East TN Historical Society Presentation by Dr. Warren Dockter
Barbara Morgan, Dr. Warren Dockter
Dr. Warren Dockter, PhD and new president and CEO of the East Tennessee Historical Society (ETHS), entertained and informed the Martha Dandridge Washington (MDW) Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR), with his presentation on “The Person and Works of the East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum” at the October chapter meeting.
Dr. Dockter grew up in Grainger County and has long had an intense interest in history. His mother and father always encouraged him to read, and he was inspired by history trips with his grandfather Albert Dockter. After earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee, he crossed the Atlantic to achieve his Master of Arts and PhD from the University of Nottingham in England.
While there, the guest speaker did not run into the Sheriff of Nottingham or Robin Hood, but, while he was at the University of Cambridge, he did establish a friendship with Boris Johnson, now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. When Johnson and Dockter were doing historical research in France as background for Johnson’s book on Winston Churchill, they encountered an armed French farmer who demanded to know who they were and why they were trespassing on his property. In very broken French, Johnson explained that their reason for being there was that they were doing research on World War I. With that, the farmer was satisfied and gave permission to continue their mission.
According to Dr. Dockter, the ETHS, founded in 1834 by James Gettys McGready Ramsey, also has a mission which is to preserve, promote, and interpret the history of East Tennessee.
The Covid-19 pandemic has hurt the museum industry nationwide; however, the ETHS is trying to get things moving again. Some of the programs aimed at engaging the public are as follows:
- The Brown Bag Lunch Series is offered in both a Zoom and in-person format. Those sessions will be broadcast on Community TV and YouTube to make the content available to all of East Tennessee.
- The bi-annual newsletter Newsline is being updated and published once more.
- The TN Ancestor genealogical journal, edited by Dandridge resident Ann Blomquist, will be produced twice a year.
- The ETHS Museum itself is located at 601 S. Gay Street in Knoxville and offers opportunities to learn through observational and interactive displays.
The “Shaver: An Artist of Rare Merit” exhibit will be on display until January 30, 2022, in the Rogers-Claussen Feature Gallery. The museum website notes that “Portraits were the ‘social media posts’ of the American colonial and antebellum periods.” They allowed the sitters to document their lives.
Samuel Moore Shaver, who was born at Reedy Creek near Kingsport in 1816 and began painting in the late 1830’s, advanced portraiture with a technique of designing backgrounds to reflect the character and interests of the subject of the portrait.
The History Headquarters: Interactive Gallery for Children & Families gives kids the “key to unlock history” and allows children to have hands-on experience to investigate sources of history such as “artifacts, images, and documents, to better understand history’s mysteries,” according to the website.
The History Headquarters can be used by schools during the week and is also open to the public during the weekend. Weekday entry costs $5.00, but weekend entry to the HHQ is free.
“Voices of the Land,” a permanent exhibit, gives the visitor the entire history of the State of Tennessee.
Two important activities the Society is undertaking are, first, the rebuilding of the Society website to make it more interactive and a “unique online experience” and, second, the digitizing of the Society journals going back to 1921. These changes will give access to museum resources to scholars anywhere. Digitizing will also be done for the genealogical publications Tennessee Ancestors and First Families of Tennessee.
Dr. Dockter mentioned that the name of Tennessee has gone through many incarnations. The Yuchi people called it Tanasquai, while the Cherokee later called it Tanasi. The name has had several interpretations attached to it including Bending River, Where the Rivers Meet, and Meeting Place.
The ETHS Museum is a meeting place, too, where visitors can have encounters with the history of their state and of their ancestry. More information about the museum can be accessed at www.eastTNhistory.org.
For information about the DAR, contact Registrar Karen McFarland at (865) 258-8670 or Regent Jane Chambers at (865) 591-3857.
Dr. Warren Dockter spoke about the East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum at the October MDW Chapter meeting. Barbara Morgan, his proud mom, was inducted into the chapter as a new member at that same meeting.
