yesterday's tennessee

United Grocery Company
Our 50th Year, 1905-1955

from the collection of Brenda Fiddler

It was the sixth year of a new century - a century that was to be the most important in the history of mankind. Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States and the American economy was bustling along in the surge of prosperity that followed the Spanish-American War. In the South, in those days of 1905, progress came slowly, for industry was almost unknown, and business had not completely recovered from the devastation of the War Between the States. The sturdy people of West Tennessee, living among the hills that their grandfathers had cleared, had begun to sense the hope and promise of a new and better age.

But these were still the good old days, when a man could rent an adequate house for five dollars a month, and feed and clothe an average family for a fraction of what is required today. Life proceeded at a quiet and even pace, without the complication s of income taxes, mechanical wonders and fast automobiles, and though there were few modern conveniences, the people were spared the feverish hustle and hurry of today.