Culture

An independent philanthropic organization, the Frist Foundation was established in Nashville in 1982 as the HCA Foundation by the Hospital Corporation of America. In April 1997 the foundation changed its name to the Frist Foundation in honor of its founding…

This invaluable collection dates to 1907, when Gates P. Thruston (1835-1912) donated his collection of prehistoric Native American artifacts to Vanderbilt University. Containing about one thousand objects, the collection remains a peerless assemblage of prehistoric Native American art from the…

Homecoming '86 was a year-long celebration in almost every Tennessee community. The focus of the event, according to state officials, was to be "part hoe-down, part history lesson and part homecoming celebration." Many communities put into place organizations that continued…

Chattanooga businessman and philanthropist George Thomas Hunter was the nephew of pioneer Coca-Cola bottler Benjamin Franklin Thomas. A native of Maysville, Kentucky, Hunter joined his childless uncle and aunt in Chattanooga in 1904, becoming a surrogate son and business heir.…

Although Tennessee libraries developed slowly from early statehood until the twentieth century, early Tennesseans placed a high value on their collections of books. Given the demands of frontier life and the relatively high cost of books, it is not surprising…

The Chattanooga-based Lyndhurst Foundation was organized in 1978 by Coca-Cola Bottling heir John T. (Jack) Lupton II and family following the death of his parents, Thomas Cartter Lupton and Margaret Rawlings Lupton. Named for the former Lupton family estate in…

Dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the natural and cultural history of the Lower Mississippi River Valley, a region that stretches from Cairo, Illinois, to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River Museum is situated on a fifty-two-acre park…

The late prehistoric cultures of the southeastern United States dating from ca. A.D. 900 to 1600 comprise the Mississippian culture. In general, Mississippian culture is divided chronologically into emergent, early, and late periods. Based on differences in culture traits, particularly…

In 1882 a group of Tennessee Sunday school workers organized an assembly patterned after that in Chautauqua, New York, which had been founded in 1873 to train Sunday School teachers during the summer. That fall, a site selection committee accepted…

Located near the town of Norris in Anderson County, the Museum of Appalachia contains the state's best collection of historic buildings, artifacts, and folk art associated with the diverse cultures of Appalachia. Established by John Rice Irwin, the museum is…

The fabled Music Row in Nashville forms a rectangle between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Avenues South and Division and Grand Streets. While tourists may be surprised to find that its outward appearance resembles a neighborhood punctuated by a few corporate office…

The South was considered a cultural backwater in the 1920s. It lagged behind the rest of the nation economically, and there was scant opportunity to enjoy the arts. There were no important museums, symphonies, galleries, or opera companies. Nashville prospered…

The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded in Nashville on September 10, 1894, and Nashville No. 1 became the first chapter to apply for membership, thus earning the coveted designation of the "mother chapter." The local unit was…

Located at the former site of the Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street in Memphis, the National Civil Rights Museum is the state's preeminent museum dedicated to the history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States from the…

What began as a small gathering of Appalachian storytellers has evolved over a generation into one of the nation's premier gatherings of storytellers. The National Storytelling Festival, held every October in Jonesborough, is the most prestigious storytelling festival in the…

Born in Nashville, Anne Champe Orr became widely known at home and abroad for the published needlework patterns she began producing in 1915. A lifelong resident of Nashville, she studied with Nashville artist Sara Ward Conley, also briefly pursuing her…

The first women's club in Knoxville and in Tennessee and the first club in the South to join the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Ossoli Circle was organized on November 20, 1885, when Lizzie Crozier French called twelve other women…

We do not know exactly when the first people entered the "New World" from Asia. However, we do have confidence that they had reached what is now Tennessee at the end of the last Ice Age (the Pleistocene) some 13,000…

A group of black women, wives of prominent black leaders in Nashville's church, business, and professional arenas, organized the Phillis Wheatley Club in 1895. The club, established its headquarters at the AME Publishing House on the public square in Nashville,…

The area of North Memphis commonly known as the “Pinch District” has played an important role in local immigration since the early nineteenth century. The city’s first business district, the Pinch encompassed all of Memphis north of Adams Street. Although…