Helping to Preserve the Great Smokies: Paul Jay Adams

By Dr. Kevin Cason

On Sept. 2, 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at Newfound Gap to dedicate the Great Smoky Mountains as a national park. In front of crowds of people, Roosevelt came to the podium and stated: “Here in the Great Smokies, we meet today to dedicate these mountains, streams, forests to the service of the American people.” While the celebration was a momentous occasion, it had taken many years and many people’s efforts to reach that point. One of the people who played a significant role in promoting the conservation and appreciation of the Great Smoky Mountains region was Paul Jay Adams.

View of Mt. Le Conte at the Great Smoky Mountains
Paul Jay Adams Papers, Box 8, Folder 9
Tennessee State Library and Archives

Adams was born in Paxton, Illinois in 1901 to Nittie Elizabeth Vanderhoff and Rev. Clair Stack Adams. As a young boy, his father encouraged him to explore outside and take notes in journals of what he observed. In 1914, his family moved to Burnsville, North Carolina. While living there, Adams began to develop his interest in wildlife and exploring the mountains. By 1918, his family moved to Knoxville and his attention turned to the Great Smoky Mountains after he hiked to the summit of Mount Le Conte.

Paul Jay Adams and his dog Smoky Jack, Sept. 1926
Paul Jay Adams Papers, Box 8, Folder 9
Tennessee State Library and Archives

During the 1920s, the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association was organized with the mission of advocating for the establishment of a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains. Adams, who was a member of the organization, was appointed as custodian of Mount Le Conte. After learning of his appointment, he purchased a large German shepherd that he named “Smoky Jack.” The dog served as his only constant companion on the mountain. During his nine-month tenure as custodian of Mount Le Conte, Adams made some improvements to the area, such as building a camp and cutting a path to the popular scenic view known as Cliff Top.

With many people supporting and promoting the conservation of the Great Smokies, the region eventually became an official national park. Today, the Great Smoky Mountains continues to attract a wide variety of visitors who want to view the natural beauty and landscape of the mountains.

Cover Drawing of Mt. Le Conte book by Paul J. Adams
Paul Jay Adams Collection, Box 8, Folder 8
Tennessee State Library and Archives

The Library & Archives is fortunate to house the Paul Jay Adams collection that provides photographs, personal journals and booklets pertaining to his experiences as custodian of Mount Le Conte. In addition, his self-published accounts entitled Mt. Le Conte and Smoky Jack: The Adventures of a Dog and His Master on Mount Le Conte are part of the library collection.

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

Tennessee History Day Competition Draws Students From Across Tennessee

Following months of research and competitions at the local and district levels, more than 300 students from across the state will present their projects at the annual Tennessee History Day competition in downtown Nashville Saturday. The competition allows students to showcase their creativity and researching skills by developing projects with historical themes. The students with the projects judged best in the statewide competition will advance to the National History Day finals - held in College Park, Maryland June 11 through June 15 - with prestigious awards and scholarships awaiting the top finishers there. 

Middle and high school students created projects based on topics of their choosing, all of which related to this year’s theme, “Taking a Stand in History.” Students compete in five categories: papers, exhibits, documentaries, websites and performances. Tennessee History Day helps participating students learn the importance of history and critical thinking through the use of primary source documents, in-depth research and analysis.

"Each year, there are so many great projects related to the selected theme for History Day," Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. "This year's theme is particularly inspiring because it focuses on people who have made courageous stands that have helped our state, our country and our world become what they are today. I wish all of this year's participants the best of luck in what I'm sure will be an exciting competition. I am sure Saturday's winners will represent Tennessee well at the national competition in College Park."

“We look forward to hosting this special group of talented young scholars at the capital this year,” added Ann Toplovich, executive director of the Tennessee Historical Society, which has sponsored the competition since 2009 with grant support from the Secretary of State’s Office and Humanities Tennessee. “Their History Day projects bring amazing insights into the history that shapes the world we live in today.”

Nationwide, the History Day program includes more than a half million students annually from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa and Department of Defense Schools. Each fall, students and teachers nationwide begin work on the yearlong curriculum, which starts with competitions held in individual schools. The winners there advance to district competitions. In Tennessee, those district competitions take place in Knoxville (sponsored by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville), Greeneville (sponsored by Tusculum College), Cleveland (sponsored by the Museum Center at 5ive Points), Clarksville (sponsored by Austin Peay State University), Murfreesboro (sponsored by Middle Tennessee State University) and Memphis (sponsored by the University of Memphis). The district winners qualified for Saturday's event, which will be held at various buildings in downtown Nashville.

