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\u201cThe Society acquired over 100,000 photographic negatives from Hugh Doak, who ran his own private photography studio but was also the editor of the Manchester Times in the \u201840s, \u201850s, and early \u201860s,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cWe have photograph negatives from 1939 to 1960 from his collection, and we\u2019re scanning those. Those have been very important. It created our first African American indexing of families through those photographs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The impact has been powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Community members can email the Aociety a photograph and have it searched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis just happened this summer. A man came in, probably in his mid-\u201970s, and I pulled up his mother\u2019s picture. The tears were just coming out of his eyes. That\u2019s so impactful, because a lot of them are pictures they have never, ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Doak collection also contains rare glimpses of segregated schools and World War II maneuvers in Middle Tennessee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have them in their cap and gowns because they went to a separate school. There was no yearbook. There was nothing like that. And so they get to see these important events in their relatives\u2019 history,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cWe also have an important collection of World War II pictures of the maneuvers in Middle Tennessee, where you see the tanks coming through the little town of Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Society\u2019s work also fills an educational gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNowadays, for children going through the public school system, history is not something that is tested on their state exams,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cSo their history and the history of their community, they get taught that, but it\u2019s not as much of an emphasis. And so we could fill that gap by connecting our young people with \u2018here\u2019s your heritage.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Society even brings exhibits directly to students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe did a mobile museum exhibit two years ago and took it to the schools so the children could see it,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cIt was titled \u2018When I Was Your Age,\u2019 and it was about attending school back in the early 1900s when your wagon was your bus. They actually had wagon drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another classroom visit is scheduled for second and third graders at Hickerson Station Elementary School this September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group also hosts public meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have a membership meeting, but it\u2019s open to the public every other month on the second Saturday,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cWe have speakers who come and discuss topics about local history. We just had one in July, and our speaker was Mr. John Wright. He is our oldest surviving World War II veteran, and his wife\u2019s family helped start the walking horse industry in Coffee County.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Future plans include more digitization and museum upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting a digital kiosk so that we can link our photographs and have them be shown digitally as part of a museum exhibit,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cWe\u2019ve scanned 18,500 photographs, and they are stored in the cloud, but we\u2019ve only scanned through the letter F. There\u2019s a lot to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have also planned a major renovation of the courthouse where the museum is housed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s an 1871 courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places. We got a grant from the Tennessee Historical Commission to renovate the main hallway and return it to an 1871 appearance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges remain, particularly in funding and staffing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cObviously, volunteers are important because nobody\u2019s getting paid, and sometimes that can be challenging,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cFunding is always a challenge, too. We\u2019re the only free museum in the county, so there is no admission fee. We don\u2019t charge if you want to get a copy of your photograph. So funding is always a challenge. We encourage people to become members, as that is our sustaining revenue stream to support our work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Gamble, the most meaningful part of the work is watching families reconnect with their roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOne is being able to connect people with their family history. It\u2019s so moving to see how meaningful it is for them to come in and find out, \u2018Oh, this is what my grandmother looked like when she was a child.\u2019 That is probably the most important thing for me,\u201d she said. \u201cThe other is, if you are just a curious person, there are so many stories you find out through the research of events that occurred in Coffee County.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, Gamble believes the Society\u2019s role is simple yet profound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think really the importance is that we are just connecting citizens with their heritage, whether it be their family, or whether it be the community heritage \u2014 to understand the sense of place, where they are living, and the lives that shaped their community.\u201d GN<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE COFFEE County Historical Society has long been a steward of local memory in Manchester. For board member and museum curator Bonnie Gamble, the organization\u2019s mission is both practical and personal. \u201cThe Society\u2019s mission today is to collect and preserve the history of Coffee County,\u201d Gamble said. \u201cAnd we do it both through our museum, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":24247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/manchester\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/10\/8-1-1024x683.png\")
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