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Ralph E. W. Earl, portraitist, was the son of Connecticut painter Ralph Earl (1751-1801) and his second wife, Anne Whiteside of Norwich, England. Born in England, Earl studied under his father in Northhampton, Massachusetts, before traveling to London in 1809…

The first explorations by Europeans in what is now Tennessee took place in 1540, when a Spanish expedition under the command of Hernando de Soto entered the region from the southeast. Soto had set out from Florida the year before…

Long before Tennessee became famous for the Tennessee Walking Horse in the mid-1900s, the state was known throughout the country as the center for thoroughbred horses. For most of the nineteenth century, Tennessee, not Kentucky, was acknowledged as the center…

For early houses in Tennessee, three house plans were common: the central passage plan, the hall-parlor plan, and the Penn-plan. The central passage plan, also called an I-house by cultural geographers, is a house with two rooms on either side…

Between mid-December 1811 and mid-March 1812 a series of catastrophic earthquakes shook West Tennessee and the rest of the Central Mississippi Valley. Judging from reports and eyewitness accounts, the quakes would have measured among the highest ever recorded on the…

Prominent Knoxville civic leaders established the East Tennessee Historical Society in 1834. These individuals included Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey, who served as perpetual recording secretary, and Judge William B. Reese, who was elected the first president. According to Ramsey,…

One of Chattanooga's earliest industrial ventures, the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company was a seminal force in the industrial development of the city and its surrounding area. Incorporated by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1847, the company benefited from the…

Located in Johnson City, East Tennessee State University evolved from East Tennessee State Normal School, which enrolled the first students in October 1911. In 1900 Tennesseans found their public schools in poor condition. State law required a minimum of one…

When Andrew Jackson became president of the United States in 1829, he chose John Henry Eaton, his biographer, leading political adviser, and Tennessee friend, to be secretary of war. Just a few months earlier, Eaton had married Margaret "Peggy" O'Neale…

Born into a prominent family, John Henry Eaton was the son of John and Elizabeth Eaton. His father, a chaise maker, was county coroner, a member of the state assembly, and the owner of five thousand acres of land in…

Born to William O'Neale, the owner of a Washington boarding house and his wife Rhoda, the young Margaret and her five brothers and sisters were well known in political Washington. Leading congressmen and senators stayed at the O'Neale establishment (later…

Tennessee is an Upper South state approximately 432 miles long and 112 miles wide, constituting 42,244 square miles, with elevations ranging from peaks of over 6,000 feet to sea level, containing a wide variety of natural and human environments. A…

Headquartered in DeKalb County along Center Hill Lake, Edgar Evins State Park contains about 6,000 acres. The park is named in honor of state senator and Smithville civic capitalist James Edgar Evins, who was also the father of noted U.S.…

John Emmett Edgerton was an industrialist who gained prominence as the president of the National Association of Manufacturers from 1921 to 1931. Born in North Carolina on October 2, 1879, he moved to Lebanon, Tennessee, to join his older brother,…

Belle Edmondson, Confederate smuggler, was born in Mississippi. On the eve of the Civil War her family moved to a Shelby County farm on Holly Ford Road (now Airways Boulevard), about three miles from the Mississippi border and eight miles…

Few folk artists can claim the widespread recognition by the world of fine art that William Edmondson achieved during his lifetime. The first African American artist to have a one-man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Edmondson continues to…

From Tennessee's earliest beginnings, the state's inhabitants have expressed concern about the education of their children. In fact, even before Tennessee became a state, residents established private educational institutions. Despite these private efforts, however, the state's first constitution in 1796…

On March 12, 1929, Margaret Bowen, a worker at American Glanzstoff, led a walkout of 523 women operatives. After other shifts joined the walkout the next day, the plant closed on March 14. Four days later Bemberg workers struck in…

Buford Ellington, governor of Tennessee from 1959-63 and 1967-71, alternated power both times with uncertain ally Frank Clement. The differences between Ellington's first and second stints as chief executive, especially in terms of the South's ageless political issue of race,…

Sarah Barnwell Elliott, novelist, short story writer, and advocate of women's rights, was born in Savannah, Georgia, the daughter of Stephen Elliott, a bishop of the Episcopal Church who was a leader in the founding of the University of the…