For release: June 15, 2011
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey, 901/678-2843

Be one of the first to own a part of history – the history of the University of Memphis.  To commemorate the University’s 100th anniversary and to celebrate its accomplishments during that century, the U of M has published a limited-edition book, Dreamers. Thinkers. Doers. A Centennial History of the University of Memphis. 

It will be released August 3rd at the University Bookstore on the U of M campus, which will be the sole store to carry the book.  It sells for $39.95 and may be ordered online, in advance of its release, at www.uofmemphis.bkstr.com.

Produced by U of M history professors Janann Sherman and Beverly Bond, the 128-page coffee table book is arranged in five sections to reflect the school’s changes in name and mission. Using a central narrative, fun facts and a timeline of events, it depicts how the U of M evolved from a small teachers’ college into a major metropolitan research university.  Hundreds of photos and illustrations help tell the University’s story.

The graduating class of 1913 – all 36 students – of the West Tennessee State Normal School. (U of M Photo)

The full-color book won’t be a dry, scholarly history, Sherman promises. “I wanted this to be a fun history,” she says. “I could have concentrated on presidents and policies, but that book would have been for historical preservation. I wanted anecdotes that people can tell to their friends.”

Sherman and Bond have worked on two previous collaborations, Memphis in Black and White and a pictorial of Beale Street. They met in 1996 when Sherman served on a committee that hired Bond for the Department of History. Not only are they book collaborators and close friends, they also have developed a program on African-American women in history.

The University of Memphis was founded in 1912, admitting its first students that fall.   The centennial observance will begin this August and run through December 2012.