An inventory of some economic agencies and problems in Tennessee

The Southern Appalachian area, as defined by Federal agencies, embraces the Groat Smokies, the Cumberland Plateau, and all valleys among or lying between them. As thus defined the area includes the entire eastern end of the state as far west as the western border of the Plateau. This includes all or portions of 45 counties, or almost half the counties of the state.

In studying conditions in those counties it seemed desirable to have similar data for the other sections of the state, for comparative purposes, or to serve as measuring sticks for conditions in the mountain section also, it does not require a great deal more time to compile the data for all the counties than to pick them out for half the counties. Hence it was decided, in assembling and analyzing the Southern Appalachian data for Tennessee, to include similar data for the other sections of the state.

The four principal divisions into which the project was divided, and the graduate student assigned to each are, as follows:

A. A Physical and Biological Inventory D. L. Outen.

B. An Economic Inventory A. S. Jenkins.

C. A Sociological Inventory Joe A. Elliott.

D. A Civic or Governmental Inventory G. B. Collins, Jr.

Each of these phases of the project is designed, when completed, to supplement the others. Theses by each of these men are being presented at this Commencement, August 1932.