Traveling Exhibits

The Tennessee State Museum periodically organizes exhibitions which travel to venues across the state. Current traveling exhibitions include:

Museum Travels Civil War Cavalry Exhibition

Hoofbeats in the Heartland: Civil War Cavalry in Tennessee is a traveling exhibit put together by the museum to explore the development and impact of mounted warfare in Tennessee during the Civil War.

Funded in part by a grant from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area, the traveling exhibition opens at Travellers Rest Historic House Museum in June of 2007 and travels across Tennessee through the early part of 2010.

Drawing upon artifacts, photographs, drawings, and art from the collection of the Museum, the exhibition explores seven thematic areas: (1) Leaders (commanders such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Hunt Morgan, Samuel Carter, and John Wilder), (2) Troopers, (3) Horses and Mules, (4) Occupation and the home front, (5) Spies, Scouts, Partisans and Guerillas, (6) Battles in Tennessee, and (7) the Legacy. Each section includes photographs, graphics, and original artifacts to explain the role of mounted warfare during the Civil War era.

Due to mounted warfare, the home front often became the battle field as mounted soldiers skirmished on the streets of Memphis, Murfreesboro, Greeneville, and hundreds of towns and communities across the state. Indeed, every county of the state felt the impact of Union and Confederate cavalry thundering across the state as part of a raiding party, occupation force, or guerilla band. Each community had its unique experience with Civil War cavalry forces and the State Museum has encouraged each venue hosting the exhibition to develop a local history component to compliment the traveling exhibition.

Exhibition Dates:

2007 Schedule
June 8 - July 22		Travellers Rest, Nashville
July 24 - Sept. 7		Museum Center at 5ive Points, Cleveland
Oct. 1 - Nov. 12		Cookeville History Museum
Nov. 16 - Dec. 31		Sam Davis Home, Smyrna
2008 Schedule
Jan. 4 - March 9		Chattanooga Regional History Museum
March 13 - April 24		Oaklands, Murfreesboro
April 28 - May 20		Tennessee State Museum, War Memorial Building
May 22 - July 14		Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center, Townsend
July 21 - Sept. 14		Customs House Museum, Clarksville
Sept. 29 - Oct. 31		Granville Museum
Nov. 3 - Jan. 4		Tipton-Haynes Historic Site, Johnson City
2009 Schedule
Jan. - March		East Tennessee History Center, Knoxville
Sept. - Oct.		Jonesborough-Washington Co. Museum

Tennessee State Museum Office of Extension Services

The office of extension services seeks to assist small museums and local historical societies across the state of Tennessee by providing support and advice on a wide range of museum operational and management issues. The office can provide on-site visits and reviews, advice on collections management, registration, object handling, and exhibit technique. The services provided by the office of extension services are free to all not-for-profit museums or historical societies within the state of Tennessee as well as state, federal, or local government supported museums or historic sites. We can not assist for profit or individually owned museums.

Areas in which the Office of Extension Services can assist:

Collections Management and proper storage
Collections Policy development
Object handling and exhibition
Mission Statement development
New Museum development
Implementing Accepted Museum Standards
Board Development
Deaccessioning Collections artifacts
Adaptive reuse of structures for museum functions
Physical relocation of a collection

If your museum needs assistance of any type, you may contact Myers Brown, Curator of Extension Services, at 615-741-2692 or by email at Myers.Brown@state.tn.us.