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Tennessee State Museum

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zabelle
zabelle
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5 out of 5
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2
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Tennessee State Museum

  • July 11, 2007
  • Rated 5 of 5 by Piratical from Jensen Beach, Florida
It's been a while, but we loved this museum. It was free admission (I believe it still is). Awesome museum. They even had a mummy at one point. Hope it's still there.

From journal Middle Tennessee

Editor Pick

Tennessee State Museum

  • December 6, 2006
  • Rated 5 of 5 by zabelle from Portland, Connecticut
Tennessee State Museum

The reason I headed to Nashville in November 2005 were two-fold. First it was time for Cindy and I to have our yearly girls get away and secondly the Rau Collection was being shown at the Tennessee State Museum.

Much as I would love to give all the details of the fabulous Rau collection it is no longer on display at the Museum. As far as I was concerned it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to view these priceless works of art.

I want to emphasis though that the Tennessee State Museum on its own is well worth a visit. We only had a little over an hour to see all the exhibits and it wasn’t nearly enough time. We seriously considered returning to spend more time.

The Tennessee State Museum was founded in 1937. It moved to its current location in 1981. It is one of the largest museums in the country covering three floors with more than 60,000 feet of exhibits. There are lots of permanent exhibits and a constantly changing array of traveling exhibits. To find out what is currently being exhibited go to Tennessee State Museum

The exhibits are chronological. You can begin with the first inhabitants in prehistoric times and move to the founding of Nashville winding your way through exhibits. In the frontier exhibit you can see a full size cabin and if you are a Daniel Boone fan there is one of his muskets on display. Large parts of the museum are set up so that you feel as if you are walking down city streets with store fronts on both your sides. There are other displays arranged as rooms.

Andrew Jackson was a local hero and there is an extensive display on his life and presidency. Along with Jackson, native son Davy Crockett gets some exhibit space as does General Santa Anna, Sam Houston and President Polk. Some of the exhibits are disturbing, especially those on slavery, there was a broadside advertising the sale of slaves along with stock and land. Further displays dealt with the punishment for trying to escape.

As you would expect, the Civil War has a large number of exhibits. You get a change to see the many regimental colors and uniforms that made up the Tennessee war effort. Not only the soldiers are covered but also the effects of war on the regular people. I was particularly interested in a display of Confederate currency. There are also some very nice displays of weapons both swords and guns. I was surprised to find out that the battle of Shiloh was fought very close to Nashville. There are also displays on reconstruction and also on the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. As you move forward in time you will become involved in the Civil Right Movement, Suffragettes’ movement, prohibition and the 1897 Tennessee Centennial has an exceptional exhibit.

You will find enough here to keep you occupied for several hours.

From journal Nashville Revisited

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