A restless landscape : building Nashville history and Seventh and Drexel /

Abstract

Drawing upon manuscript sources, historic photographs, census data, building plans, historic maps, and other evidence, this study examines the histories of the four inhabitants of the address at Seventh and Drexel Avenues as a case study of the changing social history of the downtown Nashville area during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores how the histories of the inhabitants---an estate owned by several of the city's white booster elites, an African American Roman Catholic parochial school, the southeastern flagship store of Sears, Roebuck, and Co., and the Nashville Rescue Mission---shaped and were shaped by the different built environments on the property and how those inhabitants used the property as a powerful tool to promote the traditioned social identities they represented. As a case study, the dissertation shows how the changes in ownership reflected the cultural and social changes that occurred in downtown Nashville during the period.