People

Samuel A. Stritch, Roman Catholic prelate, was born in Nashville on August 17, 1887, the son of Irish immigrants. Having chosen to enter the priesthood, Stritch was ordained in Rome on May 21, 1910, at the age of nineteen. Returning…

Pat Summitt, women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has produced an enviable record of success both on and off the court. Born in Henrietta on June 14, 1952, she attended and graduated from Cheatham County High School…

Governor of Tennessee since 1995, Don Sundquist was born March 15, 1936, and was the first member of his family to finish high school and attend college. He graduated from Augustana College and then served two years in the U.S.…

A professor of physiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 1963 to 1973, Earl W. Sutherland Jr. was the first scientist from a southern university to win a Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Many observers considered the conferring of…

In 1848 Knox County's "Swiss Colony" began when Rev. Adrien Chavannes and his family settled on a 275-acre farm four miles north of Knoxville. During the next sixty-five years over seventy-five families settled in the Knoxville area, engaging in various…

Thomas Washington Talley, chemistry professor at Fisk University and pioneer African American folklorist, was born on October 9, 1870, in Shelbyville, Tennessee. One of nine surviving children born to former Mississippi slaves Charles Washington and Lucinda Talley, Thomas grew up…

Born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1787, Wilkins Tannehill came to Nashville in 1808; he was involved in politics, intellectual pursuits, Masonic activities, journalism, and publishing in the city for the rest of his life. Tannehill's political interests led him to…

Allen Tate, teacher, writer, poet, and critic, was associated with Tennessee for most of his life and lived in the state for long periods, especially during his college years at Vanderbilt University (1918-23) and during his last years in Nashville…

Governor and U.S. Congressman Alfred A. Taylor was born in Happy Valley, Carter County, August 6, 1848, the second son of Emma Haynes and Nathaniel Green Taylor. His father was a farmer, Methodist minister, twice First District U.S. representative, and…

Antoinette Elizabeth Taylor, historian, was the first scholar to study woman suffrage in the South. Born on June 10, 1917, in Columbus, Georgia, she received a B.A. from the University of Georgia in 1938 and an M.A. from the University…

Oak Ridge chemist and administrator since 1945, Ellison H. Taylor was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1913 and studied physical chemistry at Cornell and Princeton, earning his Ph.D. in 1937. After teaching chemistry at Utah and Cornell, in 1942 he…

One of the most esteemed American writers of short stories in the twentieth century, Peter Taylor was born January 8, 1917, in Trenton to a notable political family. His maternal grandfather Robert Love "Bob" Taylor, a Democrat, served three terms…

African American businessman and religious leader Preston Taylor was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on November 7, 1849, of slave parents. Taylor served as a drummer boy in the Union army during the siege of Richmond, Virginia. After the Civil War,…

Robert L. Taylor, three-term governor and one-term U.S. senator, was born into a political family in Carter County, July 31, 1850. At the time, his uncle Landon Carter Haynes, a Democrat, was serving as Speaker of the Tennessee House of…

In both television and the movies, Tennessee performers have enjoyed distinguished careers, as evident in this volume's individual entries for Clarence Brown, Archie Campbell, Fred Coe, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Delbert Mann, Patricia Neal, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Dinah Shore, and…

TSU Tigerbelles track coach Ed Temple is Tennessee's most honored and accomplished track and field coach. His famous Tigerbelles Women's Track Club of Tennessee State University (TSU) won twenty-three gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals, thirty-four national team titles, and…

Oliver Perry Temple, author, East Tennessee economic promoter, and trustee of the University of Tennessee, was born on January 27, 1820, near Greeneville. An 1844 graduate of Washington College in Washington County, Temple studied law and gained admittance to the…

John Marks Templeton, financial executive, investor, and philanthropist, was born in Winchester on November 29, 1912, the son of Harvey and Vella Handly Templeton. He graduated from Yale University in 1934 and from Oxford University in 1936, where he studied…

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 inspired at least four or five thousand young Tennesseans to cross the country. Many of them, rejected for service in the Mexican War because of the overabundance of volunteers, saw this as…

Founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896, Mary Church Terrell was one of the leading twentieth-century African American women activists. For more than sixty-six years, she was an ardent champion of racial and gender equality. Born…