Sharing the Stories of Cas Walker

November 4, 2019

In 1924, Cas Walker arrived in Knoxville. He is one of 20th-century Knoxville’s most famous citizens and his colorful life became some of the city’s favorite urban legends, which are captured in a new book, Cas Walker: Stories on his Life and Legend, edited by Joshua Hodge, a graduate student in the UT Department of History who lost his two-year battle with brain cancer May 2019.

“I can’t think of another city I’ve lived in that has a person like Cas in its collective memory,” said Ernie Freeberg, professor and head of the history department. “Those stories, many shared in endless variation, serve as a window on Knoxville in the 20th century. He was so ubiquitous in Knoxville from the 30s through the 80s, and many who lived here feel an obvious nostalgia about his place in their lives. Others remember him as a barrier to the city’s progress, and a master of a form of politics that Knoxville is better off without.”

Members of the UT community gathered in Hodges Library November 5 to view rare film footage from Cas Walker’s television programs. Louisa Trott, assistant professor in the UT libraries and co-founder of Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS), helped discover and restore the collection of clips for the public. The event also paid tribute to Hodge’s memory and legacy.

During his time at UT, Hodge focused his research on revealing the history of people whose lived experiences are often hard to recover. He recognized that the historical record favored those who were able to write it – not necessarily those who live it. His work eventually led him to gathering stories of Cas Walker and recording the oral histories of those who knew the man behind the legend.

“Josh did a masterful job on this project, tracking down 20 people who knew Walker well, and gathering stories that reflect many different angles on the man’s long career in Knoxville,” Freeberg said. “Cas is beloved by many, while others remember him as a negative force in the city’s development. Josh captured that complexity, and gathered the legends that reflect Walker’s role as a grocery tycoon, a coon hunter, a populist politician and editor, and as a music promoter.”

In addition to the collection of Cas Walker stories, Hodge’s memory will live on in an endowment established in his honor. The Joshua S. Hodge Award will recognize the task graduate students in the UT Department of History undertake when they decide to research and recover lost voices. Hodge’s research highlighted his commitment to ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard.

Established by Freeberg and Max Matherne, a fellow doctoral student, the endowment preserves the memory of a young, committed UT scholar who, despite the fact that his life was cut short, was dedicated to research and history while helping future scholars reach their dreams.

“When Josh learned in July 2017 about his terminal diagnosis, he did not simply retire and give up on his work,” Matherne said. “He not only continued working on his dissertation, but remained active in the historical field. He continued to submit articles for review, organize conference panels, and participate in the dissertation writing workshop, all the while working on his dissertation and the Cas Walker project.”

Recipients of the Joshua S. Hodge Award will be announced annually during the Department of History awards ceremony. Click here to make a contribution to this endowment.

The Cas Walker Stories Project gathers the tales and legends told about one of 20th century Knoxville’s most famous citizens. The project has recorded oral histories with many who knew Cas Walker, as friends, employees, and political rivals or allies, and collected others from the public.

Many of these are gathered in Cas Walker: Stories on his Life and Legend, published by UT Press. This book was edited by Joshua Hodge, a PhD student in the History Department who passed away while the book was in its final stages of completion. An endowment fund is being raised in his name, which will be used to support graduate research.

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Historic Tailgate

September 9, 2019

During homecoming weekend last November, members of the history department made history when we hosted the first ever department tailgate, under a tent on the Hill. A cloudy and slightly chilly morning quickly warmed to perfect fall homecoming weather. From noon to the start of the game, alumni, current students, and faculty mingled while decked out in orange gear. Dean Lee and Provost Manderschied both stopped by. Faculty and graduate students’ kids took over the lawn. Several hundred hot dogs were eaten. Gallons of apple cider were drunk. History department goodies were handed out. A good time was had by all.

And we did it again. This time, we convened in front of the stately walls of old Dunford Hall, several hours before game time Saturday, November 2. We enjoyed snacks, games, and our guests tried their hand at UT history trivia.

