Institution

The Tennessee Daughters of the American Revolution are represented in Washington, D.C., by the Tennessee Room of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Museum. It is located in Memorial Continental Hall, a National Historic Landmark constructed between 1904 and…

In 1998 the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Act celebrated its thirtieth anniversary. The Tennessee program, a pioneering effort, was the second state river conservation program in the nation (Wisconsin was the first, but Tennessee's program was the more comprehensive). The Scenic…

In 1925 a group of high school administrators attending a meeting of the Tennessee State Teachers' Association in Nashville organized the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA). Commonly known as TSSAA, the Association exists "to stimulate and regulate the athletic…

Robert Latendresse began Tennessee Shell Company in Camden in 1954 to ship Tennessee mollusk shells to Japan. There the shells were cut, ground into round beads, and inserted by Japanese pearl farmers into mollusks in Japan's waters to be the…

The Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) collects and preserves books and records of historical, documentary, and reference value and encourages and promotes library development throughout the state. It is the state agency responsible for preserving materials which document Tennessee's…

The Tennessee State Museum is devoted to collecting, preserving, and interpreting objects related to the history and culture of Tennessee. These items generally are conserved and displayed at the museum's main facility at the James K. Polk Center in downtown…

Interest in the construction of a penitentiary dates back to 1815, when a state Senate committee recommended construction of the structure using funds obtained through public subscription. This effort failed, and political infighting in the general assembly over the penitentiary…

Tennessee is divided into thirty-three state senatorial districts from which the members of the upper house of the Tennessee General Assembly are elected. Senators serve four-year terms, with those from even-numbered districts being elected in the same general election, and…

Opened in 1912, Tennessee State University (TSU) has become one of Tennessee's most recognized public higher education institutions, both nationally and internationally. Its athletes, including Ralph Boston, Wyomia Tyus, and Wilma G. Rudolph, have won twenty-nine medals in the Olympic…

Tennessee's first constitution did not create a state supreme court. The Constitution of 1796 provided only for "such superior and inferior courts" as the legislature should create, with the judges to be elected by the general assembly to serve "during…

In 1915, following an intense lobbying effort on the part of Putnam County's state representatives, the general assembly chartered Tennessee Polytechnic Institute (TPI), located on the grounds of Dixie College in Cookeville. Established in 1909 by the Church of Christ,…

Previously established in Houston, Texas, as the Houston Oilers, the Tennessee Titans, the first National Football League (NFL) team to be based in Tennessee, secured a move to Nashville in 1996 after reaching an agreement with the city that included,…

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is an independent public corporation founded by Congress in 1933 to control flooding, improve navigation, assist farmers, provide cheap electric power, and make "surveys of and general plans for [the Tennessee River] basin and adjoining…

The Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls opened in Nashville on October 9, 1923. Prior to its opening, the state confined African American girls who needed correctional services in institutions with convicted adults. In opposition to this practice, Frankie Pierce,…

The institution now known as Tennessee Wesleyan College was established in 1857, when the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South acquired the property of the Athens Female College, chartered in 1854 by the Order of Odd Fellows. The…

Created in 1974 through a reorganization of the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Commission (TWRA) is the latest of several attempts by the State of Tennessee to protect adequately native and game animals. Initial…

Under construction from 1972 to 1985 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway is a 234-mile thoroughfare extending from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama. It links commercial…

An archive is a repository for an organized body of records produced or received by a public, semipublic, institutional, or business entity in the transaction of its affairs and preserved by it, or its successors. The development of the archives…

The Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO) was the largest private-sector electrical power monopoly in Tennessee's early twentieth-century history. It was formed on May 27, 1922, when the Tennessee Power Company, Chattanooga Railway & Light, and the Chattanooga, and Tennessee River…

The Tennessee Emergency Relief Administration (TERA) was an important early New Deal agency in Tennessee. Shortly after the inauguration of President Franklin Roosevelt, Congress passed the Federal Emergency Relief Act on May 12, 1933, and its implementation began on May…