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Pottery
The manufacturing of pottery has occurred throughout Tennessee during much of its history, but records are nonexistent until the 1820 manufacturing census, which listed eight potteries, all in East Te... Continue Reading »
Prehistoric Cave Art
In 1979 a caver exploring a narrow subterranean passageway in southeastern Tennessee noticed scratches and lines in mudbanks that lined the cave walls. He reported the marks to Charles Faulkner of the... Continue Reading »
Prehistoric Native American Art
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 t... Continue Reading »
Prehistoric Use of Caves
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 centr... Continue Reading »
Publishing
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 ... Continue Reading »
Quiltmaking
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... Continue Reading »
Railroads
Tennesseans considered railroads as early as 1827, when a rail connection between the Hiwassee and Coosa Rivers was proposed. The general assembly granted six charters in 1831 for railroad constructio... Continue Reading »
Reconstruction
In the immediate aftermath of Confederate defeat, northerners and southerners alike widely recognized two clear-cut consequences of the Federal victory in the Civil War. First, the Union had been pres... Continue Reading »
Religion
Religion is a word that almost defies any consensual definition. Most people reflect some of their own religious beliefs, or at least those of their own culture, in defining religion. Thus, those from... Continue Reading »
River Transportation
Before the steamboat, Tennesseans navigated the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers and their tributaries in canoes, keelboats, flatboats, and rafts. The original Tennessee rivermen were Che... Continue Reading »
Rockabilly Music
The years between 1945 and 1960 represented the South's greatest period of upheaval in the twentieth century. In music, this period of transformation focused on what popular music observers ident... Continue Reading »
Rolley Hole Marbles
The area along the Kentucky-Tennessee border including Clay County, Tennessee, and Monroe County, Kentucky, maintains a remarkable marble-playing tradition focused on a game known locally as "rol... Continue Reading »
Rowing
Rowing, sometimes called crew, was America's first professional sport. Even today, the single largest sporting event in America is a rowing race. It is no wonder, with Tennessee's network of... Continue Reading »
Science and Technology
The history of science and technology in Tennessee dates to the early settlement era when explorers recognized the geological and botanical diversity of the state. Soon after the initial tasks associa... Continue Reading »
Settlement Schools
At the end of the nineteenth century no universally accepted standards or requirements for any level of education existed in the South. Defeated in the Civil War and their economies devastated, the so... Continue Reading »
Shape-Note Singing
Shape-note singing, a predominantly rural, Protestant, Anglo-American music tradition, involves singing from hymnals or "tunebooks" having shaped notes (aka "character notes," &quo... Continue Reading »
Sharecropping
Technically defined, sharecropping is a land and labor arrangement whereby an individual or family receives a stipulated proportion of the crops produced on a particular plot of land in return for the... Continue Reading »
Shotgun Houses
Of all historical housing forms found in Tennessee, the shotgun house is perhaps the least understood and most burdened with confusion and misconceptions. The shotgun sometimes represented the worst e... Continue Reading »
Silk
For a short time in the antebellum period, many Tennessee farmers pursued what they thought would be a promising commercial opportunity in the production of silk. Fueling their optimism were discoveri... Continue Reading »
Silversmiths
For many years it was assumed that there were few silversmiths in Tennessee because of its rural character and remoteness. However, early newspapers and available censuses reveal the existence of at l... Continue Reading »