's Capitol and cityscape, historic buildings of the downtown district and lower Broadway, Civil War history, the Parthenon and Tennessee Centennial Exposition, Ward's Seminary for Young Ladies, the Public Square, City Hall and Davidson County Courthouse (1935), Southern Turf Saloon, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's visit to Nashville (1934), Market House, historic mansions, James Robertson and the original pioneers, Mayor Hilary E. Howse, Louisville & Nashville Railroad and Union Station, Odd Fellows in Nashville, Adams family reunion at Beersheba Springs, Knights of Pythias, President Grover Cleveland's visit to Nashville in 1887, Vanderbilt University, Fort Negley, Hume-Fogg's English teacher Mrs. Mary C. Armstrong, Nashville Female Academy, Cumberland River wharf and river transportation, Dr. Richard Dake, Beersheba Springs resort, electric street cars, William Walker, Dr. J. H. McNeilly, Granny White, Andrew Jackson, and J. C. Napier.

Box #1 includes four original watercolors, circa 1933, of the "Mary View" house at Hygeia Springs by V. L. Weakley.

Box #2 continues with additional documentary sources about Nashville history, buildings of lower Broadway, historic scences of the 1880's from photogravure magazine, the Courthouse and Public Square, street cars, Nashville during the Civil War, Fort Nashborough, Gen. James Robertson's tomb, City Cemetery and Mt. Olivet, Ward Seminary for Young Ladies, "Famous educational institutions of old Nashville" (p. 83), "Prominent buildings in Nashville in the early eighties," (pp. 93-94), Captain Driver, "Donelson's part in history of Tennessee" (pp. 132-133), Joseph L. Weakley, O'Bryan Bros. and Duck Head garments, Elijah Robertson's Tavern and the Andrew Jackson Hermitage mansion.

Includes a typed, signed letter of James I. Vance, First Presbyterian Church, to C. W. Hesse, Nashville, Jan. 14, 1925 (p. 176); a photograph of the Ryman Auditorium during a revival, circa 1925 (p. 175). Includes a Ladies Hermitage Association of the United States membership certificate of Joseph L. Weakley, March 15, 1894 (p. 262).

Cite as: Weakley scrapbooks, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17 U.S. Code).

Source of acquisition unknown;,Acct. RT-100.

Martha Weakley Hesse (1896-1975), a native of Nashville, was the daughter of Joseph L. Weakley, Jr. and Kate Thompson. She was married to Charles W. Hesse and the family belonged to the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Nashville. A member of the Centennial Club, she had a lifelong interest in the preservation of regional history. Through her paternal line, she is a granddaughter of Joseph Locke Weakley (1837-1920), a prominent Nashvillian associated with the Grand Lodge of Tennessee and the Nashville Centennial Exposition of 1880.

In English

Finding aid available in repository;,card file index.

The provenance was determined to originate with Martha Weakley, based on the annotated genealogical notes in the scrapbook, alongside the correspondence.

No further accruals are expected.