Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825

Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825 PDF Author: Kristofer Ray
Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
"In tracing the evolution of political culture in early Tennessee, Kris Ray provides a sweeping study of the multifaceted ways in which early Americans understood leadership and democratic participation. Readers will find Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825 an engaging contribution to our understanding of how, in the crucible of the Early American Republic, democracy did not have to take the form of competing political parties to be vibrant and challenging." --Craig Thompson Friend, author of Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West "Ray's work is an excellent reflection of current historical scholarship, the first systematic attempt to place Middle Tennessee within the same framework developed in other recent books on Trans-Appalachian states." --John R. Finger, author of Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition During its early years, the frontier region of Middle Tennessee developed from thinly settled outposts to a premier destination for thousands of land-hungry immigrants. The resulting population explosion led to a shift in political power from a small group of surveyors and speculators to the farmers, merchants, and entrepreneurs attracted by a burgeoning, globally-connected agricultural economy. Kristofer Ray chronicles the rise of Middle Tennessee's political system as it transformed from one dominated by land interests to an increasingly vibrant democracy in which the "common man" had more of a voice. He also explores the fact that, as the economy grew, a sharp debate emerged between the mercantile class and ordinary farmers as to the best way to sustain regional progress. This book explores the issues, values, and visions around which the politics of early Middle Tennessee were based. It convincingly shows how the region's emerging political culture established a foundation for the rise of popular democracy, which, as Ray reveals, meant that Tennesseans not only expressed themselves through voting, but also through the social realms of town hall meetings, parades, and even effigy burnings. This book explores both the promises and limitations of political cultural development in early Middle Tennessee. It provides the context out of which Andrew Jackson would emerge as a national political force. It will appeal to those interested in southern studies, American history or political science. Kristofer Ray is assistant professor of history at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. His articles have appeared in Ohio Valley History and the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.

Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825

Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825 PDF Author: Kristofer Ray
Publisher: Univ Tennessee Press
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Get Book

Book Description
"In tracing the evolution of political culture in early Tennessee, Kris Ray provides a sweeping study of the multifaceted ways in which early Americans understood leadership and democratic participation. Readers will find Middle Tennessee, 1775-1825 an engaging contribution to our understanding of how, in the crucible of the Early American Republic, democracy did not have to take the form of competing political parties to be vibrant and challenging." --Craig Thompson Friend, author of Along the Maysville Road: The Early American Republic in the Trans-Appalachian West "Ray's work is an excellent reflection of current historical scholarship, the first systematic attempt to place Middle Tennessee within the same framework developed in other recent books on Trans-Appalachian states." --John R. Finger, author of Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition During its early years, the frontier region of Middle Tennessee developed from thinly settled outposts to a premier destination for thousands of land-hungry immigrants. The resulting population explosion led to a shift in political power from a small group of surveyors and speculators to the farmers, merchants, and entrepreneurs attracted by a burgeoning, globally-connected agricultural economy. Kristofer Ray chronicles the rise of Middle Tennessee's political system as it transformed from one dominated by land interests to an increasingly vibrant democracy in which the "common man" had more of a voice. He also explores the fact that, as the economy grew, a sharp debate emerged between the mercantile class and ordinary farmers as to the best way to sustain regional progress. This book explores the issues, values, and visions around which the politics of early Middle Tennessee were based. It convincingly shows how the region's emerging political culture established a foundation for the rise of popular democracy, which, as Ray reveals, meant that Tennesseans not only expressed themselves through voting, but also through the social realms of town hall meetings, parades, and even effigy burnings. This book explores both the promises and limitations of political cultural development in early Middle Tennessee. It provides the context out of which Andrew Jackson would emerge as a national political force. It will appeal to those interested in southern studies, American history or political science. Kristofer Ray is assistant professor of history at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. His articles have appeared in Ohio Valley History and the Tennessee Historical Quarterly.

