Welcome to the Knox County
Public Library Calvin M. McClung
Digital Collection
Our digital collection is an online archive of images from the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection. This website makes it easy and fun to research, view and find compelling digital images and artifacts from our rich East Tennessee history.
To begin, use the
Advanced Search or
Browse features to view items in the collection. Throughout your search, you can get help with search functions by clicking the help link in the top navigation bar.
Introducing Our Current Collections:
Jim Thompson was one of Knoxville's pioneer commercial and professional photographers. He captured a rich visual legacy of East Tennessee from 1907 to 1960. This growing digital collection will eventually contain 10,000 images covering the years from the early 1920s to mid-1930s.
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During the celebration of Knox County's two hundredth birthday in 1991, local citizens contributed hundreds of photographs that documented the people, places, businesses, churches, and historic events of Knox County from the early days of photography in 1840s to the 1970s.
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Women from East Tennessee played a critical role in the women's suffrage movement -- especially Lizzie Crozier French, Mrs. Hugh L. White and Abby Crawford Milton. The Harry T. Burn Papers relating to his decisive vote in favor of woman suffrage in the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1919 is a key component of the new collection.
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George Franklin Barber, born in De Kalb, Illinois, in 1854, was a remarkably successful practitioner of American domestic architecture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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A collection of small photograph and manuscript collections with unusual and interesting photographs included in them.
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Photos taken by Jim and Robin Thompson used to help promote the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
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Photos from Hugh Tyler's photograph album including some of the few surving photographs of James Agee and his mother’s family.
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A collection of rare and fragile print materials (books, pamphlets, ephemera and maps) that may be missed by the casual researcher.
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Special Features:
Collection Information
You will find more information about each collection in the About section of our website.
Digital Collection Search Tips
Each item, whether it is a photograph, manuscript, or printed item, has a catalog record with many searchable terms. Some manuscript and print items also have a full-text searchable transcript. A general search may pull up many more items than would be desirable to review. A more limited pool of responses may be located by limiting the search to one or two collections.
Using quotations around phrases pulls up any record with either word. If you want to find an exact phrase, such as Fountain City, use the Advanced Search feature and type the entire phrase in the box “the exact phrase.” That search will bring up only records with the phrase you are seeking.
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Photo usage or reproduction inquiries, contact: DigitalCollections@knoxlib.org or (865) 215-8808.
