Backwards farmers or modernizing farms? : the Tennessee Valley farms of East Tennessee in the early twentieth century

The Tennessee Valley Authority was created in the 1930s to bring electricity and jobs to the depressed South. Characterized by the popular media as "backward," East Tennessee became a center of governmental social reform. What these popular images ignored, however, was that some valley farmers were in the process of modernizing their farms. These farmers were integrating modern farming and construction methods with their traditional methods of agriculture. This transitional stage, from traditional to modern, is a product of modernization.

This thesis addresses the transitional farmstead as it appears within the Watts Bar Reservoir area in East Tennessee. This reservoir is located in a region defined as the Upland South. First, the thesis defines the transitional farmstead of the early 20th century based on previous definitions of traditional Upland South farmsteads and concepts of "ideal" Southern farms of the early 20th century. Next, sociological and architectural analyses are conducted using documentary and archaeological data concerning tenure class differences to demonstrate that even though there are tenure differences they do no have an affect on modernization. Archaeological data from testing of four farmsteads are presented for intersite comparisons between the four sites. Additionally, the archaeological data are employed for intersite comparisons with seven other sites to discern if there is a distinctive transitional Upland South farmstead artifact pattern.