Background

Martha Robinson Rivers Ingram was born in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. She is a daughter of John Minott Rivers Sr. and Martha Elizabeth Rivers, maiden name Robinson. She was the firstborn of three children. Her father got his start in banking and made his fortune after acquiring Charleston's only radio station, later obtaining the license for South Carolina's first television station, WCSC-TV. As young girls Martha and her sister, Betty Craig, accompanied their parents on yearly trips to New York, where their father had frequent business. Martha's brother, John M. Rivers Jr., was born 10 years later than she was. Marta's parents were active in Charleston's civic and social life. "You weren't put on this earth just to be pretty and take up space," her maternal grandmother often reminded her.

Education

Martha Ingram attended Ashley Hall school in Charleston. When it came time to select a college, John Rivers Sr. wanted his daughter to choose the top school that admitted women students. For Martha, that meant Vassar. "I remember friends of my parents chastising them for letting me go to that "Northern college," which was certain to turn me into a "Communist," Ingram recalls. "My father snapped back that "Martha is more likely to change Vassar than Vassar is to change Martha."

The day she arrived at Vassar in her best suit and matching hat and gloves, she remembers, "older students were welcoming new students, and almost all of them were wearing Bermuda shorts with knee socks. One of them said to me very kindly, "You look so nice, but you don't have to wear such fine things." That suit and hat went into the back of the closet and never came out again." Academically, though she had been concerned about being able to keep up, Ingram excelled. "This is an absolutely brilliant paper," a professor wrote on the first paper she submitted for a first-semester philosophy class. She graduated from Vassar College with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1957. Martha Ingram's love of the performing arts began at Vassar College when she became a classical music DJ, assuming the pseudonym of Elizabeth Crawford and lowering her voice to conceal her youth.

Career

After college, Martha Ingram returned to Charleston to work at WCSC-AM/FM and WCSC-TV, which her father owned. While her career goals were unclear, her father suggested that, as the oldest of his children, she be prepared to carry on the family business should anything happen to him. She spent a year and a half absorbing some of her father's business skills, but her broadcasting career ended after she renewed a friendship with E. Bronson Ingram, whom she later married. They settled first in New Orleans and later in Nashville, where Bronson Ingram was involved with his family's extensive business interests. Martha Ingram's early years of marriage were devoted to being wife and mother. However, her interest in the performing arts persisted, and, as a result, she began to bring more professionalism to the arts in Nashville and Tennessee.

The idea for a local performing arts facility developed in 1972 with her appointment to the advisory board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, where she worked until 1980. Back in Nashville, her idea met with considerable resistance, but Martha Ingram persevered - for eight years and during the terms of three governors. The result was the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, or TPAC, a three-theater facility located beneath a state office building across the street from the Capitol. Martha Ingram and her supporters even raised an endowment for certain operating expenses. The endowment goal was $3.5 million. They raised $5 million. Endowment income defrays operating losses and funds a program that grooms future audiences for TPAC performances.

With the TPAC project nearing completion, Martha Ingram's husband invited her to go to work at Ingram Industries. She became a vice president for public affairs in 1979 and a member of the board in 1981. She and her husband worked in adjoining offices, and he sought her advice and kept her informed about all Ingram Industries developments. Reminiscent of her father's expectations, Bronson Ingram looked to her as his successor. She was a vice president for public affairs in 1979 and a member of the board in 1981. Five days after her husband's death in 1995, she became Ingram Industries chairman. Later, she and family members decided to spin off California-based Ingram Micro as a public company and operate the rest of Ingram Industries as private companies. Ingram Micro remains the world's largest wholesale distributor of technology products and services. It was acquired by Chinese company HNA in December 2016. With the reorganization of Ingram Industries, Ingram Entertainment, which distributes home videos and video games, was sold to David Ingram, Martha Ingram's youngest son. In 2002, Ingram Industries acquired Midland Enterprises, a company that owns 2,300 barges and 80 towboats. Martha Ingram stepped down as a chairman in 2008.

A 1957 graduate of Vassar College, Martha Ingram served on Vassar's board of trustees from 1993 to 2005. In 1995, Martha and Bronson Ingram established the Ingram Charitable Fund to help support Vanderbilt and other nonprofit organizations. She is a former board member of Baxter International, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, and Ashley Hall School in Charleston, South Carolina. She has served on the boards of the United Way of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and was chairman of the United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society. Her other philanthropic commitments include the Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville Opera, and Nashville Ballet.

In 2006, Martha Ingram published Kenneth Schermerhorn: He Will Always Be the Music, a biography of the late conductor and music director of The Nashville Symphony. In 2004, Ingram and D.B. Kellogg published Apollo's Struggle: A Performing Arts Odyssey in the Athens of the South, a history of the arts in Nashville and the South. In 2001, she published a family memoir entitled E. Bronson Ingram: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine, the story of her late husband. Library Journal's Dale Farris commented that the book "presents the life of a successful businessman" and went on to say that Martha Ingram "offers a succinct history of the Ingram family tree." Farris expressed that "she shows how his unwavering commitment to integrity, his devotion to his four children, and their success in the expanding Ingram enterprises form the basis for the 14th-largest private company in the United States." Farris wrote, "this personal story of a thriving business is highly recommended for all libraries."

