'Cut loose the corset strings of dull times': Attending Carnival in Memphis, Tennessee, through newsprint coverage, 1872-1901

This research examines a little known aspect of nineteenth-century Memphis history---the existence of Mardi Gras celebrations that, in their early years, held the potential to rival Carnival stagings hosted among sister river and Gulfshore cities in the American South. Beginning in 1872 and continuing through 1901, the Memphis Carnival underwent fitful cycles characterized by feverish activity and hiatus that spanned the century's final three decades. My purpose is to reconstruct local manifestations of this extraordinary holiday event by utilizing the sole surviving archive of primary source materials of any depth---Memphis newspaper reporting and advertising.;Memphis struggled with postbellum urban conditions faced by the city fathers, entrepreneurs, and citizenry alike that would have proved daunting to any American municipality of the period. But then death came to Memphis "on tiny wings" in three visitations of yellow fever during the 1870s. Loss of its municipal charter and reduction to a state taxing district followed in 1879 and persisted until 1893.;The fever decade forced reevaluation of Memphis's governmental form and management, fiscal responsibility and financial solvency, the rebuilding of an exhausted economy, and the restructuring of a society much altered from its earlier demographics. During the 1880s and nineties Memphians, faced with the task of reinventing themselves and their city, were aware of the need to alter national perceptions that swirled around a river town mired in misfortune. Believing Carnival provided opportunities to showcase positive aspects of Memphis that could lead toward renewal, restore civic pride, and translate into a revitalized economy, intermittent Carnivals briefly recaptured the glory but ultimately failed to sustain the momentum of the holiday's initial celebrations.;Near the century's close, Memphians increasingly sought outlets in an array of philanthropic, recreational, and educational organizations. The city's economy slowly revived, and Carnivals staged by an earlier generation were now viewed as raucous, even dangerous, artifacts of a river town's past. That the city's nineteenth-century Mardi Gras failed to survive as a viable institution into the next century, coupled with Carnival's welter of setbacks and successes, reflected the vicissitudes of this troubled period in Memphis history.