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State of Tennessee
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Volunteer State
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Agriculture and commerce
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Nashville
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English
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Memphis
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Nashville Metropolitan Area
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Phil Bredesen (D)
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Lamar Alexander (R)<br/> Bob Corker (R)
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TN
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Tenn
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42,169
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109,247
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41,243
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106,846
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926
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5,689,283
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1380 <!-- quickfactscensusgov -->
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5329
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June 1 , 1796
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East Tennessee
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Middle and West
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US-TN
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(. The capital city is
Nashville .
Tennessee lies adjacent to eight other states:
Kentucky and
Virginia to the north;
North Carolina to the east;
Georgia ,
Alabama and
Mississippi on the south; and
Arkansas and
Missouri on the
Mississippi River to the west. Tennessee ties Missouri as the states bordering the most other states. The state is trisected by the
Tennessee River . The highest point in the state is the peak of
Clingmans Dome at 6,643 feet (2,025 m), which lies on Tennessee's eastern border, and is the highest point on the
Appalachian Trail . The lowest point is the Mississippi River at the Mississippi state line. The geographical center of the state is located in
Murfreesboro on Old Lascassas Pike (just down the road from
Middle Tennessee State University ) and is marked by a roadside monument.
The state of Tennessee is geographically and constitutionally divided into three ,
Middle Tennessee , and
West Tennessee .
Tennessee features six principal physiographic regions: the
Blue Ridge , the
Appalachian Ridge And Valley Region, the
Cumberland Plateau , the
Highland Rim , the
Nashville Basin , and the
Gulf Coastal Plain .
''See also:
List Of Tennessee Counties ''
The
Blue Ridge area lies on the eastern edge of Tennessee, bordering North Carolina. This region of Tennessee is characterized by high mountains, including the
Great Smoky Mountains , the Chilhowee Mountains, the
Unicoi Range , and the
Iron Mountains Range . The average elevation of the Blue Ridge area is 5,000 feet (1,500 m) above sea level.
Clingman's Dome is located in this region.
Stretching west from the Blue Ridge for approximately 55
Mile s (88 km) is the Ridge and Valley region, in which numerous tributaries join to form the Tennessee River in the
Tennessee Valley . This area of Tennessee is covered by fertile
Valley s separated by wooded ridges, such as
Bays Mountain and
Clinch Mountain . The western section of the Tennessee valley, where the depressions become broader and the ridges become lower, is called the
Great Valley . In this valley are numerous towns and the region's two urban areas,
Knoxville , and
Chattanooga .
To the west of East Tennessee lies the
Cumberland Plateau . This area is covered with flat-topped mountains separated by sharp valleys. The elevation of the Cumberland Plateau ranges from 1,500 to 1,800 feet (450 to 550 m) above sea level.
To the west of the Cumberland Plateau is the
Highland Rim , an elevated plain that surrounds the
Nashville Basin . The northern section of the Highland Rim, known for its high tobacco production, is sometimes called the
Pennyroyal Plateau and is located in primarily in Southwestern Kentucky. The Nashville Basin is characterized by rich, fertile farm country and high natural wildlife diversity.
Many biologists study the area's salamander species because the diversity is greater there than anywhere else in the U.S. This is thought to be because of the clean
Appalachian foothill springs that abound in the area. Some of the last remaining large
American Chestnut trees still grow in this region and are being used to help breed
Blight resistant trees. Middle Tennessee was a common destination of settlers crossing the Appalachians in the late 1700s and early 1800s. An important trading route called the
Natchez Trace connected Middle Tennessee to the lower Mississippi River town of
Natchez . Today the route of the Natchez Trace is a scenic highway called the
Natchez Trace Parkway .
West of the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin is the
Gulf Coastal Plain , which includes the
Mississippi Embayment . The Gulf Coastal Plain is, in terms of area, the predominant land region in Tennessee. It is part of the large geographic land area that begins at the
Gulf Of Mexico and extends north into southern
Illinois . In Tennessee, the Gulf Coastal Plain is divided into three sections that extend from the Tennessee River in the east to the
Mississippi River in the west. The easternmost section consists of hilly land that runs along the western bank of the Tennessee River. This section of the Gulf Coastal Plain is about 10 miles (16 km) wide. To the west of this narrow strip of land is a wide area of rolling hills and streams that stretches all the way to
Memphis . This area is called the Tennessee Bottoms or bottom land. In Memphis, the Tennessee Bottoms end in steep bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. To the west of the Tennessee Bottoms is the
Mississippi Alluvial Plain , less than 300 feet (90 m) above sea level. This area of lowlands, flood plains, and swamp land is sometimes referred to as
The Delta region.
