TENNESSEE

The Upper South. constituent state of the United States of America, lying in the east south-central U.S. It is bounded on the north by Kentucky and Virginia, on the east by North Carolina, and on the south by Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; on the west it is separated by the Mississippi River from Arkansas and Missouri. The capital is Nashville. Spanish, French, and English explorers and traders visited Tennessee frequently during the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1663 Charles II of England issued a charter that established Carolina, including Tennessee, as a proprietary colony. After the French and Indian Wars (1763), longhunters from Virginia and North Carolina entered the region, the most prominent being Daniel Boone. Great Britain acknowledged the region to be part of the United States following the American Revolution. Tennessee was part of the state of North Carolina until 1785, when the area's settlers broke away and formed the temporary free state of Franklin. North Carolina relinquished its claim to the area in 1789, and Tennessee became the 16th state in 1796. During the War of 1812, thousands of Tennesseans volunteered for the army, and from that time onward Tennessee was known as the Volunteer State. Many native Tennesseans distinguished themselves in the war. Most notable were Andrew Jackson, David Crockett, and Sam Houston. Jackson went on to father a populist movement, known as Jacksonian democracy, that dominated the Tennessee and eventually the national political scene in the 1820s and '30s. Most of Tennessee, except for the eastern part of the state, supported secession from the Union in 1861. Tennessee was the site of several hard-fought American Civil War battles including Shiloh, Chattanooga, Stone River, and Nashville. After the war's end, Tennessee became the first seceding state to be readmitted to the Union in 1866. The state is divided into six physiographic regions: the Great Smoky Mountains along the North Carolina border, the generally flat Cumberland Plateau, the Interior Low Plateau in Middle Tennessee, the Eastern Gulf Coastal Plateau, and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. The Tennessee River valley dominates the landscape of much of the state, as the river flows south in the eastern part of the state and subsequently flows north in the state's western part. The Mississippi River and several small tributaries drain the extreme western portion of Tennessee. Tennessee has a moderate climate with cool, but not cold, winters and warm, but not hot, summers. The state receives about 50 inches (1,270 mm) of rainfall a year. About half of the state is forested with some 200 species of trees, a third of which have commercial value for timber and other products. Tennessee's white residents are largely Protestants of Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Blacks comprise about one-sixth of Tennessee's total population. The trend of greater emigration than immigration was broken in the 1960s as Tennessee became the only east south-central state to have a greater inflow than outflow of people. In the same decade urbanization continued, especially for blacks. By the late 20th century about four-fifths of the state's black population resided in four of the largest metropolitan areas. Tennessee's lack of productive agricultural land forced an economic transition to manufacturing in the 1940s. The creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the subsequent availability of relatively inexpensive electrical power helped stimulate this economic transformation. The major manufacturing industries are chemicals, food processing, electrical machinery, apparel, and textiles. The state is a leading producer of zinc. Highways crisscross the state, and major airline service to the metropolitan areas is available. Tennessee's rich folk culture is cultivated by the tourist industry. Much of the area's culture and tourism are centred on the state capital, Nashville. This city is the home of country and western music and is sometimes called the Athens of the South because of its re-creation of the Parthenon and its Greek Ionic state capitol. Opryland, outside Nashville and home of the Grand Ole Opry, is a major tourist attraction. The homes of famous entertainers receive similar tourist attention, such as the home of Elvis Presley in Memphis. The Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, is a much-visited shrine, as are the many American Civil War battlefields. The Smoky Mountains National Park is the site of many mountain vacations. Symphonies and art galleries are found in the four major metropolitan areas. More than 75 public and private institutions of higher learning are located in the state. Quality major newspapers are circulated throughout the state from Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, and Knoxville. Network and educational television is available in every county. Area 42,144 square miles (109,152 square km). Pop. (1990) 4,877,185. constituent state of the United States of America. Located in the upper South of the eastern United States, it became the 16th state of the Union in 1796. The geography of Tennessee, an area of 42,144 square miles (109,153 square kilometres) is unique. Its extreme breadth of 432 miles (695 kilometres) stretches from the Appalachian Mountain boundary with North Carolina in the east to the Mississippi River borders with Missouri and Arkansas in the west. Its narrow width, only 112 miles, separates its northern neighbours, Kentucky and Virginia, from Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi on the south. Nashville is the capital and Memphis the largest city. Tennessee embodies so many diverse elements of the nation that it constitutes a virtual microcosm of the country. Early pioneers in East and Middle Tennessee, far removed from established authority, set precedents of self-government that are identified with the frontier tradition. From the beginning, Tennesseans, despite loyalty to the larger society, found that they had to rely on themselves for security. This nurtured a spirit of independence that persists today. Furthermore, the geographic diversity has created a variety of economic, social, and cultural patterns within the state. While the East is well known for its mountain tradition, the Bluegrass area of Middle Tennessee is a balanced agricultural and commercial region, and the West has an economy based largely on cotton and the Mississippi River, with closer ties to the Deep South. Even though Tennessean Andrew Jackson long symbolized the Democratic Party of the common people, the rival Whig Party carried the state for many years. Strongly divided by the Civil War and its own version of Reconstruction, Tennessee became a part of the solid Democratic South, lagging in wealth and prestige behind the rest of the nation. The dreams of the industrialists of the late 19th century were not realized until the second part of the 20th. In the 1970s, with the return of the Republicans to prominence, Tennessee became once again a two-party state. As the South has become a part of the Sunbelt, the state has shared in this emerging prosperity. Additional reading Basic physical geography is presented in Ralph O. Fullerton and John B. Ray (eds.), Tennessee: Geographical Patterns and Regions (1977); and Edward T. Luther, Our Restless Earth: The Geologic Regions of Tennessee (1977). Federal Writers' Project, Tennessee: A Guide to the State (1939, reissued as The WPA Guide to Tennessee, 1986), is still a useful survey of many aspects of the state's geography and culture. DeLorme Mapping Company, Tennessee Atlas & Gazetteer, 4th ed. (1997), contains topographic maps. Ralph O. Fullerton, Place Names of Tennessee (1974), combines geography and local history. Marguerite Owen, The Tennessee Valley Authority (1973), gives the history and details of the programs of this important agency. Of special interest are Lester C. Lamon, Blacks in Tennessee, 17901970 (1980); Ronald N. Satz, Tennessee's Indian Peoples: From White Contact to Removal, 15401840 (1979); Herman A. Norton, Religion in Tennessee, 17771945 (1981); and Charles K. Wolfe, Tennessee Strings: The Story of Country Music in Tennessee (1977).A good history of the state is Robert E. Corlew, Tennessee: A Short History, 2nd ed. (1981), which contains excellent chapter bibliographies. Sam B. Smith (ed. and compiler), Tennessee History: A Bibliography (1974), is also useful in this regard. Wilma Dykeman, Tennessee (1975, reissued 1993), is an introduction. Thomas L. Connelly, Civil War Tennessee: Battles and Leaders (1979), provides insight on this important period. The Tennessee Historical Quarterly has articles and book reviews on a wide variety of relevant topics. Sarah McCanless Howell The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica