TVA and the Dispossessed


Book Description

One of the most notable agencies of the New Deal era, the Tennessee Valley Authority was created with a warrant to plan for the socioeconomic improvement of "forgotten" Americans. The construction of the Norris Dam, it was thought, would benefit the region socially as well as economically. This book analyzes and assesses TVA's social experiment in modernization at the grassroots level, using population removal in the Norris Basin as a test case.




TVA and the Tellico Dam


Book Description

This is a study of TVA management of Tellico Dam. Part of the ambitious New Deal project to bring modernity to Appalachia, TVA planning was far-reaching, often far-sighted, but also controversial, involving mass migration of people from their ancestral homes and threats to species, like the snail darter.




TVA Archaeology


Book Description

Since its inception in 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority has played a dual role as federal agency and steward of the Tennessee River Valley. While known to most people today as an energy provider, the agency is also charged with managing and protecting the nation's fifth-largest river system, the Tennessee River, and vast tracts of land and resources encompassing Tennessee and portions of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. Included in TVA's mandate is the preservation of the archaeological record of the valley's prehistoric peoples-a record that would have been forever lost beneath floodwaters had TVA not demonstrated a commitment to minimize its impact on the valley and sought to protect its archaeological resources. In TVA Archaeology, fourteen contributors who have worked with TVA in its conservation effort discuss prehistoric excavations conducted at Tellico, Normandy, Jonathan's Creek, and many other sites. They explore TVA's role in the excavations and how the agency facilitated prehistoric investigations along proposed dam sites. They also delve into the history of TVA as it grew from a New Deal program to a federal corporation and reveal how, during the agency's formative years, the TVA board responded to prodding from archaeologists David DeJarnette and William Webb and molded TVA into the steward of a region it is today. TVA remains a mainstay of progress and conservation within an important region of the United States, and its safeguarding of the valley's prehistory cements its legacy as more than just an energy supplier. Students and researchers interested in prehistoric archaeology, the Tennessee Valley, and the history of TVA will find this volume an invaluable contribution to the study of the region. Erin E. Pritchard is an archaeologist with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Her work includes multiple archaeological site investigations, most notably Dust Cave in northern Alabama, and she has authored and coauthored numerous site reports for TVA.




The TVA Regional Planning and Development Program


Book Description

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a world-renowned model for regional planning and development. Based along the Tennessee River and its series of hydro-electric power stations, dams and reservoirs, the TVA development program envisioned a broad regional planning program. The program focused on development opportunities and problems around the array of TVA dams and their reservoirs. It also created new 'model' towns and pioneered land-use planning bringing together federal, state, and local agencies, farmers, foresters and industrial firms to further the economic, social, and physical conditions of what had been one of the most seriously lagging regions of the U.S. This book is based on the memoirs and experiences of Aelred J. Gray, former planner with the TVA, who saw the 'big picture' and introduced much of the pioneering work of the agency. Gray worked as a staff planner at the TVA for nearly 40 years including a decade as its chief planner, overseeing numerous changes and developments to the Authority's program. As well as building up the regional industrial development and the foundation of state parks, he also had a strong interest in the region's cities. In the 1950s he introduced TVA's landmark Flood Prevention Program, which became a national model. His review of how this innovative and influential regional development agency functioned and changed through the decades will be of value to all those interested in planning practice, planning history, and regional politics.




The Architecture of Industry


Book Description

From the Rust Belt to Silicon Valley, the intersection between architecture and industry has provided a rich and evolving source for historians of architecture. In a historical context, industrial architecture evokes the smoking factories of the nineteenth century or Fordist production complexes of the twentieth century. This book documents the changing nature of industrial building and planning from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Drawing on research from the United States, Europe and Australia, this collection of essays highlights key moments in industrial architecture and planning representative of the wider paradigms in the field. Areas of analysis include industrial production, factories, hydroelectricity, aerospace, logistics, finance, scientific research and mining. The selected case studies serve to highlight architectural and planning innovations in industry and their contributions to wider cultural and societal currents. This richly illustrated collection will be of interest for a wide range of built environment studies, incorporating findings from both historical and theoretical scholarship and design research.




