The Fabric Of Our Lives

The Fabric Of Our Lives

Apparently, the Memphis Cotton Exchange trading floor used to be a pretty wild place.  The floor was members only (and those members were a very manly crowd). When trading would wind down for the day, the members played a lot of dominoes, smoked cigars and have a fairly raucous time.

Now, the old exchange floor is home to the Cotton Museum of Memphis. Cotton trading has moved into office buildings around downtown and the exchange floor is much less rowdy.

You enter the museum through the gift shop on the corner of Front and Union downtown.  If Carol is working at the desk, be sure to chat with her - she's a cotton goddess. She knows just about everything there is to know about the history of cotton in Memphis, cotton production and the different uses for the plant.

The museum is self guided, but I recommend starting with the short video about cotton's influence on Memphis. Despite growing up here,  I didn't realize how important cotton has been to the city's economy (hint - it's more important than you probably realize, even today).

Walk into the room a little bit and turn around. You'll be looking at the exchange board that was used to note cotton trades until the late 1970s, when it and the guy that maintained it were replaced by a computer. This is actually a bit of a sad story. The man that maintained the board started working at the exchange in the 1920s. Before working there, he was a telegraph boy (replaced by the telephone) and a newspaper hawker (replaced by coin boxes). He worked at the Cotton Exchange most of his life, only to be replaced by a computer.

If you look up right when you walk into the room, you'll get a rather scary view of the mannequin that represents the exchange marker. I thought it was a real guy on a ladder on a narrow ledge, and it freaked me out a little bit.

For such a small museum, the Cotton Museum packs an informational wallop. There's a lot of multimedia. My favorite were the phone booths where you could watch short oral histories from people who have been involved in the cotton business. The museum is still looking for people to be a part of the project, so if you know someone who'd like to, please let them know.

The most recent addition to the museum is a short guided walking tour. Pick up an iPod at the desk and walk along Union and Front learning about the daily lives of the people who built Memphis into a major center of commerce.

The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. and costs $6 for adults. You can find more info and cotton resources on their Web site.

Comments Make Us Happy

0
Leave a Comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.