An Old-fashioned Fourth of July Parade

Are you longing for an old-fashioned Fourth of July parade? Thanks to photographic archives preserved by Tennessee’s libraries, you can revisit parades from the turn of the 20th century, when the horse and buggy far outnumbered the motor car.

The above photos are publicly available through the Digital Library of Tennessee, a searchable online collection of documents and images from libraries and archives across the state. The UT Libraries played an important role in several collaborative digitization projects — such as the Digital Library of Tennessee, Volunteer Voices, and Tennessee Documentary History — that make our state’s rich cultural heritage available to a global audience.

The arrival of the automobile clearly did not stifle the creativity of parade participants:

For more historical images of Tennessee, visit UT Libraries’ digital collections, including Images of East Tennessee and Volunteer Voices.


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