Most of West Tennessee remained Indian land until the Chickasaw Cession of 1818, when the
Chickasaw ceded their land between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi River. The portion of the Chickasaw Cession that lies in Kentucky is known today as the
Jackson Purchase .
Areas under the control and management of the
National Park Service include:
Fifty-four state parks, covering some 13-2,000
Acre s (534
Km&2 ) as well as parts of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and
Cherokee National Forest , and
Cumberland Gap National Historical Park are in Tennessee. Sportsmen and visitors are attracted to
Reelfoot Lake , originally formed by an
Earthquake ; stumps and other remains of a once dense forest, together with the lotus bed covering the shallow waters, give the lake an eerie beauty.
''See also:
List Of Tennessee State Parks ''
Most of the state has a
Humid Subtropical Climate , with the exception of the higher mountains, which have a
Humid Continental Climate . The
Gulf Of Mexico is the dominant factor in the climate of Tennessee, with winds from the south being responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year. On average the state receives 50 inches (130 cm) of precipitation throughout the year. Snowfall ranges from 5 inches (13 cm) in West Tennessee to over 16 inches (41 cm) in the higher mountains in East Tennessee.
A look at Tennessee Agriculture . Agclassroom.org. Last accessed November 1, 2006.
Summers in the state are generally hot, with most of the state averaging a high of around 90 °F (32 °C) during the summer months. Summer nights tend to be cooler in East Tennessee. Winters tend to be mild to cool, increasing in coolness at higher elevations and in the east. Generally, for areas outside the highest mountains, the average overnight lows are near freezing for most of the state.
Tennessee does have its share of severe weather. While the state is far enough from the coast to avoid any direct impact from a are a more likely occurrence.
Fog is a persistent problem in parts of the state, especially in much of the Smoky Mountains.
See Also: History of Tennessee
The area now known as Tennessee was first settled by
Paleo-Indians nearly 11,000 years ago. The names of the cultural groups that inhabited the area between first settlement and the time of European contact are unknown, but several distinct cultural phases have been named by archaeologists, including
Archaic ,
Woodland , and
Mississippian , whose chiefdoms were the cultural predecessors of the
Muscogee People who inhabited the Tennessee River Valley prior to Cherokee migration into the river's headwaters.
When
Spanish Explorers first visited the area, led by
Hernando De Soto in 1539–43, it was inhabited by tribes of
Muscogee and
Yuchi people. Possibly because of European diseases devastating the Native tribes, which would have left a population vacuum, and also from expanding European settlement in the north, the
Cherokee moved south from the area now called Virginia. As European colonists spread into the area, the native populations were forcibly displaced to the south and west, including all Muscogee and Yuchi peoples, the
Chickasaw , and
Choctaw .
Early during the
American Revolutionary War , Fort Watauga at
Sycamore Shoals (in present day
Elizabethton ) was attacked in 1776 by
Dragging Canoe and his warring faction of Cherokee (also referred to by settlers as the
Chickamauga ) opposed to the
Transylvania Purchase and aligned with the British Loyalists. The lives of many settlers were spared through the warnings of Dragging Canoe's cousin
Nancy Ward . The frontier fort on the banks of the
Watauga River later served as a 1780 staging area for the
Overmountain Men in preparation to trek over the
Great Smoky Mountains , to engage, and to later defeat the British Army at the
Battle Of Kings Mountain in
North Carolina .
Eight counties of western
North Carolina (and now part of Tennessee) broke off from that state in the late 1780s and formed the abortive
State Of Franklin . Efforts to obtain admission to the Union failed, and the counties had re-joined North Carolina by 1790. In an effort to encourage settlers to move west into the new territory of Tennessee, in 1787 the mother state of North Carolina ordered a road to be cut to take settlers into the Cumberland Settlements—from the south end of
Clinch Mountain (in East Tennessee) to French Lick (
Nashville ). the Trace was called the “North Carolina Road” or “
Avery’s Trace ,” and sometimes “The Wilderness Road” (not to be confused with Daniel Boone's road through
Cumberland Gap ).