For more information about Tennessee History Day, please visit http://www.tennesseehistory.org/thd/

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

‘Virtual Story Time’ Offers a New Way to Experience Books

Story time is a popular tradition at public libraries throughout the country, but story time events at the Tennessee State Library and Archives have a special twist: instead of performing with groups of eager children crowded at her feet, the librarian administering the program at the Library and Archives is reading books aloud in mostly empty rooms.

The audience – children with vision impairments or other disabilities that make reading standard print books difficult – listen to the stories each month via telephone conference call. While they are listening, the children prepare crafts that relate to the stories they are hearing.

The Tennessee Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (TLBPH), a division of the Library and Archives, developed the first-of-its-kind program last fall as a way to reach disabled people who might never visit a public library. “Virtual story time” is a program that libraries in other states could eventually adopt in their own communities.

Maria Sochor, TLBPH’s director, said the goal was to give the library’s patrons with special needs access to a service readily available to people with sight at most community libraries. “The feedback we’ve gotten has been wonderful,” Sochor said. “The children are engaging with us during the calls. Children who never would have had a chance to interact with each other have that opportunity.”

That was true for Christian Buchanan, a 6-year-old Woodbury resident who participated for the first time in March. While Christian listened to the story “You Nest Here With Me” being read aloud during the session, he built a bird’s nest out of materials TLBPH sent to him and shared the experience with others on the call.

Lacey Buchanan, Christian’s mother, said TLBPH’s story time sessions help her son learn about the outside world. “Having the phone call and the interactiveness, they are made for him,” Lacey Buchanan said. “It’s not that their disabilities are highlighted, but their needs are highlighted. A need is getting met. For him to get to be conversational, to me, that’s the best part of it.”

The Tennessee program has no age limits and there’s no cost to participate. Sochor said “children and the young at heart” are welcome to join the calls each month.

While participants are learning and developing socialization skills, the program has another obvious benefit. “The thing that makes it work as far as getting children engaged is that we make it fun,” Sochor said.

Secretary of State Tre Hargett, whose office oversees TLBPH and the Library and Archives, said he hopes Tennessee’s program can be a model for other “virtual story times” across the country.

“I am constantly inspired by the creativity of the people who make up our department. They saw an opportunity and created this program to address the specific needs of our patrons. This may not impact a massive population of Tennesseans, but I know this initiative is benefiting the lives of those who call in every month,” said Secretary Hargett said.

Lacey Buchanan is also hoping the idea will catch on, for Christian and other children like him. “I think it would be great if every state had this program,” she said. “This would be a sort of communal thing.”

For information about how to sign up for the program, please visit: http://sos.tn.gov/tsla/lbph

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

Library and Archives Can’t Afford More Funding Delays

In a recent op-ed, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett expressed the critical need for a new Library & Archives facility...

As the legislative session winds down, I am cautiously optimistic that the General Assembly will include funding for a new Tennessee State Library and Archives building in the next state budget. I am optimistic because I have heard from many House and Senate members who support funding for the new building. But I am also cautious because I believe there are some lingering misconceptions about this project.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the Library and Archives should focus on creating electronic versions of its records instead of trying to find space for them in a new building. There are several points to make about that.

First of all, the Library and Archives already has an active program in which digital copies of records are being created and made available online. This effort is a very important part of our ongoing strategy to ensure access to records for people who might not be willing or able to travel to the Library and Archives building in downtown Nashville.

However, it’s also important to understand that the Library and Archives has millions of pages of documents, photographs and maps that haven’t yet been electronically scanned. Making digital copies of all of them within a reasonable time would be cost prohibitive costing in the hundreds of millions, far more than what a new building is expected to cost. Scanning of documents would have to continue forever since the Library and Archives receives more records from state agencies and private donors every week.

There’s also a widely-held belief that digital records would last forever. This simply isn’t true. Digital files are susceptible to becoming corrupted. As anyone who has dealt with corrupted files on a personal computer knows, it isn’t always possible to retrieve them once they’re lost and other technical elements become obsolete including software that is no longer supported.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let’s say we could digitize all of the Library and Archives’ records quickly, cheaply and without fear that they might turn into unreadable gobbledygook within a decade or less. Would you really want to get rid of the original historic documents? I think most of us have seen a digital copy of the Declaration of Independence at some point in our lives, but that doesn’t mean that priceless originals are ready for the paper shredder.

