5 History 5 - Tennessee History for Kids

FIFTH GRADE
Part Five: Depression hits home

The interior of a general store in West Tennessee, probably in the 1930s
PHOTO: TN State Library & Archives

Your textbook talks about the Great Depression. But when it talks about the 1930s, it probably doesn't mention anything that happened in Tennessee. We're going to tell you how the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority and some of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs changed the Volunteer State.

When the New York Stock Exchange crashed in October 1929, Tennessee's leaders hoped it wouldn't affect their state very much. Through most of 1930 they appeared to be right.

An ad for Caldwell & Co.

But a few days after Governor Henry Horton was re-elected in November 1930, a Nashville financial company called Caldwell & Co. collapsed, starting a chain reaction of business failures unlike anything the South had ever seen. In only six weeks, 120 southern banks closed.

So what did it mean if you had money in a bank that "closed"? More often that not, it meant you lost all the money you had in that bank. It meant failure, personal bankrutpcy, ruin, and disgrace for thousands of Tennesseans.

Eventually, the newspapers, which had been downplaying the bad economic news, were running announcements of soup kitchens and other stories that reflected how hard the times were. For instance, click on this article that ran in the Nashville Tennessean in 1932. It describes the kinds of things that many people who lived in Tennessee then did to survive.

A sign at Nickajack Dam, near Chattanooga

The Tennessee Valley Authority

One of President Roosevelt's bolder programs was an organization that would use engineering to "tame" the Tennessee River. This idea eventually became known as the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA. To this day it affects the life of just about everyone in Tennessee.

The TVA story begins in northwest Alabama. Prior to the existence of dams, the Tennessee River was treacherous in a section of the river known as the Muscle Shoals. (By the way, it wasn't much calmer in the area just northeast of Chattanooga -- a section of the river that became known as "The Suck" because of the way it spun boats around.)

When World War I occurred, the federal government built a dam (called Wilson Dam) just below the Muscle Shoals. Its main purpose was to provide gunpowder for the war effort, but as an added bonus the dam raised the water level of the river for several miles upstream, forever burying the hazardous Muscle Shoals. But when the war ended, no one was really sure what to do with Wilson Dam.

Senator George Norris
PHOTO: TVA

As it turns out, the Army Corps of Engineers (which operated all inland waterways at that time) had conducted a study of the Tennessee River and what needed to be done to "tame" it. This study called for the construction of dams from one end of the river to the other make the river at least nine feet deep in its channel (deep enough for big boats). In the process, the dams and the hydroelectric plants that could be built with them could create massive amounts of electricity, while people could have fun playing and fishing on the "storage reservoirs" (lakes) created along the river.

Senator George Norris of Nebraska worked hard to get this plan executed. After Roosevelt became president he put Norris' new plan into effect. "[This] is an opportunity to do a great deal for the people of many states and the whole country by tying industry, agriculture, forestry, and flood control in one great development and so afford a better place for millions yet unborn in the days to come." The first TVA dam was built on the Clinch River in East Tennessee. It was named for Senator Norris. Other dams followed one at a time, and by the late 1940s the Tennessee River was "tamed."

A TVA dam under construction
PHOTO: TVA

Everyone who lived near the river was affected by this. Tens of thousands of jobs were created. Some of the “workers villages” that were built during dam construction still remain – Norris, Tennessee, being the best example. Thousands of homes, hundreds of farms, and many towns were permanently flooded and had to be moved to higher ground. (Three that are mentioned elsewhere on Tennessee History for Kids are Butler, in Johnson County; Loyston in Union County; and Willow Grove, in Clay County. Meanwhile, Dandridge, in Jefferson County, narrowly escaped having to move its courthouse)

Even cemeteries had to be relocated. Click here to learn more about this process.

A woman poses with a kitchen full of electrical appliances
PHOTO: TVA

The TVA built these dams in a way that produced cheap electrical power, and this also had a major impact on Tennessee. In the 1950s, largely because of TVA, use of electrical power in Tennessee skyrocketed. Across the state, the electric light soon replaced the gas lamp and the electric refrigerator replaced the ice box. Televisions and radios began to make their way into tens of thousands of homes.

Two men fish on a TVA lake.

In the process of damming up the river, TVA also created a series of man-made lakes such as Norris Lake, Watts Bar Lake, Chickamauga Lake, and Kentucky Lake. Today when most people visit these lakes it probably doesn't even cross their minds that they are using a lake created by people, not by nature.

The Cumberland Homesteads

Changes across the landscape

Although TVA is the most important thing the federal government did in Tennessee during the Great Depression, the New Deal affected the state in many ways. Here are a few examples:

* The federal government built an experimental community in Cumberland County known as the Cumberland Homesteads. The structures are still there; click here to be taken on a virtual tour.
* The Works Progress Adminstration (WPA) built roads and airports, made improvements at places such as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and even excavated ancient Indian villages in several parts of the state.
* Several counties got new courthouses and post offices that were largely paid for by the federal government.

Rock City

* A well-known tourist attraction was created by Garnet and Frieda Carter, who lived atop Lookout Mountain, near Chattanooga. During the height of the Great Depression, the Carters developed a rock garden and a beautiful winding trail on their boulder-filled land, from which they believed you could see parts of seven states. To spread the word about their property, Garnet Carter began asking farmers if he could add a fresh coat of paint to their barn roofs in exchange for free advertising. Many farmers agreed, and soon the words "SEE ROCK CITY" could be seen on barns as far north as Michigan.

For more on the history of Rock City, click here.

More about depression-era Tennessee on Tennessee History for Kids: Click here to read about "Boss" Ed Crump of Memphis; here to learn about writer T.S. Stribling; here to take a virtual tour of the Memphis Cotton Exchange; here to read about a Williamson County native important in TVA history. Also, if you click here you will be taken to the high school version of this same section, which contains more detail.

QUIZ

1. (TRUE OR FALSE) When the stock market crashed in New York, Tennessee's leaders admitted that the state was falling into a financial depression.
2. The story of the Tennessee Valley Authority begins in northwest Alabama, at a section of the river known as the _______ _________.
3. Why did the plans for TVA make the river's channel at least nine feet deep?
4. Who was the Nebraska Senator whose persistence led to the creation of TVA?

BONUS. Name something in your county built with federal government money during the New Deal.

For quiz answers, click here.

And to read about Tennessee and World War II, click here.