Tennessee was admitted to the Union in 1796 as the 16th state. The state boundaries, according to the Constitution of the State of Tennessee, Article I, Section 31, stated that the beginning point for identifying the boundary was the extreme height of the Stone Mountain, at the place where the line of Virginia intersects it, and basically ran the extreme heights of mountain chains through the Appalachian Mountains separating North Carolina from Tennessee past the Indian towns of Cowee and Old Chota, thence along the main ridge of the said mountain (Unicoi Mountain) to the southern boundary of the state; all the territory, lands and waters lying west of said line are included in the boundaries and limits of the newly formed state of Tennessee. Part of the provision also stated that the limits and jurisdiction of the state would include future land acquisition, referencing possible land trade with other states, or the acquisition of territory from west of the Mississippi River.
The word Tennessee comes from the Cherokee town
Tanasi , which along with its neighbor town
Chota was one of the most important Cherokee towns and often referred to as the capital city of the Overhill Cherokee. The meaning of the word "tanasi" is lost (Mooney, 1900). Some believe that Tanasi may mean "River with a big bend," referring to the Cumberland, or that the word Tanasi may have meant "gathering place", as a reference to government or worship for the Native American tribes pre-existent to the pioneer era.
During the administration of , the event is called ''Nunna daul Isunyi''—"the Trail Where We Cried." The Cherokees were not the only Native Americans forced to emigrate as a result of the
Indian Removal efforts of the United States, and so the phrase "Trail of Tears" is sometimes used to refer to similar events endured by other Native American peoples, especially among the "
Five Civilized Tribes ." The phrase originated as a description of the earlier emigration of the
Choctaw nation.
Many major battles of the
American Civil War were fought in Tennessee—most of them Union victories. It was the last border state to secede from the Union when it joined the
Confederate States Of America on
June 8 ,
1861 .
Ulysses S. Grant and the
U.S. Navy captured control of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers in February 1862, and they held off the Confederate counterattack at
Shiloh in April. Memphis fell to the Union in June following a
Naval Battle on the Mississippi River in front of the city. Capture of Memphis and Nashville gave the Union control of the western and middle sections; this control was confirmed at the battle of Murfreesboro in early January 1863. But the Confederates held East Tennessee despite the strength of Unionist sentiment there, with the exception of extremely pro-Confederate
Sullivan County . The Confederates besieged Chattanooga in early fall 1863, but were driven off by Grant in November. Many of the Confederate defeats can be attributed to the poor strategic vision of General
Braxton Bragg , who led the
Army Of Tennessee from
Perryville, KY to Confederate defeat at Chattanooga. The last major battles came when the Confederates invaded in November 1864 and were checked at
Franklin , then totally destroyed by
George Thomas at
Nashville , in December. Meanwhile
Andrew Johnson , a civilian, was appointed military governor by
President Abraham Lincoln , and
Slavery was abolished.
After the war, Tennessee adopted
A New Constitution , which abolished slavery effective
February 22 ,
1865 , and also ratified the
Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution on
July 18 ,
1866 . Andrew Johnson had been elected Vice President with Abraham Lincoln in 1864 and became President after Lincoln's assasination in 1865. Under the lenient re-admission policy of President Johnson, Tennessee was the first seceded state readmitted to the Union, being admitted back into the Union on
July 24 ,
1866 . Because it ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, Tennessee was the only state formerly seceded from the Union which did not have a military governor during the
Reconstruction period.
In 1897, the state celebrated its centennial of statehood (though one year late of the 1896 anniversary) with a great
Exposition in Nashville. A
Full Scale Replica of the
Parthenon was constructed for the celebration, located in what is now Nashville's
Centennial Park .
On
August 18 ,
1920 , Tennessee became the thirty-sixth and final state necessary to ratify the
Nineteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution , which provided women the right to vote.
The need to create work for the unemployed during the
Great Depression , a desire for rural electrification, and the need to control annual spring floodings and shipping abilities on the Tennessee River drove the creation of the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933. Tennessee, through the power of TVA, quickly became the nation's largest public utility supplier.
During
World War II , the availability of abundant TVA electrical power led the
Manhattan Project to locate one of the principal sites for production and isolation of weapons-grade
Fissile material in East Tennessee. The
Planned Community of
Oak Ridge was built from scratch to provide accommodations for the facilities, which are now the sites of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory , the
Y-12 National Security Complex , and the East Tennessee Technology Park.
