Artist Red Grooms depicts Tennessee history in Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel

This model of the Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel has been on view for a few months at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. Here is an introduction to the nine of the figures from the carousel that are in Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent.

You can also listen to Red Grooms talk about creating Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel via our online audio tour.

Suffragist and civic leader Anne Dallas Dudley (1876-1955) was a leader in the movement to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote was passed, Tennessee provided the 36th and final vote needed for passage.

Leroy Carr (1905-1935) was an influential blues singer, songwriter, and pianist who was born in Nashville. His music has been recorded by artists such as Robert Johnson and Eric Clapton.

Charles Soong (1866-1918) studied theology at Vanderbilt University. He returned to China as a Methodist missionary and became wealthy selling Bibles.

Davy Crockett (1786-1836) was a legend in his own time, although some of the stories told about him were fiction. Known as the King of Wild Frontier, he served in the Tennessee Legislature and United States Congress before heading to Texas where he died at the battle of the Alamo.

Grantland Rice (1880-1954) was known as the “voice of sports” and is considered a pioneer in the development of sports journalism.

After Cornelia Fort (1919-1943) received her pilot and instructor licenses, she became Nashville’s first female flight instructor. She later moved to Hawaii to teach flying and witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, When World War II was declared she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron; she was the first woman pilot to die on active duty.

Samuel Porter Jones (1847-1906) was a celebrated evangelist who converted Thomas Green Ryman in 1885 at a Great Awakening. In 1892, Ryman built the Union Gospel Tabernacle for Jones. The name was changed to the Ryman auditorium in 1904 after Ryman’s death and was the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974.

Soldier and statesman Andrew Jackson (1967-1845) distinguished himself in the war of 1812, and became the 7th president of the United States, serving between 1828 and 1836. He returned to Nashville in 1837 and died at his home the Hermitage.

William Edmondson (1874-1951) was a self-taught sculptor from Nashville. He was the first African American to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1937.

You can see two of Edmonson's works installed in our modern and contemporary art gallery.

See these figures in Red Grooms: Traveling Correspondent on view at the Brooks Museum through January 8, 2017.

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