Title: J.S. Gillis Dry Goods Store Photograph

Date/Date Range :   circa 1900

Extent: 0.1 linear feet

Abstract:

This collection contains one photograph of the J.S. Gillis Dry Goods Store (mainly displaying shoes), dating from around 1900.

Call number: MS-3125

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

Collection purchased by UTK Special Collection Library in March 2007.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], J.S. Gillis Dry Goods Store Photograph, MS-3125. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of one folder.

According to Goodspeed's History of Tennessee (1887), James S. Gillis was born to James and Isabella (Stalker) Gillis on April 12, 1840, in New York. He moved to Trenton, Kentucky, in 1859 to farm, and five years later married Eliza Bradley. The couple had a son, George, in about 1868. Three years later Gillis moved to Shelbyville, Tennessee, and opened a dry goods store.

This collection contains one photograph of the J.S. Gillis Dry Goods Store (mainly displaying shoes), from around 1900. White and black employees and patrons surround the store, with a child holding two shoe boxes in the middle of the picture and the merchant in the doorway. The back of the photo places the store in Clarksville, Tennessee, although Gillis was operating a dry goods store and living in Shelbyville, Tennessee, around the same time as this photo was taken.

• Clarksville (Tenn.) -- History.
• Clarksville (Tenn.) -- Pictorial works.
• Shoe industry -- United States -- History.