Program Schedule

Fall 2009 Lecture Series on The Civil War in Tennessee

This lecture series will be on Tuesdays this fall and winter and will take place at Ft. Negley, located at 800 Ft. Negley Boulevard in Nashville near Greer Stadium.

October 27
"The Roles of Women in Union Occupied Nashville, Tennessee"
Speaker: Krista Castillo, Metro Parks and Austin Peay State University
5:30-7:00

November 10
"'Son of the Gods:' Ambrose Bierce and the Tennessee Campaign of 1864"
Speaker: Christopher Kiernan Coleman, Hendersonville, TN
5:30-7:00

November 24
"The Long Goodbye: The End of the Isham Harris Administration and his Exile"
Speaker: Kent Moran, University of Memphis
5:30-7:00

December 8
"What Could Have Been: Battlefield Preservation at Franklin"
Speaker: Timothy B. Smith, University of Tennessee-Martin
5:30-7:00


Click here for a printable flyer on this series.


This series is made possible through the generous support of the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, a program of the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University, and the Metro Parks and Recreation Department of Nashville/Davidson County.

Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society and Tennessee Historical Society 23rd Annual Genealogical Seminar
When: Saturday, November 21, 2009
Where: Brentwood Public Library

Sessions Include:

Is Ancestry.com Worth It?: Fee and Free Web Sites for Genealogical Research
By Chuck Sherill, MA MLS


"Here Comes the Bride, and There She Goes!"
by Mark Lowe, Certified Genealogist, FUGA


"Early River Towns"
By Mark Lowe, Certified Genealogist, FUGA


To register, click here to visit the Middle Tennessee Genealogical Website.


David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend
A talk by Jim Boylston
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
5:00 PM
Tennessee State Museum
James K. Polk Building, 505 Deaderick Street, Nashville
*located in the same building as TPAC

Please join the Tennessee Historical Society for a special program by Jim Boylston, co-author with Allen J. Weiner of the new David Crockett book, David Crockett in Congress. Books will be available for purchase at the event, and be sure to come early to tour the Crockett exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum, which includes some of the most prized items from the THS collections. The tour will begin at 4 p.m. and will be led by Curator of History, Myers Brown.

We have all heard of Davy Crockett, the King of the Wild Frontier, but serious historians have long known that the man behind the myth was more substantive and more complex. David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man's Friend is the first book to explain why even the history books have not provided a full and accurate portrait of this American legend. Current Crockett wisdom is based on James Atkins Shackford's David Crockett, the Man and the Legend, the landmark 1956 biography of Crockett. His interpretation of the historical Crockett has become as pervasive in the historical sector as the mythological "Davy" has to the general public.

Now Boylston and Weiner, life-long Crockett aficionados, present missing correspondence that sets the record straight. Crockett's letters, speeches, and political circulars provide a unique, long-ignored approach to discovering the real man. Crockett was a masterful campaigner among his frontier neighbors, an amusing storyteller and speaker. His jokes and stump speeches helped him win elections, but once in office, he proved himself an astute politician and parliamentarian. His most important political objective was to secure for his poorer constituents legal title to the land they had worked and improved. He never achieved that goal, but his exhaustive efforts to do so illustrate his devotion to the people who elected him and his insistence on serving them rather than his political party or its leaders. Throughout his career he remained an advocate for the poor, whom he viewed as constantly pushed aside or ignored by wealthier, more influential interests.

With here-to-fore unpublished documents, and all the political writings of Crockett, as well as a complete collection of Crockett holographs and portraits, David Crockett in Congress is an insightful and provocative addition to the library of any American historian, Tennessee historian, Crockett buff, or political historian.

Jim Boylston is a member of the Alamo Society, the Alamo Battlefield Association, and has contributed important articles to the Alamo Journal and the Crockett Chronicle. He is also the creator and moderator of the Alamo Studies Online Forum, a web based discussion group devoted to the serious study of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution. He lives in Orlando, Florida.

Spring 2010 Reading and Discussion Group

Discussion Selection: The Lost State of Franklin: America's First Secession
Author: Kevin T. Barksdale, Assistant Professor of History at Marshall University
Location and Dates: To be Announced

Tennessee History Day
Date: April 17, 2009
Location: Legislative Plaza

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Program Schedule