Another misconception is that the Library and Archives simply has a storage problem that could be fixed by renting warehouse space. Most warehouses don’t have the type of temperature and humidity controls needed to preserve sensitive old records. Then there are security considerations to ensure valuable documents don’t grow legs and end up appearing on an online auction website.

A bigger issue concerns public access. If you were to walk into the Library and Archives building and request any record there, the staff could produce what you wanted within a matter of minutes. The same wouldn’t be true if some records were kept in an off-site warehouse, where it might take a day or more to find them and make them available.

A warehouse wouldn’t fix the problems at the existing building, anyway. The building, on Capitol Hill, which is 65 years old, has only 15 public parking spaces available to patrons. Additionally, the building has a major handicapped access problem which causes wheelchair users to use a back door by the loading dock and to be escorted into the building’s public space by security. The building is too small for many tour groups to visit, especially student groups. And the records already being stored there are at risk of mold and mildew damage because of the building’s declining condition.

The most damaging misconception of all is that a new building is just a “want,” not a “need.” The Library and Archives is required by state law to store official state records and make them available to the public. The staff there doesn’t have the option of hanging up a “no vacancy” sign when more records arrive at its doorstep.

In fact, the need and value of our holdings hit home in a meaningful way to the families who lost everything in the tragic Gatlinburg wildfire last fall - including marriage certificates needed to prove their legal statuses. Those records have been preserved because copies were available at the Library and Archives.

Funding for a new building has been in limbo for almost a decade so we need a solution. A famous Tennessean named Elvis Presley once sang: “It’s now or never.” This is where we are with regards to this important and worthy project. Without action now, current and future Tennesseans will lose accessibility to our state’s valuable and historic records and our ability to preserve these documents will continue to be diminished.

Tre Hargett is Tennessee’s Secretary of State. His office oversees the operations of the Tennessee State Library and Archives. 

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

Complete Set of Tennessee Gold Star Records Available Online as World War I Anniversary Approaches

Group of soldiers at Camp Sevier in Greenville, S.C. on November 7, 1917 in the gold star record of Corp. Joseph Warren Kyle, Co. C, 105th Fld. Sig. Bn.
Pictured (left to right): Hurst (Sevierville, Tenn.); Kyle (Hollow Rock, Tenn.); Creson (Fayetteville, Tenn.); Lamox (Winchester, Tenn.); Marshall (Ky.)
Tennessee World War I Gold Star Records: Tennessee Virtual Archive (TeVA)

The United States’ entry into World War I led to tragedy for the West family from the East Tennessee community of Oliver Springs. Newspapers of the time reported that infantryman and Oliver Springs resident George Edward West carried his dying 17-year-old brother Thomas from a battlefield in France, only to be killed himself a little more than a month later.

The stories of the West brothers – and hundreds of others like them – are immortalized in the records of Tennessee’s Gold Star collection. As the United States prepares to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the date the country joined the conflict known as “the Great War,” the Tennessee State Library and Archives is pleased to announce that a complete set of those records is now available online.

“The U.S. entry into World War I was a somber time in our country’s history,” Secretary of State Tre Hargett said. “As we near the 100th anniversary of that date, many people may wish to learn more about the brave soldiers from Tennessee who lost their lives while serving overseas. This online collection should make it easier for people who may not be able to visit the Library and Archives building in person to review these records and discover the heroic stories they document.”

The United States officially entered World War I April 6, 1917. About 130,000 soldiers from Tennessee went off to battle – many of whom did not return. During the war, families of soldiers hung small flags with blue stars on them to signify that they were contributing to the war effort. The families of soldiers who were killed in action changed their blue stars to gold.

Two months after the armistice was signed to end the war, Tennessee began collecting data about the state’s gold star honorees. Spearheaded by then-State Librarian and Archivist John Trotwood Moore, people throughout the state began sending information about deceased World War I veterans, including photographs, letters, service records, obituaries and mementos.

Those records, which have been stored at the Library and Archives, are now available through the Tennessee Virtual Archive. The files, documenting the service of 1,169 Tennessee soldiers, can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/TNGoldStar.

Visitors to the site can look up soldiers by their names, home cities or counties, or the branch of the service in which they served. These records may be of particular interest to genealogists since they contain information about soldiers, their parents and other family members that may have been destroyed in a 1921 fire that obliterated records from the 1890 U.S. Census.