Achievements

• Martha Ingram is the first living woman and first daughter of a laureate to be inducted into South Carolina Business Hall of Fame, 1999. She was also inducted into the Junior Achievement National Business Hall of Fame in 1999. She has received the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee's Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award for her philanthropic efforts and was honored by the Americans for the Arts for her exemplary national leadership, which demonstrated extraordinary artistic achievement. She was honored by Business Week as the 50th most generous philanthropist for her donations between the years 2000 and 2004. She was featured in Business Week in 2010 for her philanthropy efforts. She was the first female chairman of Vanderbilt University's board of trustees; it is her late husband's alma mater. An outdoor sculpture of Martha Ingram, commissioned by Vanderbilt University to honor her leadership and philanthropic service to the school, has been placed where she helped launch the first phase of College Halls at Vanderbilt. Martha Ingram & family checks in at #167 on Forbes' list with an estimated net worth of $4.4 billion (as of November 2020).
  
  Each year, the Arts & Business Council celebrates a Nashville resident for their inspiring leadership and patronage of the arts with its Martha Ingram Arts Visionary Award. The Award honors a business leader who has had a significant impact on the cultural landscape of Greater Nashville with their exceptional arts leadership, visionary support of the arts, and overall community engagement. Ashley Hall performing arts center is named for Martha Ingram.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Apollo's Struggle: A Performing Arts Odyssey in the Athens of the South

    (Apollo's Struggle: A Performing Arts Odyssey in the Athen...)

    2004
  • E. Bronson Ingram: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine

    (A vivid depiction of one of the 20th century's most succe...)

    2001

Religion

Martha Ingram is a member of St. George's Episcopal Church in Nashville.

Politics

Martha Ingram donated to Megan Barry's, Democratic Party candidate, campaign to become the new Mayor of Nashville in 2015.

Membership

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  Martha Rivers Ingram was a chairman of United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society.

  United Way's Alexis de Tocqueville Society , United States

• 

  When asked about The Junior League, Martha Ingram said, "I never expected to find myself serving as Chairman and CEO of a major American corporation. You may never expect to run a business, to be head of a household, or to lead a nonprofit board. Yet, effective Junior League training can prepare you for these experiences and many others." A member of the Junior League of Nashville in the 1970s, Martha was an early and energetic supporter of the idea that Nashville should become a regional cultural center. By 2000, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center had an endowment of over $20 million, which allowed more than a million Tennessee children to experience symphony music, drama, and dance. As a Provisional in the Junior Leagues of Charleston, South Carolina, New Orleans, and Nashville, and as a Nashville Active member, she learned how to share her love of music with an even greater audience. That love of the arts can be seen in many of her other activities.

  Association of Junior Leagues International , United States

Connections

Martha Robinson Rivers married Erskine Bronson Ingram II on October 4, 1958, at St. Philip's Church in Charleston. She has four children: Orrin Henry II (born July 5, 1960), John Rivers (born 1961/1962), David Bronson (born 1962/1963), Robin Bigelow Ingram Patton.

Father:

John Minott Rivers

John Minott Rivers was a United States banker and businessman. He was employed as a runner by the Bank of Charleston (later South Carolina National Bank. Later he became manager of its Greenville branch and then assistant vice president. In 1936, he became vice president of the Charleston office of McAlister, Smith & Pate, a securities firm based in Greenville. Rivers entered the broadcasting business two years later at the urging of W. Frank Hipp, president of Liberty Life Insurance Company, which operated radio stations in Columbia and Charleston. On January 1, 1938, Rivers became president of South Carolina Broadcasting Company, which operated WCSC radio at Charleston.

Mother:

Martha Elizabeth Rivers

Son:

David Bronson Ingram

David Bronson Ingram is a United States heir, businessman, philanthropist, who runs Ingram Entertainment, an independent company that distributes DVDs and videogames. On February 20, 2002, he formed DBI Beverage Inc., which owns five beverage distributors in northern-California operating from eight distribution centers located in Chico, Napa, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Jose, Truckee, and Ukiah.

Son:

Orrin Henry Ingram II

Orrin Henry Ingram II is a United States heir, businessman, philanthropist, and polo player. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Ingram Industries and the chairman of Ingram Barge Company.

Son:

John Rivers Ingram

John Rivers Ingram is a United States heir, businessman, and philanthropist. He serves as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Ingram Content Group, Lightning Source and Digital Ingram, and Ingram Industries.

Daughter:

Robin Bigelow Ingram Patton

Robin Bigelow Ingram Patton is not involved in the family's businesses.

Late Husband:

Erskine Bronson Ingram II

During her senior year at Vassar, a friend persuaded Martha Rivers to spend the weekend in New York City, where she was to be set up on a blind date with a young man from Nashville named Bronson Ingram. They saw Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady and heard Edith Piaf at a Manhattan nightclub. Bronson Ingram had attended Vanderbilt for one year before transferring to Princeton, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English in 1953. Following a two-year Navy stint, he was working in his father's business, Ingram Oil and Refining Co. Bronson's and Martha's relationship bloomed and, despite the distance, they were soon dating each other exclusively.

Bronson Ingram was Tennessee's only billionaire when he died of cancer at the age of sixty-three on June 15, 1995, in his Nashville home. His net worth was estimated at $1.3 billion. In 1994, Forbes national business magazine placed Ingram fifty-sixth in the annual listing of the richest Americans, and the magazine ranked Ingram Industries fourteenth of the five hundred biggest privately held companies.

Sister:

Elizabeth Rivers Lewine

Brother:

John Rivers, Jr.