Taking the State Capitol to the Classroom

This week, the office of the Tennessee Secretary of State launched an initiative to distribute DVD copies of the documentary, “Tennessee State Capitol: Grounded in Tradition,” to every school in Tennessee.

At a news conference Tuesday, Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Clarksville-Montgomery County Director of Schools B.J. Worthington were joined by state legislators, school board members and other state and local officials in announcing that DVDs of the documentary will be distributed to every school in the school system.

The project is a result of a request by the Tennessee General Assembly that the Secretary of State’s Office produce the documentary. It premiered in an event at the Nashville Public Library earlier this year. Copies of the DVD are being distributed to school districts in all 95 of Tennessee’s counties.

On Friday, state and local officials will gather at the Chattanooga Convention Center, Meeting Room 12 at 1 p.m. Eastern Time for the next stop in this educational initiative, which also happens to coincide with Tennessee's Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event in Chattanooga. Archivists from TSLA will be on hand for that event for its "Looking Back: The Civil War in Tennessee" digital archiving project and traveling exhibit.

The Tennessee State Capitol documentary covers the building’s history from the time the original cornerstone was laid in 1845 through the present day. It covers serious events - including the Union Army’s occupation of the Capitol - and whimsical ones - like the time a car drove through the building’s lobby as a publicity stunt. The documentary can be viewed online from the Secretary of State’s web site at www.capitol.tnsos.net. There are plans to add other online resources to the site, including a virtual tour of the Capitol, as well as features and fun stories about the building’s history.

To learn more about both events, please visit our previous blog posts on the Tennessee State Capitol video and the Looking Back project.

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.