Politics

The Agricultural Wheel in Tennessee traced its origins to a February 1882 meeting of seven disgruntled farmers in Prairie County, Arkansas. Concerned over continuing depressed farm prices and mounting agricultural debt, the founding farmers named their organization the Agricultural Wheel…

Lamar Alexander, governor, university president, and U.S. secretary of education, was born on July 3, 1940, in Blount County. His parents were teachers in Maryville, and Alexander attended public schools there. Active in the Boy Scouts as a youngster, Alexander…

David Allison, backcountry lawyer, political operative, and land speculator, was an agent for the Blount brothers, especially William Blount, Tennessee's first territorial governor. Allison's date of birth and exact birthplace (he was apparently from North Carolina) are unknown, but he…

AASLH is a not-for-profit professional organization of individuals and institutions working to preserve and promote history. Its roots stem from the early Conference of State and Local Historical Societies formed at the 1904 annual meeting of the American Historical Association…

The Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greeneville honors the life and work of the nation's seventeenth president and preserves his two homes, tailor shop, and grave site. The National Park Service administers the site, which includes a visitor center…

In the 1960s, much of the Appalachian region lagged behind the rest of the nation in income, educational attainment, access to health care, and efficient transportation. The Council of Appalachian Governors, an ad hoc group of nine governors of the…

Reconstruction legislator and congressman Samuel M. Arnell was born at Zion Settlement in Maury County on May 3, 1833. After attending Amherst College, Arnell returned to Tennessee, studied law, and practiced in Columbia. Although a slaveholder, Arnell sided with the…

Officially, the "Battle of Athens" in McMinn County began and ended on August 1, 1946. Following a heated competition for local offices, veterans in the insurgent GI Non-Partisan League took up arms to prevent a local courthouse ring headed by…

Attakullakulla was a powerful eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee leader who played a critical and decisive role in shaping diplomatic, trade, and military relationships with the British Colonial governments of South Carolina and Virginia for over fifty years. He effectively led and…

Howard H. Baker Jr., U.S. senator, Senate minority leader and majority leader, and White House chief of staff, was born in Huntsville in Scott County on November 15, 1925, the son of future congressman Howard Baker Sr. and his wife…

Republican Congressman Howard H. Baker Sr. was born in Somerset, Kentucky, in 1902, the son of James F. and Helen K. Baker. The Baker family had been prominent in Appalachian history for generations. Baker's grandfather, George Washington Baker, was an…

Paul W. Barret, banker, merchant, planter, businessman, and political and civic leader, was closely connected with the economic progress and government of Shelby County from the 1920s through the 1970s. Paul W. Barret Parkway, a controlled-access highway named for him,…

George W. Barrow, U.S. and Confederate diplomat, editor, soldier, and statesman, was born in Nashville on May 10, 1808, to Wylie Barrow and Ann Beck, his father's second wife. Barrow spent a privileged and comfortable youth at the family home…

William B. Bate, lawyer, Confederate general, governor, and U.S. senator, was born at Castalian Springs in Sumner County on October 7, 1826, the son of James H. Bate and Anna Weathered Bate. His education was limited to a few years…

John Bell was one of antebellum Tennessee's most prominent politicians and an acknowledged leader of the state's Whig Party. The son of a farmer and blacksmith, Bell was born in Davidson County and graduated from Cumberland College in 1814. After…

Thomas Hart Benton, the famous Missouri senator, spent fifteen of his most formative years as a resident of Williamson County. It was here that he was admitted to the bar and elected to his first political office. Benton was born…

George L. Berry was president of the Tennessee-based International Pressmen's and Assistants Union (1907-48), a prominent labor leader and advisor who served on several New Deal labor committees during the 1930s, and U.S. senator from Tennessee (1937-38). Born in Lee…

Mary Frances Berry, a leading historian, civil rights advocate, legal scholar, and human rights advocate, was born in Nashville. After enduring an impoverished childhood, Berry received a Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Michigan. During the 1960s and 1970s…

As Hollywood produced some of its best films and secured its place internationally as the mecca of movie-making, the Memphis Board of Censors gained nationwide notoriety for its draconian brand of censorship. Founded in 1911 by Mayor E. H. Crump,…

During the first decade of the twentieth century, violence erupted in the tobacco belt of western Kentucky and northern Middle Tennessee as farmers tried to ease their economic distress. Collectively, these acts of violence became known as the Black Patch…