Nashville Wed - Tennessee State Museum & Area

Wednesday 10/30
Upon a recommendation from a librarian we were talking to in the Civil Rights section of the Nashville Public Library, we chose to visit the Tennessee State Museum. Expecting to spend a couple hours there, we spent all day.

The museum layout was very innovative. On the following graphic, the center winding region in blue is termed a Time Tunnel. It wends its way around clockwise and had intermittent portals to different time zones, indicated by parallel double white bars. Mint green areas are permanent exhibits; orange areas are temporary exhibits.

Starting in the Grand Hall, shown in magenta at the lower left, the permanent exhibits in chronological, and therefore logically also clockwise, order are listed.

• Natural History
• First Peoples (13,000 BCE to 1760 CE)
• Forging a Nation (1760 to 1860)
• The Civil War and Reconstruction (1860 to 1870)
• Change and Challenge (1870 to 1945)
• Tennessee Transforms (1945 to Present)

I had never seen the terms BCE and CE used and learned they stood for Before Common Era and Common Era respectively. These terms show a sensitivity to the non-Christian element of the world's population, who are actually the majority. I had always been used to the terms B.C., Before Christ and A.D., Anno Domino, in the year of our lord, never considering its religious association before and never realized how behind the times I was. Per wikipedia discussion of Common Era

In the United States, the usage of the BCE/CE notation in textbooks was reported in 2005 to be growing. Some publications have moved over to using it exclusively. For example, the 2007 World Almanac was the first edition to switch over to the BCE/CE usage, ending a 138-year usage of the traditional BC/AD dating notation. It is used by the College Board in its history tests, and by the Norton Anthology of English Literature. Others have taken a different approach. The US-based History Channel uses BCE/CE notation in articles on non-Christian religious topics such as Jerusalem and Judaism.

The temporary exhibits when we visited (in the orange areas of previous graphic)  were

• Early Expressions: Art in Tennessee Since 1900 (far left)
• In Search of the New: Art in Tennessee Since 1900 (far right)
• Tennessee and the Great War; A Centennial Exhibition (upper right)
• Why Do Museums Collect? (lower center)
• Let's Eat! Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food (lower center)
• The State of Sound: Tennessee's Musical Heritage (lower center)

As I began to write this post I realized I had few photos of the exhibits. Near each portal was a film loop with excellent graphics and prelude of what was about to be seen. I got caught up in watching. The history in this museum started out as early as the formation of the planet Earth, the appearance of the supercontinent Rodinia.

The effect of ice movement as it pertained specifically to Tennessee was shown.

Tennessee has a fossil site that resulted from a sinkhole that trapped many species of animal and plant life. Named for the town of Gray where it discovered, it has yielded an abundance of fossils adding to our knowledge of early life forms.

Per the Wikipedia entry for the Gray Fossil Site

The Gray Site is a Pliocene-epoch assemblage of fossils located near the unincorporated town of Gray, Tennessee and dates from 4.9 to 4.7 million years ago. The current dig at the Gray Fossil Site was determined to have been the location of a semi-circular sinkhole that once harbored a pond environment over a long period of time and is now yielding the remains of the ancient plants and animals that lived, watered, and died within the then watery sinkhole. Some of the fossil finds from the Gray Fossil Site include a saber-toothed cat, short-faced bear, ground sloth, rhinoceros, alligator, camel, shovel-tusked elephant, Eurasian badger, tapirs, frogs, snakes, turtles and a red panda. Fossil records represent finds from approximately one percent of the total area of the Gray Fossil Site that has been explored --- and future fossil recovery from the entire site is projected to continue on for one hundred years.

It was lunch time and we had barely time traveled to the Civil War. We ate at an adjacent Farmer's Market with its produce and flower stands and food court. Everybody could investigate what food they wanted and then join up to eat. It was rather cacophonous but utilitarian. We all wanted to get back to the museum since at the snail's pace we'd been sustaining, we would miss a lot.

Frank and I went with Music City Crepes. I ordered a Philly Cheese, my go-to, can't-decide, high-fat, indulgent food of choice. But whoops... forgot to take a photo till we were mostly done.

When John& Sue and Joe& Margaret went back to the museum, Frank and I explored the rest of the farmer's market, leaving by a rear exit and being pleasantly surprised by this mural.

This a back view of the Farmer's Market from across the road behind it, 7th Avenue.

The Farmer's Market and Tennessee State Museum back to Bicentennial Park. Frank and I lagged behind our group's return to the museum to catch a glimpse of Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park.

The western perimeter of the park is lined with obelisks designating decades in Tennessee's history. They extend in either direction.

Along the walkway adjacent to obelisks, is a low wall with varied interesting facts from Tennessee's history.

The significance of the World War II Memorial is cited through a Nashville Public Art link

An eight-ton carved stone globe, which rests on a cushion of flowing water and can be easily pushed into different angles, though it rotates on its own due to the flowing water. ...Ten pillars, five on each side, line the east and west of the platform. Reflecting the direction one travels to get to Europe or Asia from Tennessee, the ones to the east depict moments from the war in Europe, while those on the west depict moments from the war in the Pacific.

Frank stands by the set of pillars representing the war in Europe and I stand by those for the war in the Pacific. The first one on the Pacific side represents the outrage at Pearl Harbor.

The Centennial Memorial stands in the center of the park. This Gypsy Road Trip  link attributes the quote encircling the base of the trees to Governor Bob Taylor when he greeted President McKinley during the 1897 Centennial Exposition.

"Our honored guests shall see today the triumphs of our brain and brawn and the tangible evidences of our activity. And some of them who saw our ruined country thirty years ago will certainly appreciate the fact that we have wrought miracles."

When Frank and I did return to the museum he continued on with the permanent exhibits for the Civil War, Great War and post war. I had had enough war stuff, so I moved on and took in the food, music, and art temporary exhibits. A carved wood rocking horse type sculpture caught my eye where Aesop's fable of the race between the tortoise and the hare is depicted.

In the "Let's Eat!" exhibit, I enjoyed watching a short film about the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. You can buy a ticket and stroll down Cornbread Alley where $5.00 gets you a plate full of all nine recipes.

Leaving the museum shortly before it closed, we relaxed back at home base with a jigsaw puzzle, as is our annual tradition. Its theme this year was musicals, somewhat appropriate for "Music City".

Aah... satisfying completion at last. We took a timed photo with me in it but the head-on angle did not show the puzzle and I thought the jigsaw puzzle was more pertinent than I was.

A fond memory I have is that as Margaret and I dissembled the puzzle on that last night before leaving, we sang a song from every musical we could. How did we do?. We knew nine out of thirteen on the bottom row. If this rate were typical our grade would be 70% – barely passing. But we were enjoying ourselves and having fun – so there!

We had a laid back dinner of sandwiches that night. We had a lot of lunch meats and bread to consume by the end of the week since we'd eaten lunch out oftener than we thought we would. Relaxation was good. This night was the final game of the World Series and the Nationals pulled it off defeating the Astros by four runs. All those games were won as the visiting team. What a nice cap-off to the day!