Tennessee celebrated its bicentennial in 1996, and with a yearlong statewide celebration entitled "Tennessee 200", opened a new state park (
Bicentennial Mall ) at the foot of Capitol Hill in
Nashville .
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The
Center Of Population of Tennessee is located in
Rutherford County , in the city of
Murfreesboro {Link without Title} .
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2006, Tennessee has an estimated population of 6,038,803, which is an increase of 83,058, or 1.4%, from the prior year and an increase of 349,541, or 6.1%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 142,266 people (that is 493,881 births minus 351,615 deaths) and an increase from net migration of 219,551 people into the state.
Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 59,385 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 160,166 people.
In 2000, the five most common self-reported ethnic groups in the state were:
American (17.3%),
African American (16.4%),
Irish (9.3%),
English (9.1%), and
German (8.3%).
{Link without Title}
The state's African-American population is concentrated mainly in rural West and Middle Tennessee and the cities of
Memphis ,
Nashville ,
Clarksville ,
Chattanooga , and
Knoxville . Memphis has the largest percentage of African-American residents for any metropolitan area in the U.S.
6.6% of Tennessee's population were reported as under 5 years of age, 24.6% under 18, and 12.4% were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 51.3% of the population.
As with all Southern states except perhaps
Louisiana , residents of Tennessee overwhelmingly prefer an
Evangelical Protestant religious affiliation. The religious affiliations of the people of Tennessee are:
Source:
American Religious Identification Survey (2001). 5% of the people surveyed refused to answer.
Tennessee is home to several Protestant denominations, such as the
Church Of God In Christ , the
Church Of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) , and the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church . The
Southern Baptist Convention maintains its general headquarters in Nashville, where its Sunday School Board, along with publishing houses of several other denominations, is also located.
The state's small Roman Catholic and
Jewish communities are mainly centered in the metropolitan areas of Memphis and Nashville.
According to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2005 Tennessee's gross state product was $226.502 billion, making Tennessee the 18th largest economy in the nation.
In 2003, the
Per Capita Personal Income was $28,641, 36th in the nation, and 91% of the national per capita personal income of $31,472. In 2004, the
Median Household Income was $38,550, 41st in the nation, and 87% of the national median of $44,472.
Major outputs for the state include textiles, cotton, cattle, and electrical power.
As proof of interest in beef production, Tennessee has over 82,000 farms, and beef cattle are found in roughly 59 percent of the farms in the state. [http://animalscience.ag.utk.edu/beef/tnbeefind.htm] Although cotton was an early crop in Tennessee, large-scale cultivation of the fiber did not begin until the 1820s with the opening of the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. The upper wedge of the Mississippi Delta extends into southwestern Tennessee, and it was in this fertile section that cotton took hold. Currently West Tennessee is also heavily planted in
Soybeans , focusing on the northwest corner of the state.[http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/atlas02/index.html] USDA 2002 Census of Agriculture, Maps and Cartographic Resources.
Major corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include
FedEx Corporation ,
AutoZone Incorporated and
International Paper , all based in Memphis.
The Tennessee
Income Tax does not apply to salaries and wages, but most income from stocks, bonds and notes receivable is taxable. All taxable dividends and interest which exceed the $1,250 single exemption or the $2,500 joint exemption are taxable at the rate of 6%. The state's
Sales and
Use Tax rate for most items is 7%. Food is taxed at a lower rate of 6%, but candy, dietary supplements and prepared food are taxed at the full 7% rate. Local sales taxes are collected in most jurisdictions, at rates varying from 1.5% to 2.75%, bringing the total sales tax to between 8.5% and 9.75%, one of the highest levels in the nation.
Intangible Property is assessed on the shares of stock of stockholders of any loan company, investment company, insurance company or for-profit cemetery companies. The assessment ratio is 40% of the value multiplied by the tax rate for the jurisdiction. Tennessee imposes an
Inheritance Tax on decedents' estates that exceed maximum single exemption limits ($1,000,000 for deaths 2006 and after;
{Link without Title} ).
Tennessee is a
Right To Work state, as are most of its Southern neighbors. Unionization has historically been low and continues to decline as in most of the U.S. generally.
Interstate 40 crosses the state in an east-west orientation. Its branch interstate highways include
I-240 in Memphis;
I-440 and
I-840 in Nashville; and
I-140 and
I-640 in Knoxville.
I-26 , although technically an east-west interstate, runs from the North Carolina border below
Johnson City to its terminus at
Kingsport .