You Would Not Believe What Watches


Book Description

This volume is the first of a planned series of casebooks to be published by the Cormac McCarthy Society. It is an expanded and updated version of the fourth volume of The Cormac McCarthy Journal, originally released in 2006 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the novel. The original edition consisted of papers and lectures given at the conference, held by the Society in Knoxville in October 2004. The current edition includes the entire content of its predecessor volume, and we have added intriguing essays, anecdotes and firsthand accounts of Knoxville during the historical period covered by Suttree to flesh it out.




A Bibliography of Tennessee History, 1973-1996


Book Description

With some 6,000 entries, A Bibliography of Tennessee History will prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone--students, historians, librarians, genealogists--engaged in researching Tennessee's rich and colorful past. A sequel to Sam B. Smith's invaluable 1973 work, Tennessee History: A Bibliography, this book follows a similar format and includes published books and essays, as well as many unpublished theses and dissertations, that have become available during the intervening years. The volume begins with sections on Reference, Natural History, and Native Americans. Its divisions then follow the major periods of the state's history: Before Statehood, State Development, Civil War, Late Nineteenth Century, Early Twentieth Century, and Late Twentieth Century. Sections on Literature and County Histories round out the book. Included is a helpful subject index that points the reader to particular persons, places, incidents, or topics. Substantial sections in this index highlight women's history and African American history, two areas in which scholarship has proliferated during the past two decades. The history of entertainment in Tennessee is also well represented in this volume, including, for example, hundreds of citations for writings about Elvis Presley and for works that treat Nashville and Memphis as major show business centers. The Literature section, meanwhile, includes citations for fiction and poetry relating to Tennessee history as well as for critical works about Tennessee writers. Throughout, the editors have strived to achieve a balance between comprehensive coverage and the need to be selective. The result is a volume that will benefit researchers for years to come. The Editors: W. Calvin Dickinson is professor of history at Tennessee Technological University. Eloise R. Hitchcock is head reference librarian at the University of the South.




The Tennessee Valley Authority


Book Description

In the wake of the Great Depression, one of President Franklin Roosevelt’s most successful New Deal programs was the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal government–owned corporation created in 1933 to revitalize the Tennessee River Valley. This book includes essays by experts in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, graphic design, industrial design, and the fine arts. Featuring new photography by Richard Barnes, The Tennessee Valley Authority interweaves technical, political, aesthetic, and cultural concerns to complete a missing chapter in the study of modern American architecture and design.




Why the New Deal Matters


Book Description

A look at how the New Deal fundamentally changed American life, and why it remains relevant today "The New Deal was America's response to the gravest economic and social crisis of the twentieth century. It now serves as a source of inspiration for how we should respond to the gravest crisis of the twenty-first. There's no more fluent and informative a guide to that history than Eric Rauchway, and no one better to describe the capacity of government to transform America for the better."—Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley The greatest peaceable expression of common purpose in U.S. history, the New Deal altered Americans' relationship with politics, economics, and one another in ways that continue to resonate today. No matter where you look in America, there is likely a building or bridge built through New Deal initiatives. If you have taken out a small business loan from the federal government or drawn unemployment, you can thank the New Deal. While certainly flawed in many aspects—the New Deal was implemented by a Democratic Party still beholden to the segregationist South for its majorities in Congress and the Electoral College—the New Deal was instated at a time of mass unemployment and the rise of fascistic government models and functioned as a bulwark of American democracy in hard times. This book looks at how this legacy, both for good and ill, informs the current debates around governmental responses to crises.




Architecture and Nature


Book Description

Winner of the 2006 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award! The word 'nature' comes from natura, Latin for birth - as do the words nation, native and innate. But nature and nation share more than a common root, they share a common history where one term has been used to define the other. In the United States, the relationship between nation and nature has been central to its colonial and post-colonial history, from the idea of the noble savage to the myth of the frontier. Narrated, painted and filmed, American landscapes have been central to the construction of a national identity. Architecture and Nature presents an in-depth study of how changing ideas of what nature is and what it means for the country have been represented in buildings and landscapes over the past century.