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In the early 1880s Westin A. Goodspeed, a successful Nashville-based publisher, discovered that volumes combining local history, biography, and state historical records had sold well in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and several other northern states. In the South, except for…

Twentieth-century novelist Caroline Gordon was born into the Kentucky line of the extensive Meriwether family in 1895. Exploration of the family's past and its evolution is a major theme of her fiction. She grew up at Merry Mont in Todd…

Francis H. Gordon, pioneer in scientific agriculture, was born in Gordonsville, Smith County, on August 6, 1804. Though he rarely left Smith County, he exerted a lasting influence on Tennessee antebellum agriculture. In 1830 he joined a group that organized…

Albert A. Gore Jr., forty-fifth vice-president of the United States, was born on March 31, 1948 to former congressman and U.S. senator Albert A. Gore and Pauline LaFon Gore. He attended St. Albans Episcopal School for Boys in Washington, D.C.,…

Albert A. Gore Sr., congressman and U.S. senator, was born in Jackson County on December 26, 1907, the son of Allen and Margie Denny Gore. Raised on a farm, Gore witnessed the loss of his family's entire financial resources during…

Frank C. Gorrell was a leader of the state Democratic Party for more than thirty years and served as lieutenant governor of Tennessee from 1967 to 1971. Born in Russellville, Kentucky, in 1928 to Lilburn D. and Vandelia Strudwick Gorrell,…

Government, in the basic sense of a structure or system for management of a group or geographic region, has a long history in the state. Archaeological studies of habitation sites of prehistoric Native Americans give intriguing hints of political and…

Elvis Presley's Graceland ranks with Mount Vernon and Monticello as the most popular of American house museums. Though this may startle many and outrage some, the heavy visitation these three sites annually receive is the result of a similar confluence…

Grainger County holds the distinction as the only Tennessee county named for a woman, Mary Grainger Blount, the wife of Territorial Governor William Blount. The state legislature formed the county in 1796 from parts of Hawkins and Knox Counties, and…

This Tennessee Supreme Court decision addressed one of the most controversial homicide cases of the nineteenth century. The case involved a conflict between two men--Grainger and Broach--who had been drinking at a tavern. The two parted on seemingly good terms,…

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was the preeminent national organization for Union veterans. Founded in Springfield, Illinois, by physician Benjamin F. Stephenson in the spring of 1866, the GAR quickly organized posts within ten states and the District…

No mass media event has been more associated with the state of Tennessee than the WSM radio program called the Grand Ole Opry. Not only is it the longest-running radio show in U.S. history, but it has become the cornerstone…

Amy Grant has done more than blaze a trail for contemporary Christian music. Her later crossover and pop-rock albums determined the dialogue within evangelical popular music about what constitutes “Christian music.” She has been both the darling of the Christian…

James R. Graves, Southern Baptist preacher, editor, and publisher, was the dominant leader of Landmarkism, a movement whose advocates asserted the sole validity and unbroken succession of Baptist churches from the New Testament era. Born into a Congregational family in…

One of the crown jewels of the national park system, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park--the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi River--covers over 500,000 acres of scenic beauty. The area includes highland meadows, waterfalls, clear mountain streams, several…

Nathan Green, noted Tennessee Supreme Court judge, was born on May 16, 1792, in Amelia County, Virginia, the son of planter Thomas Green. The young Green left his home state and relocated to Tennessee, settling first in Winchester and later…

Greene County lies in the Great Valley of Tennessee in the northeast corner of the state. Its valleys are enriched by the disintegrated limestone that lies below them. Bays Mountain, one of the three sets of high ridges that run…

Reverend Sutton E. Griggs, minister, writer, and community leader, was born in Chatfield, Texas, in 1882. He was the son of Allen R. Griggs, a former slave and Baptist minister. He attended public schools in Dallas, Texas, before attending Bishop…

Born in Nashville in 1937, Red Grooms emerged in the 1960s to become one of the most important figures in the world of contemporary American art. He has captivated audiences with a creative genius that has expressed itself through a…

Edwin Wiley Grove became one of the South’s leading entrepreneurs by using ingenuity and vision typical of New South business tycoons. Grove was born in Whiteville, Hardeman County, in 1850. At the age of twenty-four, he moved from southwest Tennessee…