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

Nannie Hereford: Missionary and Prisoner of War

By Ellen Robison

The Tennessee State Library & Archives’ collection of Tennessee newspapers on microfilm is an excellent source for researchers to get an overview of events in Tennessee history. Among the stories found within these records is that of Nannie Hereford, a former missionary in Japan who was held as a prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II. She later returned to Japan to work for 33 more years serving the people by whom she was held hostage.

Nashville Tennessean article, dated May 3, 1945, entitled “Local Woman, Free of Japs, Returns to U. S.”

Hereford was born in 1908, in Osaka, Japan to Presbyterian missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. W. F. Hereford of Lebanon, Tennessee. She grew up in Hiroshima, Japan, but returned to Tennessee during her high school and college years. In 1932, she followed in her parents’ footsteps and accepted her own appointment for missionary work in Japan. There she worked as a teacher in Hokkaido until 1941, when tensions between Japan and the United States forced her to transfer to the Philippines. She was still working there when war broke out in the Pacific.

Nashville Tennessean article, dated April 11, 1942, entitled, “25 More State Servicemen, Civilians Believed in Philippines.” Pages 1 and 2.

An article on the April 11, 1942, front page of the Nashville Tennessean reported that 25 more individuals were added to the list of Tennesseans last known to be in the Philippines when the Japanese took control of the islands, bringing the total to 55. Among these was Hereford. Those who remained in the Philippines were taken as prisoners by the Japanese. In March of 1943, the prisoners were transferred to Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, which held more than 4,000 civilians from several countries. Additionally, more than 60 U. S. Army nurses were also interned at Santo Tomas. In July of 1944, The Nashville Tennessean reported that Hereford’s parents had received a cablegram from her, which read: “Family welfare? Disappointed no recent mail. Nt [No] loss weight during internment. Love, Nannie Hereford.”

Nashville Tennessean article, dated July 21, 1944, entitled “Daughter Writes Parents From Jap Prison Camp.”

On Feb. 3, 1945, American troops liberated Santo Tomas Internment Camp during the month-long battle for the city of Manila. In an interview decades later, Hereford recounted that the camp was caught in the middle of the battle for about a week. At one point, she took shelter in her cooking shed, putting her cooking pan over her head. Upon emerging, she found a piece of shrapnel that had fallen on the counter quite close to where she had been. In late February of 1945, the Nashville Tennessean reported that the Hereford's family received a telegram from the war department informing them that she had been among the survivors of the camp and was in good health. She returned to the United States in May of that same year and was in Lebanon with her family when the U. S. dropped the first atomic bomb that decimated her childhood home of Hiroshima.

Nashville Tennessean article, dated Feb. 25, 1945, entitled “State Woman Freed From Manila Prison.”

Only a year passed before Hereford returned to the Philippines to continue her mission work. Several years later, she transferred back to Japan where she worked until her retirement in 1973. After retirement, Hereford kept herself busy by volunteering with various organizations including the Nashville Peace Links, where she worked as an anti-nuclear activist, and the Nashville Crisis Center, where she served as a telephone helpline operator. She was a chairperson of the legislative committee for the American Association of University Women, where she worked on important issues such as food taxation.

Tennessean article, dated May 19, 1985, entitled “77-Year-Old Promotes Peace.”

In 1985, Nashville Peace Links awarded to Hereford its annual Peace Award for her activism against nuclear weapons. In an interview with the Nashville Tennessean, she said that she had visited Hiroshima after World War II and toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The article quoted her as saying: “I’ve seen the museum with their horrid pictures… I don’t believe in more and more munitions. If you prepare for war, you’ll use it.”

Until her death in 1999, Hereford continued to speak out to support peace - in hopes for a world with “No more Hiroshimas, ever.”

"If you prepare for war, you'll use it." -- Nannie Hereford

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

Making the case for a new Library & Archives building...

In case you missed "Inside Politics" on NewsChannel 5 over the weekend, Secretary of State Tre Hargett outlined the case for a new Library & Archives building and Archivist Dr. Tom Kanon offered a presentation about a few of the many historical treasures the Library & Archives houses.

To view the program online, please visit: http://www.newschannel5.com/plus/inside-politics/inside-politics-tennessee-secretary-of-state-tre-hargett

#saveourpast #buildourfuture #tnlibarchives #archives

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