History of Middle Tennessee

History of Middle Tennessee PDF Author: Albigence Waldo Putnam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Tenneseee, Middle
Languages : en
Pages : 716

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Book Description


Before the Volunteer State

Before the Volunteer State PDF Author: Kristofer Ray
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1621901033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Seeking a taste of unspoiled wilderness, more than eight million people visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park each year. Yet few probably realize what makes the park unusual: it was the result of efforts to reclaim wilderness rather than to protect undeveloped land. The Smokies have, in fact, been a human habitat for 8,000 years, and that contact has molded the landscape as surely as natural forces have. In this book, Daniel S. Pierce examines land use in the Smokies over the centuries, describing the pageant of peoples who have inhabited these mountains and then focusing on the twentieth-century movement to create a national park. Drawing on previously unexplored archival materials, Pierce presents the most balanced account available of the development of the park. He tells how park supporters set about raising money to buy the land--often from resistant timber companies--and describes the fierce infighting between wilderness advocates and tourism boosters over the shape the park would take. He also discloses the unfortunate human cost of the park's creation: the displacement of the area's inhabitants. Pierce is especially insightful regarding the often-neglected history of the park since 1945. He looks at the problems caused by roadbuilding, tree blight, and air pollution that becomes trapped in the mountains' natural haze. He also provides astute assessments of the Cades Cove restoration, the Fontana Lake road construction, and other recent developments involving the park. Full of outstanding photographs and boasting a breadth of coverage unmatched in other books of its kind, The Great Smokies will help visitors better appreciate the wilderness experience they have sought. Pierce's account makes us more aware of humanity's long interaction with the land while capturing the spirit of those idealistic environmentalists who realized their vision to protect it. The Author: Daniel S. Pierce teaches in the department of history and the humanities program at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and is a contributor to The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.

Andrew Jackson Donelson

Andrew Jackson Donelson PDF Author: Richard Douglas Spence
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 0826504000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 699

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Book Description
This richly detailed biography of Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799-1871) sheds new light on the political and personal life of this nephew and namesake of Andrew Jackson. A scion of a pioneering Tennessee family, Donelson was a valued assistant and trusted confidant of the man who defined the Age of Jackson. One of those central but background figures of history, Donelson had a knack for being where important events were happening and knew many of the great figures of the age. As his uncle's secretary, he weathered Old Hickory's tumultuous presidency, including the notorious "Petticoat War." Building his own political career, he served as US chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Texas, where he struggled against an enigmatic President Sam Houston, British and French intrigues, and the threat of war by Mexico, to achieve annexation. As minister to Prussia, Donelson enjoyed a ringside seat to the revolutions of 1848 and the first attempts at German unification. A firm Unionist in the mold of his uncle, Donelson denounced the secessionists at the Nashville Convention of 1850. He attempted as editor of the Washington Union to reunite the Democratic party, and, when he failed, he was nominated as Millard Fillmore's vice-presidential running mate on the Know-Nothing party ticket in 1856. He lived to see the Civil War wreck the Union he loved, devastate his farms, and take the lives of two of his sons.

Early History of Middle Tennessee...

Early History of Middle Tennessee... PDF Author: Edward Albright
Publisher: Hardpress Publishing
ISBN: 9781314875744
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Daniel Smith Donelson

Daniel Smith Donelson PDF Author: Doug Spence
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 1621907406
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
"Richard Douglas Spence has written a biography of Daniel Smith Donelson, a soldier and politician and the nephew of Andrew Jackson. Spence begins with Donelson's upbringing at the Hermitage after Donelson's father died when he was five and follows Donelson's career as a planter, militiaman, state congressman, and finally a general overseeing the Confederate Department of East Tennessee. Fort Donelson was named in his honor, and his brigades fought at Stones River, Perryville, and Murfreesboro before he was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina. He was posthumously promoted to major general after dying of disease on April 17, 1863, at the age of sixty-one"--

Empire of Commerce

Empire of Commerce PDF Author: Susan Gaunt Stearns
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813951259
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
A groundbreaking study situating the Mississippi River valley at the heart of the early American republic’s political economy Shortly after the ratification of the US Constitution in 1789, twenty-two-year-old Andrew Jackson pledged his allegiance to the king of Spain. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase, imperial control of the North American continent remained an open question. Spain controlled the Mississippi River, closing it to American trade in 1784, and western men on the make like Jackson had to navigate the overlapping economic and political forces at work with ruthless pragmatism. In Empire of Commerce, Susan Gaunt Stearns takes readers back to a time when there was nothing inevitable about the United States’ untrammeled westward expansion. Her work demonstrates the centrality of trade on and along the Mississippi River to the complex development of the political and economic structures that shaped the nascent American republic. Stearns’s perspective-shifting book reconfigures our understanding of key postrevolutionary moments—the writing of the Constitution, the outbreak of the Whiskey Rebellion, and the Louisiana Purchase—and demonstrates how the transatlantic cotton trade finally set the stage for transforming an imagined west into something real.