I-24 is the other east-west interstate crossing Tennessee.
In a north-south orientation are highways
I-55 ,
I-65 ,
I-75 , and
I-81 . Interstate 65 crosses the state through Nashville, while Interstate 75 serves Knoxville and Interstate 55 serves Memphis. Interstate 81 enters the state at Bristol and terminates at its junction with I-40 near
Jefferson City .
I-155 is a branch highway from I-55.
Major airports within the state include
Nashville International Airport (BNA),
Memphis International Airport (MEM),
McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) in Knoxville,
Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (CHA), and
Tri-Cities Regional Airport (TRI). Because Memphis International Airport is the major hub for
FedEx Corporation , it is the
World's Largest Air Cargo Operation .
Memphis is served by the famed
Amtrak train, the
City Of New Orleans on its run between
Chicago, Illinois and
New Orleans, Louisiana . The City of New Orleans also stops near
Dyersburg, Tennessee .
on the
Hernando De Soto Bridge over the
Mississippi River leaving from
Arkansas .]]
Tennessee's governor holds office for a four year term and may serve a maximum of two terms. The governor is the only official who is elected statewide, making him one of the more powerful chief executives in the nation. The state does not elect the
Lieutenant-governor directly, contrary to most other states; the Tennessee Senate elects its Speaker who serves as lieutenant governor.
The
Tennessee General Assembly , the state legislature, consists of the 33-member
Senate and the 99-member
House Of Representatives . Senators serve four year terms, and House members serve two year terms. Each chamber chooses its own speaker. The speaker of the state Senate also holds the title of lieutenant-governor. Most executive officials are elected by the legislature.
The highest court in Tennessee is the state Supreme Court. It has a chief justice and four associate justices. No more than two justices can be from the same Grand Division. The Court of Appeals has 12 judges. The Court of Criminal Appeals has nine judges.
Tennessee's Current State Constitution was adopted in 1870. The state had two earlier constitutions. The first was adopted in 1796, the year Tennessee joined the union, and the second was adopted in 1834. The Tennessee Constitution outlaws martial law within its jurisdiction. This may be a result of the experience of Tennessee residents and other Southerners during the period of military control by Union (Northern) forces of the U.S. government after the American Civil War.
Tennessee politics, like that of most U.S. States, is dominated by the
Democratic and
Republican Parties. Like practically all Southern states, Tennessee tends to be politically
Conservative and currently tilts towards the Republican Party. However, it has often prided itself on its more moderate attitudes about matters of economics and race than some states of the
Deep South .
While the Republicans control slightly more than half of the state, Democrats have strong support in the cities of Memphis and Nashville and in parts of Middle Tennessee (although declining, due to the growth of suburban Nashville) and West Tennessee north of Memphis, where a large rural
African-American population resides. The Republicans historically had their greatest strength in East Tennessee, one of the few areas of the South with a Republican voting history that predates the 1960s. Such voting habits were a legacy from the region's support for the Union during the
Civil War ; much of East Tennessee has not elected a Democrat to
Congress since then. In contrast, the Democrats generally dominated politics in the rest of the state until the 1960s; the GOP was essentially a sectional party. In the decades following the
Civil Rights Movement and a concomitant revlusion against cultural liberalism, the Republicans have gained strength in the conservative
Suburbs of Memphis and Nashville and increasing support among rural voters elsewhere in West and Middle Tennessee (especially the former Grand Division). These patterns are largely in keeping with the South generally and do not generally reflect local idiosyncrasies.
In the
2000 Presidential Election , the majority of Tennessee voters voted for Republican
George W. Bush rather than Vice President
Al Gore , a former
U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Tennessee support for Bush increased in 2004, with his margin of victory in the state increasing from 4% in 2000 to 14% in 2004. This occurred quite possibly because the nominee,
John Kerry , was a Northerner; Southern nominees (e.g.,
Jimmy Carter ,
Bill Clinton ) usually fare better for the Democrats in Tennessee, especially among split-ticket voters outside the metropolitan areas.
Tennessee sends nine members to the
US House Of Representatives , currently consisting of five Democrats and four Republicans. The
Baker V. Carr decision of the
US Supreme Court (1962), which established the principle of
One Man, One Vote was based on a lawsuit over rural-biased malapportionment in the Tennessee legislature. The ruling led to an increased prominence in state politics by urban and, eventually, suburban, legislators and statewide officeholders.
