Past Exhibits

  • Free Admission into Museum with Donation of Food or Personal Hygiene Item
    November 5, 2022 - 5:00am to January 17, 2023 - 11:00am

    A special exhibit at the Museum of East Tennessee History through January 17 will remember the legendary life and legacy of Waymon Earl Terrell (1950-2015). Earl was well known to the Powell community, where he was regularly seen riding his bicycle and pulling a cart along the busy thoroughfares of Clinton Highway and Emory Road, his dogs often...

  • The 40th Anniversary of the 1982 World's Fair
    March 19, 2022 - 5:00am to October 9, 2022 - 12:00pm

    “We live our dreams. We make them come true. Our ideas and energies combine in a dynamic force–the kind of force that made the developments and breakthroughs and discoveries in this building possible.”

    –President Ronald Reagan, dedication of the US Pavilion, 1982 World’s Fair, Knoxville, Tennessee

     ...

  • East Tennessee Remembers 9/11
    September 1, 2022 - 4:00am to September 30, 2022 - 12:00pm

    Following the events of September 11, 2001, East Tennesseans contributed more than $940,000 to purchase and equip a 95-foot tower ladder truck for Harlem-based Ladder Company 14, helping the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) replenish the largest vehicles in the city's firefighting fleet. The so-called “Freedom Engine,” built by Seagrave...

  • Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush
    April 21, 2022 - 3:00pm

    The East Tennessee Historical Society & Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law with presenting sponsors KaTom Restaurant Supply, Ihop, & The Honorable Bill and Chrissy Haslam invite you to attend A Historic Evening with Jon Meacham

    Destiny and Power: The American...
  • April 23, 2021 - 4:00am to January 30, 2022 - 12:00pm

    “There are two ways of understanding portraiture–either as history or as fiction.”–Charles Baudelaire, 1846

    Portraits were the “social media posts” of the American colonial and antebellum periods. 

    Today, social media allows users to not only visually document and share life’s moments but also curate how...

  • From Erzgebirge, Germany, to Wartburg, Tennessee
    November 22, 2021 - 4:00am to January 9, 2022 - 11:00am
    A Family's Christmas Tradition

    Charles Gottlieb Ficke/Fickey and wife Ernestine Augusta Auerswald, through whom the crèche (above) and Christmas carousel (right) descended, immigrated to the United States from the Saxony region of Germany in 1883. Accompanying them were their sons Ernest, 15, and Theodore, 10.

    An...

  • February 14, 2020 - 4:00am to February 28, 2021 - 12:00pm
    Introduction

    Knoxville occupies a unique place in the American South. Following the Civil War, residents felt it was one of the few racially tolerant cities in the region. Unlike most cities in the South, African Americans in Knoxville could vote, hold public office, serve as police officers, and sit on juries. Despite this, racial tensions...

  • August 18, 2020 - 4:00am to November 29, 2020 - 10:00am

    “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be...