Early History of Middle Tennessee

Early History of Middle Tennessee PDF Author: Edward Albright
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Tennessee, Middle
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description


Democracy's Lawyer

Democracy's Lawyer PDF Author: J. Roderick Heller
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807137420
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A central political figure in the first post-Revolutionary generation, Felix Grundy (1775--1840) epitomized the "American democrat" who so famously fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville. Born and reared on the isolated frontier, Grundy rose largely by his own ability to become the Old Southwest's greatest criminal lawyer and one of the first radical political reformers in the fledgling United States. In Democracy's Lawyer, the first comprehensive biography of Grundy since 1940, J. Roderick Heller reveals how Grundy's life typifies the archetypal, post--founding fathers generation that forged America's culture and institutions. After his birth in Virginia, Grundy moved west at age five to the region that would become Kentucky, where he lost three brothers in Indian wars. He earned a law degree, joined the legislature, and quickly became Henry Clay's main rival. At age thirty-one, after rising to become chief justice of Kentucky, Grundy moved to Tennessee, where voters soon elected him to Congress. In Washington, Grundy proved so voracious a proponent of the War of 1812 that a popular slogan of the day blamed the war on "Madison, Grundy, and the Devil." A pivotal U.S. senator during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, Grundy also served as Martin Van Buren's attorney general and developed a close association with his law student and political protégé James K. Polk. Grundy championed the ideals of the American West, and as Heller demonstrates, his dominating belief -- equality in access to power -- motivated many of his political battles. Aristocratic federalism threatened the principles of the Revolution, Grundy asserted, and he opposed fetters on freedom of opportunity, whether from government or entrenched economic elites. Although widely known as a politician, Grundy achieved even greater fame as a criminal lawyer. Of the purported 185 murder defendants that he represented, only one was hanged. At a time when criminal trials served as popular entertainment, Grundy's mere appearance in a courtroom drew spectators from miles around, and his legal reputation soon spread nationwide. One nineteenth-century Nashvillian declared that Grundy "could stand on a street corner and talk the cobblestones into life." Shifting seamlessly within the worlds of law, entrepreneurship, and politics, Felix Grundy exemplified the questing, mobile society of early nineteenth-century America. With Democracy's Lawyer, Heller firmly establishes Grundy as a powerful player and personality in early American law and politics.

Lady First

Lady First PDF Author: Amy S. Greenberg
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804173443
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
The little-known story of remarkable First Lady Sarah Polk—a brilliant master of the art of high politics and a crucial but unrecognized figure in the history of American feminism. While the Women’s Rights convention was taking place at Seneca Falls in 1848, First Lady Sarah Childress Polk was wielding influence unprecedented for a woman in Washington, D.C. Yet, while history remembers the women of the convention, it has all but forgotten Sarah Polk. Now, in her riveting biography, Amy S. Greenberg brings Sarah’s story into vivid focus. We see Sarah as the daughter of a frontiersman who raised her to discuss politics and business with men; we see the savvy and charm she brandished in order to help her brilliant but unlikeable husband, James K. Polk, ascend to the White House. We watch as she exercises truly extraordinary power as First Lady: quietly manipulating elected officials, shaping foreign policy, and directing a campaign in support of America’s expansionist war against Mexico. And we meet many of the enslaved men and women whose difficult labor made Sarah’s political success possible. Sarah Polk’s life spanned nearly the entirety of the nineteenth-century. But her own legacy, which profoundly transformed the South, continues to endure. Comprehensive, nuanced, and brimming with invaluable insight, Lady First is a revelation of our twelfth First Lady’s complex but essential part in American feminism.