A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

Clarence Saunders and the Founding of Piggly Wiggly

Clarence Saunders and the Founding of Piggly Wiggly

Clarence Saunders and the Founding of Piggly Wiggly: The Rise & Fall of a Memphis Maverick

Mike Freeman

The History Press
160
$19.99

The grocery business began as a complicated service industry. Random pricing, inconsistent quantities and prescriptive salesmen made grocery shopping burdensome. It took one brash Memphian with uncommon vision and unbridled ambition to change everything. Clarence Saunders worked his way out of poverty and obscurity to found Piggly Wiggly in 1916. Yet just as the final bricks of Pink Palace–his garish marble mansion–were being laid, Saunders went bankrupt, and he was forced to sell Piggly Wiggly. Memphis historian Mike Freeman tracks the remarkable life of this retail visionary.

–From the Publisher

Styron's Choice

August 5, 2011 Alexandra Styron, the youngest child of William Styron, was born the year his celebrated novel The Confessions of Nat Turner was published. In her own new memoir, Reading My Father, she aims to merge the tale of her childhood, one that was alternately charmed and cursed, with a carefully researched exegesis of her famous father’s life and work. Styron will appear at the 2011 Southern Festival of Books, held October 14-16 in Nashville. She recently answered questions from Chapter 16.

Styron's Choice

This Land Is Not Necessarily Your Land

August 4, 2011 Folk singer Woody Guthrie is best known for “This Land Is Your Land,” a patriotic travelogue that has become America’s second national anthem. Like Guthrie’s own image, however, the song has been gutted of its political importance over the years. In Woody Guthrie, American Radical, Will Kaufman reclaims Guthrie’s radicalism, painting a picture of an inconsistent yet passionate crusader who saw tyranny as the greatest of all evils. At noon on August 10, Kaufman will present a live musical documentary on the songs and politics of Woody Guthrie, American Radical at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series.

A Blues Man's Biography

August 3, 2011 Philip Ratcliffe was enthralled with the music of Mississippi John Hurt from the moment he first heard one of Hurt’s recordings in 1970. After a trip to Mississippi in 2003, Ratcliffe decided to document Hurt’s life. It took six years of research and writing, but Ratcliffe finally completed the first biography of the legendary blues artist. Mississippi John Hurt: His Life, His Times, His Blues chronicles the man’s musical career and captures his warm, unaffected character. Ratcliffe will discuss and sign his biography at The Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis on August 4 at 6 p.m.

A Blues Man's Biography

An All-American Movement

July 25, 2011 Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington, is widely considered among the greatest speeches in American history and a high point of the civil-rights movement. But its deserved fame has long obscured the hundreds of thousands of people who also participated in the march: black teenagers from Alabama, white ministers from Kansas, celebrities from Hollywood, and activists from Harlem, all of them gathered in a peaceful demonstration for equal rights unlike anything ever seen in America. In Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington, newly out in paperback, Charles Euchner, a Chattanooga native and graduate of Vanderbilt University, has written the story of that day from the perspective of these important, if anonymous, participants in the march. Chapter 16 recently spoke with him by phone.

An All-American Movement

Rehabilitating Butterfat

July 18, 2011 For Jeni Britton Bauer, the creative force behind Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, butterfat is a blank canvas on which to explore a palette of exotic, tantalizing flavors: Salty Caramel, Wildberry Lavender, Cherry Lambic, Bangkok Peanut (cayenne pepper, coconut, honey, and peanut-butter ice cream). Her first store outside of her home state of Ohio opened in Nashville a few weeks ago, coinciding with the publication of her first cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams At Home. The book, which has made The New York Times bestseller list, explains how to make foolproof versions of Jeni’s fabulous flavors at home. It also reveals a business firmly in step with current food trends: artisanal production and locally sourced, farm-fresh ingredients. Bauer will demonstrate recipes and sign copies of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home at Williams-Sonoma in the Mall at Green Hills in Nashville on Thursday, July 21, at 3 p.m.

Rehabilitating Butterfat

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