The new exhibit, "Common People in Uncommon Times," a celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War - the Civil War Experience in Tennessee - is showing at the Paris-Henry County Heritage Center through March 28. Myers Brown, formerly of the Tennessee State Museum, now of the Tennessee State Library and Archives, curated the 10 panel exhibit of photographs and artifacts. On Sounds Good, Kate Lochte asks brown about the diverse array of personalities whose stories illustrate a land divided.
Myers Brown says the exhibit tries to answer the question, "What does the war really mean to the people who lived through it?" It narrows down 50 Tennesseans of all walks of life: Confederate politicians who edged the state towards secession: Governor Harris and the pro Unionists of eastern Tennessee like Andrew Johnson and Governor William Bowen Campbell, Tennessee and Unionist soldiers, how civilians lived amongst occupied armies and how African Americans were impacted by the war.
"Every Tennessean that lived through that era was impacted by that event. And it may be something as simple as Union or Confederate troops marching across your farm and when they do they take every horse and mule that you own and they take every chicken and for the next six months you've got to figure out how to feed your family. Or it can be something much more dramatic like a battle fought literally on your front doorstep and even more personally the loss of a very close loved one."
Brown says every piece of ground in Tennessee had the potential to be the location of a dramatic event. Tennessee was centrally located between the grain belt of the Midwest and the cotton industry of the South. This was a great asset to Tennessee in pre-Civil War peace times, however, during the war this is part of the reason it became a primary battleground.
Many of the images come from the collections at the State Museum or the TN State Library & Archives. The earliest images date back to the mid to late 1850s up to veteran reunions in the 1930s.
Myers Brown curated the exhibit, "Common People in Uncommon Times" showing at the Paris-Henry County Heritage Center through March 28. It's a Tennessee State Museum Traveling exhibit of 10 graphic panels. The Heritage Center is on the left heading into Paris on 641 South. It's open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
