Your Tennessee State Museum is home to quite a few interesting things to do and see this summer. Now on exhibit is “Eight Days in Dayton” open through October 12, 2025. Be sure to also check out the online portion of the exhibition, which features the majority of the TSM Scopes Collection artifacts.
“Eight Days in Dayton: 100 Years of the Scopes Trial,” is a temporary display in the Museum Corridor Gallery on the second floor featuring significant artifacts from the Museum’s collection related to the trial. The Scopes Evolution Trial, formally “The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes,” took place in Dayton, Tennessee as a challenge to the Butler Act, a law that made the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee schools illegal. Artifacts include the table where town leaders sat in Robinson’s Drug Store when planning the trial, textbooks related to the case, and a significant collection of original press photographs the Museum acquired in 2022.
Saturday, August 9, from 10:30 – 11:30 a.m., Jennifer C. Core and Janet S. Hasson will participate in “Tennessee Samplers: Female Education and Domestic Arts, 1800 – 1900,” a discussion as part of the TN Writers | TN Stories series. Jennifer Core and Janet Hasson’s study of samplers — embroideries that are “first attempts at a new technique, color combination, or unusual material” — provides vivid descriptions of this 19th-century Tennessee art form in its many varieties.
During the event, Core will be joined by Julia Doyle, the Museum’s curator of fashion and textiles, to discuss the book “Tennessee Samplers” (University of Tennessee Press) and how embroidery came to be a crucial primary source in revealing the lives of girls and young women during a time when little was recorded about them. This book is an authoritative record of the material culture produced in the daily routine of school rooms. It is for all who see beauty in sometimes – overlooked handiwork and understand the importance of curating, preserving, and analyzing it.
Craig Duncan presents “Music for Seniors: Craig Duncan’s Tennessee Bluegrass Review” on Wednesday, August 13, at 11:00 a.m. Mr. Craig Duncan is a member of the North American Fiddler’s Hall of Fame and Who’s Who in Music and Musicians, and has been the featured instrumentalist on over 100 record albums, with sales in excess of five million copies. The Tennessee State Museum is hosting this musical event as part of the Music for Seniors Free Daytime Concert Series, presented by CenterWell. Partnering support comes from the Music Performance Trust Fund, National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
Plan now for Saturday, September 13, 10:30 a.m., as Serina Gilbert and Learotha Williams will discuss “From the Fiery Furnace to the Promise Land” (Vanderbilt University Press). The Promise Land community, a small village west of Nashville, Tennessee was founded after the Civil War by people who had been enslaved at the Cumberland Iron Furnace. In the hearts of the descendants of those families, Promise Land remains a vital and thriving community of friends, family, and, albeit virtual, neighbors who continue to support each other. Mark your calendars; you won’t want to miss it!
The Tennessee State Museum sits on the corner of Rosa L. Parks Blvd. and Jefferson Street at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. Admission and parking are free. The Museum is open Tuesdays – Saturdays 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sundays 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.; and Closed on Mondays, New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
