Entries

Art in its broadest definition is patterned application of human skill that evokes a feeling of aesthetic sensibility. As such, art is a universal of human culture and can be traced archaeologically to at least forty thousand years ago. Art…

More than seven thousand deep caves have been recorded throughout Tennessee. Concentrated in the limestone uplands of Middle and East Tennessee, these karsts extend from the Mammoth Cave area of central Kentucky through Tennessee into northern Alabama, and they represent…

The President Andrew Johnson Museum and Library, along with the Doak House Museum, form the Museums of Tusculum College, located in Greene County. The college’s Department of Museum Program and Studies administers the museums, which are located on the campus’s…

Elvis. The first name alone invokes images and sounds which spark instant recognition. While he may not have invented rock-n-roll, few can deny that Elvis Presley helped transform a musical fad into a national and international phenomenon. In the process,…

Frances W. Preston, a Nashville native who went to work for Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) at the age of twenty-one, serves now as that enterprise's worldwide president and CEO. While still a teenager Preston joined WSM as a receptionist, and…

Hollis Freeman Price Sr. was born in Virginia in 1904 at the dawn of the Jim Crow era in the American South. Reared by parents who were prominent educators and devout Christians, young Price’s destiny as a future educator and…

Born in Maury County on April 1, 1900, James Percy Priest went to county public schools before attending classes at the teacher's college in Murfreesboro (now Middle Tennessee State University), George Peabody College for Teachers, and the University of Tennessee…

The Proffitt’s department store chain was started by D. W. Proffitt in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1919. Son Harwell Proffitt opened another Proffitt’s in Athens in 1965, and the first Knoxville location opened in West Town Mall in 1972. The Proffitt…

First settled by freedmen during Reconstruction, the community of Promise Land, north of Charlotte in Dickson County, sheltered its residents from the Jim Crow South, offering them protection from the strife and bigotry surrounding them. At Promise Land, freedmen were…

Wyatt Prunty is the author of six collections of poetry: The Times Between (1982), What Women Know, What Men Believe (1986), Balance as Belief (1989), The Run of the House (1993), Since the Noon Mail Stopped (1997), and Unarmed and…

Organized with funds from the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 1933, the Public Works Administration (PWA) was one of the New Deal's several attempts to revive the nation's depression-ridden economy. Designed to provide unemployed workers with wages as well…

In 1875 Mark Twain published "Journalism in Tennessee," a delightful sketch about his experiences as associate editor of a newspaper called the Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop. He had come south, he said, to improve his health, but soon…

Since early statehood, Tennessee has maintained a reputation for producing esteemed purebred horses of various breeds and racing traditions. During the nineteenth century, Tennessee dominated thoroughbred racing in the United States. The pedigreed thoroughbred stallions were crossed on local pacing…

The only remaining dairy in Davidson County, Purity Dairy was established in 1926 as Ezell's Dairy by Miles Ezell Sr. with eighty rented cows, a rented farm, and rented equipment. With quality products, hard work, and tenacity, the Ezells transformed…

Immortalized by three screen portrayals of his career, Walking Tall (1973), Walking Tall II (1976), and Walking Tall III: The Final Chapter (1977), McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser earned a reputation as a hard-nosed, no nonsense law officer who settled…

The Tennessee General Assembly first created Putnam County in 1842 from Jackson, Overton, Fentress, and White Counties, but an 1844 injunction charged that it violated state constitutional requirements. In 1854 the general assembly reestablished the county, although it was harried…

In 1963 East Tennessee State University President Burgin E. Dossett, Dean John P. Lamb, Charles E. Allen, M.D., and various civic leaders and legislators called attention to the need for a regional health center in Upper East Tennessee. When Dossett…

When Republican Congressman James H. Quillen decided not to seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's First Congressional District in 1996, he ended more than thirty years of uninterrupted congressional service, a record in Tennessee political history.…

Quiltmaking has been a form of needlework enjoyed by generations of Tennessee women--and men--from the first settlers' arrival to the present day. The earliest quilts, made when fabric was scarce and expensive, graced the homes of affluent families. Blankets, bed…