People

The Fugitives were a group of influential early twentieth-century poets and writers. In 1914 John Crowe Ransom and Walter Clyde Curry, both of whom taught English at Vanderbilt University, began meeting informally with a group of their undergraduates to discuss…

Chattanooga philanthropist Anne Taylor Jones Thomas was a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. Anne Thomas met her future husband, Benjamin Franklin Thomas, while he was attending law school at the University of Cincinnati. The couple married in 1894 in Chattanooga. She…

Chattanooga businessman and industrialist Benjamin F. Thomas pioneered the development of the Coca-Cola bottling industry in America. A native of Maysville, Kentucky, Thomas began his business career as a bank clerk, stone quarry operator, and manager of a hosiery mill.…

Union General George H. Thomas, nicknamed the "Rock of Chickamauga," played a pivotal role in several significant Tennessee Civil War battles. Born July 31, 1816, in Southampton County, Virginia, Thomas gained local fame as a boy when he rode through…

Rufus Thomas, legendary R&B singer, was born on March 26, 1917, in Cayce, Mississippi, just south of Memphis. He began performing in the 1930s at the Palace and Handy theaters in Memphis and as a traveling entertainer with such troupes…

Fred Thompson, U.S. senator, Watergate committee counsel, and movie actor, was born August 19, 1942, in Sheffield, Alabama. He grew up in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, the son of a used car dealer, and attended Lawrence County High School. He graduated from…

Born on February 8, 1885, in Knox County, Tennessee, Laura Thornborough was a local-colorist writer who, through her writings and photographs, promoted a romantic and anti-modernist depiction of the Smoky Mountains and their inhabitants. Dramatic scenery, opportunities for hiking and…

Lucille Thornburgh, union organizer and labor newspaper editor, was born in 1908 in Strawberry Plains, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Thornburgh. After graduating from Rhea County High School in Dayton she lived in Denver, then Los Angeles, and…

Poet Richard Tillinghast was born in Memphis to Raymond Charles Tillinghast, a mechanical engineer from Massachusetts, and Martha Williford, daughter of a West Tennessee farmer and lawyer turned politician. This dual background of New England and agrarian South has given…

Colonial journalist and cartographer Henry Timberlake was born in Virginia in 1730 and died in England on September 30, 1765. He joined Virginia military forces in 1756 and served in several campaigns during the French and Indian War. In 1761…

If one could describe Justin Timberlake’s career in terms of a lifespan, his career would be nearly as old as Timberlake himself. His rise to fame as the daydream of adolescent girls certainly handicapped him in the eyes (and ears)…

Isabel Hanson Tipton, physicist, was born in Monroe, Georgia, June 17, 1909. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Georgia in 1929 and graduate degrees with majors in physics and minors in chemistry from the University…

Prominent backcountry era settler and political leader best known for his opposition to the Franklin statehood movement, John Tipton was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, in 1730. He served in Lord Dunmore's War, was a recruiting officer for the Continental…

Although she rarely held elective office, Molly Todd played an important role in fashioning public policy in Nashville and Tennessee in the second half of the twentieth century. She mobilized support for reform in areas as diverse as birth control,…

Gerard Troost, geologist, was born in s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, on March 5, 1776. As Tennessee state geologist (1831-50) and the state's best known antebellum scientist, Troost promoted mining, planned transportation routes, described soils, and wrote forty-three geological reports. As he traveled…

When appointed as state librarian and archivist in March 1919 by Governor Albert H. Roberts, John Trotwood Moore was best known as a man of letters. A native of Marion, Alabama, he moved to Maury County, Tennessee, in 1885 where…

Mexican War hero, governor, and minister to Brazil, William Trousdale was born in Orange County, North Carolina. In 1796 he came with his parents, James and Elizabeth Dobbins Trousdale, to settle in Sumner County, Tennessee. Trousdale first experienced military duty…

Ernest Tubb, pioneer of the "honky tonk" sound in country music and an important Nashville record shop entrepreneur, was born in Crisp, Texas, on February 9, 1914. After hearing a Jimmie Rodgers record, "In the Jail House Now," Tubb determined…

Thomas B. Turley, lawyer and U.S. senator, was born in Memphis on April 5, 1845, to Thomas and Ora Battle Turley. His uncle was Judge William B. Turley of the Tennessee Supreme Court. After attending local schools, Turley in 1861…

William B. Turley was called "the most brilliant judge we ever had" by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace H. Lurton of Tennessee. (1) This reputation was forged during fifteen years on the Tennessee Supreme Court as part of the legendary…