A-Z

This Chattanooga attraction opened May 1, 1992, as the first major freshwater life center in the world dedicated to the understanding, conservation, and enjoyment of rivers. The exhibits guide visitors on a journey from the Tennessee River's source in the…

In 1965 the Tennessee House of Representatives created a Commission on the Performing Arts to document and study artistic facilities in the state. Two years later, the study recommended the establishment of the Tennessee Arts Commission. Since its creation, the…

Founded in 1881, the Tennessee Bar Association has been an influential voice in shaping Tennessee law and setting standards for legal instruction, lawyer discipline, and continuing education. Today over seven thousand of the state's twelve thousand lawyers belong to this…

The cable television industry in Tennessee, represented by several different networks, has increased the visibility of the state and positioned it as a culturally relevant and important part of the American media landscape. These networks have often focused on values…

The Tennessee Centennial Exposition, held in Nashville in 1897 to celebrate Tennessee's one-hundredth anniversary of statehood, was one of the largest and grandest of a series of industrial expositions that became hallmarks of the New South era. Modeled in particular…

The Tennessee Central Railroad was an important late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century competitor to the dominant Louisville and Nashville (L&N) and Southern Railway systems in Tennessee. Nashville capitalist and former Memphis and Charleston Railroad president Jere Baxter organized the line…

The Tennessee Century Farms Program is a public program that honors family farmers who have kept continuously owned family land in agricultural production for at least the last one hundred years. Established by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture in 1975-76…

The Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area (TCWNHA) tells the story of America’s Greatest Challenge, 1860-1875, through Civil War and Reconstruction sites and resources across the state. The only national heritage area to encompass an entire state, the TCWNHA is…

The Tennessee Civil War Veterans' Questionnaires form an extensive collection of documents housed in the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville and are a useful tool for the study of the state's nineteenth-century social conditions. The questionnaire's 1,650 respondents…

In 1905 the Southern Baptist Convention authorized the establishment of a college for women to be located in Murfreesboro and to be known as Tennessee College for Women. The institution was founded on the principle of offering the very best…

The Tennessee branch of the American Colonization Society, which sought to free slaves and repatriate them to Africa, was organized as a debating society in Nashville in December 1829. Josiah F. Polk, an agent of the American Colonization Society, recruited…

On April 5, 1972, the same day that the state Senate ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, the Tennessee General Assembly created the Tennessee Commission on the Status of Women (TCSW). It was to study and highlight women's issues and to…

To conserve game animals for hunting, local sportsmen organized clubs in Tennessee as early as 1865, beginning with the McRae Club of Chattanooga. The first statewide organization, the Tennessee Federation of Sportsmen, was formed in 1934 to marshal local clubs…

The Tennessee State Constitution provides for three constitutional officers: the secretary of state, the comptroller of the treasury, and the treasurer. All three are elected by a joint session of the general assembly; the secretary of state serves a four-year…

For Tennessee's first hundred years, justices of the peace were the foundation of the state's legal system. These men, often without legal training, served the citizens in their counties by resolving minor disputes, performing marriages, and serving on the quarterly…

In the 1880s George Eastman (1854-1932) founded Kodak, a camera and photographic film manufacturer based in Rochester, New York. His Eastman Kodak Company was a multinational corporation that soon dominated the film market and led the way in the mass…

The Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) was chartered in December 1970 as an umbrella organization for groups concerned with environmental issues and as an information clearinghouse and think tank for environmental policy. Its founding leaders included Lucius Burch Jr., Lester Dudney,…

Throughout the twentieth century, the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation has made a significant contribution to the economy and way of life of rural Tennessee. The Tennessee Farm Bureau grew out of the County Councils of Agriculture, first established in Blount…

In 1926 delegates and representatives from seventeen of the state's thirty-four garden clubs met at the Read House in Chattanooga and organized the Tennessee Federation of Garden Clubs (TFGC). Mrs. E. Y. Chapin of the Garden Club of Signal Mountain…