POWER, PATRONAGE, AND PRESERVATION: FEDERAL HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT IN MIDDLE TENNESSEE, 1920-1980

Abstract

This thesis addresses several topics relevant to transportation history in Tennessee. Through analyzing the Edsel Floyd Bridge located in Watertown, Tennessee, the history of early highway building trends, the history of the Watertown community, and the ways in which memorialization shapes landscapes are explored. Furthermore, by looking at the Austin Peay Papers located at the Tennessee State Library and Archives this thesis examines the Memphis-Bristol Highway and the systems of power and patronage that surrounded its construction during his administrations from 1923-1927. Finally, this thesis surveys U.S. 70N from Lebanon, Tennessee to Gentry in Putnam County, Tennessee and interprets this corridor in a New Deal context.

My study of the Edsel Floyd Bridge illuminates the different methods of memorialization and the forms they take on the landscape. Rather than naming a community center or a park after Edsel Floyd, the town instead chose to name the concrete arch bridge on U.S. 70 after one of their most well-known citizens. This is indicative not only of a movement to memorialize individuals or events in “useful” features in the landscape as opposed to monuments or plaques but also a way in which the community exerted their control and projected their values upon the state highway. The second chapter reveals that Austin Peay, a candidate that promised to take the politics of road building, instead propagated and utilized systems of power and patronage to build the Memphis-Bristol highway. Finally, my analysis of the resources and character of U.S. 70N reveal a complex and nuanced New Deal landscape. Features such as the Cordell Hull Bridge and the built form of U.S. 70N from Lebanon to Carthage show that while New Deal resources could provide stimulus for communities affected by their projects, they also changed the landscape and fabric of the communities they touched.