Margaret Littman

Goldie Finkelstein was just 13 when she was sent to Wiener Graben, a work camp that later became a concentration camp. The youngster lost her entire family in the war, and among the things she never learned from them was how to cook. She had no family recipes and, according to her son, when she married Sol Finkelstein, also a Holocaust survivor, she didn’t know how to boil water or cook an egg.
Eventually, other survivors taught Goldie the necessary skills, and she was a quick learner.

Mark Guarino’s new book, Country and Midwestern, explores the difficult row country artists had to hoe in Chicago, and how the Windy City helped usher in a folk music revival that was born of those early country music sounds. Here are five things we learned about the history of country music…and not one of them takes place in Nashville.

After Phebe Hayes retired from her position as professor of communicative disorders and as dean of the College of General Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, she immediately threw herself into a new research project. Hayes, a person whose mind is never idle, began volunteering in the genealogy section of her local library. She came across a book that listed the doctors of Iberia Parish from 1859 to 1959. “None of the doctors were Black. None of the doctors were women."

Rousemary Vega gets emotional when she walks down Augusta Boulevard in Humboldt Park. It's hard for the mother of five to see the former Lafayette Elementary School with its signs now touting the Chicago High School for the Arts.
"They closed Lafayette School and gave it to another school. Do you know how f***ed up that is?" she asks. "Me and my children have to walk past it every day. And now that building is not open to the community."

When Butch Spyridon walked into Leslie Jones’ office in early 2022, Jones was skeptical.
“When a White man walks into a Black man’s office in a Black neighborhood and says he wants to help without wanting anything in return, you’re skeptical,” he says. “I have a few older brothers who are still skeptical.”
But skepticism or no, Jones knew he needed to at least listen to what Spyridon had to say.

Yes, it was, is, and will always be Music City. The twang of a guitar and the tale of a broken heart are in Nashville's DNA. Yet its entrepreneurial spirit and maker culture are always in evidence, too, in its restaurants, its shops, and even its hotels. Spend a few days here and meet the chefs, performers, and designers who are making Nashville the most creative city in the South.

Daniel Chester French is sometimes referred to as “America’s sculptor,” a nickname as big as his most famous work, the mammoth statue of Abraham Lincoln that sits inside the Lincoln Memorial. His former summer home now houses an artist-in-residence program to fulfill his legacy.

The historic Woolworth building is a landmark because it was the location of 1960s sit-ins. What's happening there now is emblematic of larger Nashville conversations.

“The Hermitage Hotel is really a character in the story of suffrage. It served a bigger purpose than a venue,” explains Carole Bucy, the county historian. Bucy has spent considerable time researching the city and state’s connection to the women’s suffrage movement, particularly leading up to the 2020 centennial of ratification. “I cannot think of another hotel in Tennessee that has the history it has.”

A coalition of Nashville chefs and farmers hopes to change Tennessee state laws.

Many colleges and universities nationwide are facing housing shortages in 2022. Freshman classes are larger than usual, in part because some students deferred starting college during the pandemic. But at Tennessee State University the challenges are a little bit different.

Most American distilleries buy neutral grain spirit in bulk from ethanol factories in the Midwest; many craft distillers even skip the part of making their own base alcohol, buying their neutral spirit after corn has been germinated, fermented, and distilled. But when Rob Forster, Chand Harlow, and Thomas Alexander launched Wonderbird Spirits in Taylor, Miss., in 2018, they didn’t want to do things that way.

Working in concert, Music City's most talented artists and makers prove that creativity and collaboration go hand-in-hand. Here's where to join them.

Structural racism, access to transportation and income disparities can make it hard to buy healthy plant-based foods.

When Andy Mumma opened the first Barista Parlor location in an old East Nashville transmission shop a decade ago, it was hard to imagine it would become an essential neighborhood destination. It didn’t even have a street-facing storefront. He wasn’t sure if people would show up to buy coffee from the old garage he overhauled (with help from his friends and his dad).