Tennessee - The Volunteer State 2

Tennessee – The Volunteer State

The first British settlement in what is now Tennessee was built in 1756 by settlers from the colony of South Carolina at Fort Loudoun, near present-day Vonore.  Fort Loudoun became the westernmost British outpost to that date.

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Fort Loudon

In the 1760s, long hunters from Virginia explored much of East and Middle Tennessee, and the first permanent European settlers began arriving late in the decade.  The majority of 18th century settlers were English or of primarily English descent but nearly 20% of them were also Scotch-Irish.

Three counties of the Washington District (now part of Tennessee) broke off from North Carolina in 1784 and formed the State of Franklin.  Efforts to obtain admission to the Union failed, and the counties (now numbering eight) had re-joined North Carolina by 1789.  North Carolina ceded the area to the federal government in 1790, after which it was organized into the Southwest Territory.

Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796 as the 16th state.  It was the first state created from territory under the jurisdiction of the United States federal government.

In February 1861, secessionists in Tennessee’s state government sought voter approval for a convention to sever ties with the United States, but Tennessee voters rejected the referendum by a 54–46% margin.  The strongest opposition to secession came from East Tennessee (which later tried to form a separate Union-aligned state).  Following the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln’s call for troops from Tennessee and other states in response, Governor Isham Harris began military mobilization, submitted an ordinance of secession to the General Assembly, and made direct overtures to the Confederate government.

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Isham Harris

The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861.  On June 8, 1861, with people in Middle Tennessee having significantly changed their position, voters approved a second referendum calling for secession, becoming the last state to do so.

Many major battles of the American Civil War were fought in Tennessee—most of them Union victories.

Tennessee was the first of the seceding states to have its elected members readmitted to the U.S. Congress, on July 24, 1866.  Because Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, it was the only one of the formerly secessionist states that did not have a military governor during the Reconstruction period.

The need to create work for the unemployed during the Great Depression, a desire for rural electrification, the need to control annual spring flooding and improve shipping capacity on the Tennessee River were all factors that drove the federal creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933.  Through the power of the TVA projects, Tennessee quickly became the nation’s largest public utility supplier.

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TVA Workers

During World War II, the availability of abundant TVA electrical power led the Manhattan Project to locate one of the principal sites for production and isolation of weapons-grade fissile material in East Tennessee.  The planned community of Oak Ridge was built from scratch to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers.  These sites are now Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, and the East Tennessee Technology Park.

Economy:

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2011 Tennessee’s real gross state product was $233.997 billion. In 2003, the per capita personal income was $28,641, 36th in the nation, and 91% of the national per capita personal income of $31,472. In 2004, the median household income was $38,550, 41st in the nation, and 87% of the national median of $44,472.

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