Thematic Essay

The manufacturing of pottery has occurred throughout Tennessee during much of its history, but records are nonexistent until the 1820 manufacturing census, which listed eight potteries, all in East Tennessee. Isaac Hart and John Mathorn (later Mottern) produced earthenware in…

In 1979 a caver exploring a narrow subterranean passageway in southeastern Tennessee noticed scratches and lines in mudbanks that lined the cave walls. He reported the marks to Charles Faulkner of the University of Tennessee, who identified them as prehistoric…

Art in its broadest definition is patterned application of human skill that evokes a feeling of aesthetic sensibility. As such, art is a universal of human culture and can be traced archaeologically to at least forty thousand years ago. Art…

More than seven thousand deep caves have been recorded throughout Tennessee. Concentrated in the limestone uplands of Middle and East Tennessee, these karsts extend from the Mammoth Cave area of central Kentucky through Tennessee into northern Alabama, and they represent…

In 1875 Mark Twain published "Journalism in Tennessee," a delightful sketch about his experiences as associate editor of a newspaper called the Morning Glory and Johnson County War-Whoop. He had come south, he said, to improve his health, but soon…

Quiltmaking has been a form of needlework enjoyed by generations of Tennessee women--and men--from the first settlers' arrival to the present day. The earliest quilts, made when fabric was scarce and expensive, graced the homes of affluent families. Blankets, bed…

Tennesseans considered railroads as early as 1827, when a rail connection between the Hiwassee and Coosa Rivers was proposed. The general assembly granted six charters in 1831 for railroad construction, but these early efforts failed when financial support did not…

In the immediate aftermath of Confederate defeat, northerners and southerners alike widely recognized two clear-cut consequences of the Federal victory in the Civil War. First, the Union had been preserved and the right of secession as a legitimate expression of…

Religion is a word that almost defies any consensual definition. Most people reflect some of their own religious beliefs, or at least those of their own culture, in defining religion. Thus, those from the Semitic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) tend…

Before the steamboat, Tennesseans navigated the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers and their tributaries in canoes, keelboats, flatboats, and rafts. The original Tennessee rivermen were Cherokees, Shawnees, and other Indians paddling their sleek wooden dugout canoes and cruder "bullboats" (made…

The years between 1945 and 1960 represented the South's greatest period of upheaval in the twentieth century. In music, this period of transformation focused on what popular music observers identify as the rock-n-roll revolution, with the term "rockabilly" representing the…

The area along the Kentucky-Tennessee border including Clay County, Tennessee, and Monroe County, Kentucky, maintains a remarkable marble-playing tradition focused on a game known locally as "rolley hole," "three holes," or simply "marbles." In this region, rolley hole is played…

Rowing, sometimes called crew, was America's first professional sport. Even today, the single largest sporting event in America is a rowing race. It is no wonder, with Tennessee's network of rivers and lakes, that crew is a popular pastime. Tennessee…

The history of science and technology in Tennessee dates to the early settlement era when explorers recognized the geological and botanical diversity of the state. Soon after the initial tasks associated with homesteading were completed, a survey of the mapping…

At the end of the nineteenth century no universally accepted standards or requirements for any level of education existed in the South. Defeated in the Civil War and their economies devastated, the southern states had little monies to expend on…

Shape-note singing, a predominantly rural, Protestant, Anglo-American music tradition, involves singing from hymnals or "tunebooks" having shaped notes (aka "character notes," "buckwheat notes," or "patent notes") as opposed to the standard "round notes." Shape-note singing is rooted in the Singing…

Technically defined, sharecropping is a land and labor arrangement whereby an individual or family receives a stipulated proportion of the crops produced on a particular plot of land in return for their labor on that same plot. The legal status…

Of all historical housing forms found in Tennessee, the shotgun house is perhaps the least understood and most burdened with confusion and misconceptions. The shotgun sometimes represented the worst evidence of the treatment of the impoverished and, therefore, was viewed…

For a short time in the antebellum period, many Tennessee farmers pursued what they thought would be a promising commercial opportunity in the production of silk. Fueling their optimism were discoveries in the 1830s that silkworms thrived on the native…

For many years it was assumed that there were few silversmiths in Tennessee because of its rural character and remoteness. However, early newspapers and available censuses reveal the existence of at least 535 silversmiths and allied craftsmen who worked in…