A guide to using Tennessee History for Kids

Historian and teacher Mark Finchum at the 2006 Tennessee History Festival.
A good place to start is the blue section across the top that says CLICK ON YOUR GRADE. If you do so, you'll be taken to a section that is especially written for that grade. If you click on eighth grade, for instance, it will take you to a twelve-part section of eighth grade Tennessee history, from the beginning of history until the Civil War. This is the same period covered in eighth grade classes, and this section contains everything that an eighth grader is supposed to learn about Tennessee (and much more).
Perry Wallace
PHOTO: Vanderbilt University
Down the left column are materials that are not grade-specific:

If you click on PEOPLE, it will take you to a list of famous Tennesseans (scroll down and look down the left side to see a list of them). Let's say that you are a teacher and would like to assign your students a report on a famous Tennessean. Thanks to this section, you can tell your students that each of them has to do a different person. Imagine how interesting it will be for the kids to research and do reports on everyone from Admiral William Lawrence to Reece Witherspoon to Ida Wells!

If you click on CIVICS, it will take you to a three-part section on Tennessee and local government. This includes things such as: who is my state representative; how a bill REALLY becomes law; why are there 95 counties in Tennessee; what Governor Bredesen does, etc. To give you an idea of just how highly this section is regarded: The High School Civics section has become required reading for all interns at the state legislature!

The GEOGRAPHY button takes you to a two-part section on Tennessee's geography.
Students in Sevier County in the 1930s
PHOTO: TN State Library & Archives
The OLD PHOTO GALLERY button contains a rotating exhibit of photographs from the Tennessee State Library and Archives, a partner with Tennessee History for Kids.

VIRTUAL TOURS are a great way for kids to learn about all the interesting places to visit in Tennessee. Knowing that kids can't see everything, and knowing that travel books are generally written for adults, we've created virtual tours of about 25 fantastic field trip destinations -- places like the Cumberland Gap, The Hermitage, the National Civil Rights Museum and Fort Donelson.
Fort Pillow
The COUNTY HISTORIES section may be our most popular. It contains a separate page for every Tennessee county (ALL 95!) that tells you AT LEAST ONE interesting thing about that county. The idea here isn't to tell everything about every county, but give each county something, and bring counties alive for students. The Anderson, Claiborne, DeKalb, and Van Buren county pages give you a sample of what they are like. The county history section also contains photographs of every courthouse in Tennessee.

Since one anecdote is hardly enough for the cities, there is also a CITY HISTORIES section. The Nashville page, for example, tells you how Nashville was founded, why it became the state capital, and why it became the home of country music.

And if you are looking for a subject but don't know where you might find it, the INDEX/GALLERY should help.
Cleaning fossils found at the Gray Fossil Site.
But what if you are a SCIENCE or MATH teacher? Believe it or not, we've got stuff on this web site that is Tennessee-related that will help you in class.

There are several virtual tours that contain lots of science, most notably the Ducktown Basin, the Gray Fossil Site, the Scopes Trial Museum, and the American Museum of Science and Energy.

And if you are a math teacher, there are places on the site where we explain how important it is to understand math, most notably the section on Reconstruction.
Students at a National History Day competition in Memphis
Who writes this stuff? Good question.

Tennessee History for Kids was created to be interesting and colorful, but it was also set up to be detailed and accurate. Unlike many educational web sites, it is not a glorified blog written by anonymous readers, nor is it a collection of links to other places. Everything you read on Tennessee History for Kids was written especially for Tennessee's students, based on the required curriculum. The writer of the site is Bill Carey, a former Capitol Hill reporter and the author of six Tennessee and Nashville history books, while every word of the web site has been edited and reviewed by a team of Tennessee history experts. Two of the more frequently used experts are Derek Frisby, a history professor at Middle Tennessee State University, and Pamela Bobo, a history professor at Tennessee State University. But among the people who have reviewed parts of the Tennessee History for Kids section are Comptroller Emeritus William Snograss, Attorney General Bob Cooper, and former Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court Frank Drowota.

The Cumberland County Courthouse -- one of 95 photographed on the web page
Be aware that the Tennessee History for Kids organization owns the copyright of the entire Tennessee History for Kids site, including all the written material and all photographs not credited elsewhere. If you would like to ask about reproducing any of the site, please email Bill Carey at bill@tnhistoryforkids.org.

Finally, keep in mind that this web site frequently changes as we add more material and more sections. We send out an email newsletter about once every month or so telling people about new features of the page, and also telling people about things that have happened in the news that are related to the subject. If you would like to get the newsletter, just send your personal email address to Bill Carey at bill@tnhistoryforkids.org. (Please note: school email addresses generally don't work.)

We hope you enjoy the site. Email us if you have suggestions or comments.

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