Welcoming New Faculty

September 9, 2019

Robert Bland

Robert Bland joins the UT Department of History as an assistant professor after having been a faculty member in history at St. John’s University in Queens. His research explores late nineteenth and early twentieth century African American life and culture. In particular, his work investigates the legacy of the Fifteenth Amendment, the racial politics of disaster relief, and the intellectual history of the Gullah-Geechee.

His upcoming book project, ‘Requiem for Reconstruction’: The South Carolina Lowcountry and the Afterlife of Radical Republicanism, follows a group of politicians, writers, educators, and intellectuals, both academic and vernacular, who sought to use the history of Reconstruction to defend black suffrage, make claims for disaster relief, establish schools, and, ultimately, contest anti-black academic narratives about black progress in the postbellum South.

Bland earned his PhD from the University of Maryland in 2017. When not in the archives, he enjoys playing pick-up basketball, travelling inordinately long distances to hear rappers from the nineties, and trying street food in different cities. 

Susan Lawrence

Susan Lawrence joined the department last year as a full professor. She comes to us from The Ohio State University. She received her PhD in the history of medicine from the University of Toronto, Canada, after majoring in mathematics at Pomona College. She made the move with her husband, David Manderscheid, the new Provost at UT.

Her research interests have ranged broadly in the history of British and American medicine. Lawrence’s first book, Charitable Knowledge: Hospital Pupils and Practitioners in Eighteenth Century London, explored the emergence of the modern medical profession in and around London’s general hospitals, as private medical lecturing and hospital ward-walking exploded in a city without an established university. After that, she worked on the history of medicine in Iowa from 1850 to 1950, Civil War medicine in Washington, DC, and the effect of privacy laws on the study of recent history. That project culminated in her book, Privacy and the Past: Research, Laws, Archives, Ethics.

Lawrence is researching and writing a book with Susan Lederer of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lawrence continues her fascination with the history of anatomical dissection in medical education with the history of the rise of whole-body donation in the United States. Why did some Americans—as early as the 1870s—want to give their bodies to science and education when for hundreds of years dissection had been associated with post-mortem punishment, poverty, and horror? By the 1970s, most bodies used in teaching have been donated, in remarkable acts of corporeal philanthropy.

When not teaching, researching, and writing, Lawrence loves to read mysteries, sew her own clothes, and play with their two Abyssinian cats.

Victor Petrov

Victor Petrov joins the department as an assistant professor of East European history. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2017 and spent the year before Knoxville as a Max Weber Fellow at EUI in Florence, Italy (so he is still looking for recommendations on good local wines). His research explores the histories of the Cold War, the modern Balkans, technology and its intersection with politics, especially as it pertains to the dreaming up and failures of utopias.

His current book project, Cyberia: Bulgarian Computers & The World 1967-1989,explores the socialist world’s biggest computer industry and weaves together the stories of communists, engineers, spies, philosophers, science fiction writers, and anyone else that catches his eye. To do so, he uses both written and oral sources from three countries (Bulgaria, Russia, and India). This has sometimes involved, inadvertently, going to the archives in an Indian Army jeep, or rooting around in half-abandoned buildings, which is of course the best part of any research.

When not pursuing esoteric research, he likes playing music – badly, but with gusto – spending time in mountains, reading bad science fiction (he has, thankfully, abandoned any dreams of writing it), and finding the time to explore new places.

Educating Citizens of Our State

March 9, 2019

I am pleased to send you this fall semester update on the UT history department. We welcome three exciting new colleagues, celebrate books published, and announce another impressive slate of fellowships and awards for our outstanding faculty and graduate students.

We also mark a major milestone for the department, completion of the papers of James K. Polk, an editorial project that is completing its final volume, a major contribution to our understanding of American history that has been six decades in the making.

Our thanks to those alumni and friends who have continued their generous support for the department. Your donations help a dynamic and accomplished faculty in its mission to produce ground-breaking research, to train a new generation of professional historians, and to extend the benefits of an excellent liberal arts education to more citizens of the state.

—Ernie Freeberg, Professor and Head, Department of History