''See also:
List Of Tennessee Governors ,
U.S. Congressional Delegations From Tennessee ''
The State of Tennessee maintains two dedicated law enforcement entities, the
Tennessee Highway Patrol and the
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency , as well as the
Tennessee Bureau Of Investigation and the
Tennessee State Parks department.
The Highway Patrol is the primary law enforcement entity that concentrates on highway safety regulations and general non-game state law enforcement and is under the jurisdiction of the Tennessee Department of Safety. The TWRA is an independent agency tasked with enforcing all wild game and fisheries regulations outside of state parks. The TBI maintains state of the art investigative facilities and is the primary state-level criminal investigative department. Tennessee State
Park Ranger s are responsible for all activities and law enforcement inside the Tennessee State Parks system.
See Also: List of cities and towns in Tennessee
''': 607,413 (2005)]]
''': 672,277 (2005)]]
The capital is
Nashville , though
Knoxville ,
Kingston , and
Murfreesboro have all served as
State Capitals in the past.
Memphis has the largest population of any city in the state, but Nashville has had the state's largest
Metropolitan Area since circa 1990; Memphis formerly held that title.
Chattanooga and Knoxville, both in the eastern part of the state near the Great Smoky Mountains, each has approximately a third of the population of Memphis or Nashville. The city of
Clarksville is the fifth significant population center, some 45 miles (70 km) northwest of Nashville. The
Johnson City -
Kingsport -
Bristol metropolitan area (known as Northeast Tennessee and "Tri-Cities") is the state's fourth largest metropolitan area and is located in the extreme northeastern part of the state, straddling the
Virginia state line.
]]
]]
Tennessee is also home to
Bristol Motor Speedway which features
NASCAR Nextel Cup racing two weekends a year, routinely selling out more than 160,000 seats both times.
The earliest variant of the name that became ''Tennessee'' was recorded by Captain
Juan Pardo , the
Spanish explorer, when he and his men passed through a
Native American village named "Tanasqui" in 1567 while traveling inland from
South Carolina . European settlers later encountered a Cherokee town named
Tanasi (or "Tanase") in present-day
Monroe County, Tennessee . The town was located on a river of the same name (now known as the
Little Tennessee River ). It is not known whether this was the same town as the one encountered by Juan Pardo.
The meaning and origin of the word are uncertain. Some accounts suggest it is a Cherokee modification of an earlier Yuchi word. It has been said to mean "meeting place", "winding river", or "river of the great bend".
{Link without Title} {Link without Title} According to
James Mooney , the name "can not be analyzed" and its meaning is lost (Mooney, pg. 534).
The modern spelling, ''Tennessee'', is attributed to
James Glen , the governor of South Carolina, who used this spelling in his official correspondence during the 1750s. In 1788, North Carolina created "Tennessee County", the third county to be established in what is now Middle Tennessee. (Tennessee County was the predecessor to current-day
Montgomery County and
Robertson County ). When a
Constitutional Convention met in 1796 to organize a new state out of the
Southwest Territory , it adopted "Tennessee" as the name of the state.
- Bergeron, Paul H. ''Antebellum Politics in Tennessee.'' University of Kentucky Press, 1982.
- Bontemps, Arna. ''William C. Handy: Father of the Blues: An Autobiography.'' Macmillan Company: New York, 1941.
- Brownlow, W. G. ''Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession: With a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels'' (1862)
- Cartwright, Joseph H. ''The Triumph of Jim Crow: Tennessee’s Race Relations in the 1880s''. University of Tennessee Press, 1976.
- Cimprich, John. ''Slavery's End in Tennessee, 1861-1865'' University of Alabama, 1985.
- Finger, John R. "Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition". Indiana University Press, 2001.
- Honey, Michael K. ''Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers''. University of Illinois Press, 1993.
- Lamon, Lester C. ''Blacks in Tennessee, 1791-1970.'' University of Tennessee Press, 1980.
- Mooney, James. "Myths of the Cherokee". 1900, reprinted Dover: New York, 1995.
- Norton, Herman. ''Religion in Tennessee, 1777-1945''. University of Tennessee Press, 1981.
- Schaefer, Richard T. "Sociology Matters". New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2006. ISBN 0-07-299775-3
- Van West, Carroll. ''Tennessee history: the land, the people, and the culture'' University of Tennessee Press, 1998.
- Van West, Carroll, ed. ''The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''. 1998.
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