Reference
- Economic OverviewENERGY
Coal accounts for 60 percent of Tennessee’s electric power generation, followed by nuclear power from two power plants at 30 percent, hydroelectric at nine percent, and natural gas at one percent. Oak Ridge, where the atomic bomb was developed, is now a major site of energy research and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The city has the unofficial title of Energy Capital of the World and the nickname the Atomic City. Industry uses the most energy in the state, followed by transportation.
ENTERTAINMENT
Tennessee has a film office to promote the state as a shooting location for movie productions. It offers an array of incentives to filming companies, such as a 32 percent tax rebate. Many cable television shows are filmed in East Tennessee. Owned by the same company that owns the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon hosts 1.5 million visitors annually, who come to enjoy the combination restaurant, concert site, dance hall, and TV studio. Nashville is home to more than 100 recording studios and is known as the country music capital of the world, and Memphis is famous as the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll.
RETAIL
Tennessee’s retail trade provides jobs for around 311,600 employees, at an average annual salary of $24,331. Total retail sales are roughly $21.3 billion. Some 410 automobile dealerships operate in the state, with about 21,360 employees at a total annual payroll of $1.07 billion. Total sales for all dealerships are around $11.3 billion annually. As in many states, Walmart is a significant presence, with 104 supercenters, four discount stores, and six neighborhood markets. Walmart employs around 39,480 workers, and spends around $2.8 billion annually for merchandise and services from more than 1,450 suppliers in Tennessee. Walmart collects $679 million in state sales taxes annually, and pays more than $75 million in state corporate tax.
TECHNOLOGY
The state of Tennessee is proud of its biotechnology sector, whose institutions receive some $580 million in external funding. Total bioscience expenditures are around $510 million annually, and over the past six years, Tennessee has received 1,135 bioscience patents. Eastman Chemical, GlaxoSmithKline, and King Pharmaceuticals have laboratories in northeast Tennessee, and Bayer, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer have manufacturing and distribution plants there. Some 25 pharmaceutical companies operate in the state, with a total of 2,300 employees at an annual average salary of $71,991. There are 259 companies that specialize in medical devices and equipment, with 7,800 employees at an annual average salary of $54,049. Tennessee has 364 research, testing, and medical laboratories that employ 8,500 workers at an annual average wage of $60,819...
- AtoZ The USA This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
AtoZ the USA is a resource for information about the people, culture, geography, government, history, indigenous peoples, food, and symbols of the US states and the United States itself. The database covers 110 topics for each state, territory, and the District of Columbia, and 118 topics for the USA as a country.
Perspectives
Tennessee Strings
Country music grew up in Tennessee, drawing from sources in the white rural music of East and Middle Tennessee, from the church music of country singing conventions, and from the black music of the Memphis area. The author traces the vital role played by Tennessee and its musicians in the development of this unique American art form.
Constructing the Dynamo of Dixie
What can local histories of interracial conflict and collaboration teach us about the potential for urban equity and social justice in the future? Courtney Elizabeth Knapp chronicles the politics of gentrification and culture-based development in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by tracing the roots of racism, spatial segregation, and mainstream "cosmopolitanism" back to the earliest encounters between the Cherokee, African Americans, and white settlers. For more than three centuries, Chattanooga has been a site for multiracial interaction and community building; yet today public leaders have simultaneously restricted and appropriated many contributions of working-class communities of color within the city, exacerbating inequality and distrust between neighbors and public officials. Knapp suggests that "diasporic placemaking"--defined as the everyday practices through which uprooted people create new communities of security and belonging--is a useful analytical frame for understanding how multiracial interactions drive planning and urban development in diverse cities over time. By weaving together archival, ethnographic, and participatory action research techniques, she reveals the political complexities of a city characterized by centuries of ordinary resistance to racial segregation and uneven geographic development.
Hot, Hot Chicken
These days, hot chicken is a "must-try" Southern food. Restaurants in New York, Detroit, Cambridge, and even Australia advertise that they fry their chicken "Nashville-style." Thousands of people attend the Music City Hot Chicken Festival each year. The James Beard Foundation has given Prince's Chicken Shack an American Classic Award for inventing the dish. But for almost seventy years, hot chicken was made and sold primarily in Nashville's Black neighborhoods--and the story of hot chicken says something powerful about race relations in Nashville, especially as the city tries to figure out what it will be in the future. Hot, Hot Chicken recounts the history of Nashville's Black communities through the story of its hot chicken scene from the Civil War, when Nashville became a segregated city, through the tornado that ripped through North Nashville in March 2020.
Pilgrimage to Dollywood
A star par excellence, Dolly Parton is one of country music's most likable personalities. Even a hard-rocking punk or orchestral aesthete can't help cracking a smile or singing along with songs like ?Jolene? and ?9 to 5.? More than a mere singer or actress, Parton is a true cultural phenomenon, immediately recognizable and beloved for her talent, tinkling laugh, and steel magnolia spirit. She is also the only female star to have her own themed amusement park: Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Every year thousands of fans flock to Dollywood to celebrate the icon, and Helen Morales is one of those fans. In Pilgrimage to Dollywood, Morales sets out to discover Parton's Tennessee. Her travels begin at the top celebrity pilgrimage site of Elvis Presley's Graceland, then take her to Loretta Lynn's ranch in Hurricane Mills; the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville; to Sevierville, Gatlinburg, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and finally to Pigeon Forge, home of the ?Dolly Homecoming Parade,? featuring the star herself as grand marshall. Morales's adventure allows her to compare the imaginary Tennessee of Parton's lyrics with the real Tennessee where the singer grew up, looking at essential connections between country music, the land, and a way of life. It's also a personal pilgrimage for Morales. Accompanied by her partner, Tony, and their nine-year-old daughter, Athena (who respectively prefer Mozart and Miley Cyrus), Morales, a recent transplant from England, seeks to understand America and American values through the celebrity sites and attractions of Tennessee. This celebration of Dolly and Americana is for anyone with an old country soul who relies on music to help understand the world, and it is guaranteed to make a Dolly Parton fan of anyone who has not yet fallen for her music or charisma.
TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979
A bureaucratic crisis in post-industrial America
In-Depth: How Tennessee became the top electric car producer in the southeast
- In-Depth: How Tennessee became the top electric car producer in the southeastThe Ford Motor Company's "Blue Oval City" project in West Tennessee is officially the largest in state history. The automaker plans to add a manufacturing facility that will make all electric Ford-F150s along with an electric car battery plant.
Online Articles
- Exploring No-Cost Opportunities for Public Sector Information Systems Energy Efficiency: A Tennessee ApplicationThe Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) completed a pilot project within its Central Office spaces to test the utilization of computer power management (CPM) technologies to implement power saving settings on state-owned, network-connected computer equipment. Currently, the State of Tennessee has no clear protocol regarding energy-conserving power settings on state-owned machines...
- Magellan advisors to develop fiber to the premise feasibility study for Johnson City power board, Johnson City, TennesseeThe Johnson City Power Board, TN has engaged Magellan Advisors, the nation's leading broadband and smart city consulting firm, to assist the Utility in developing a Fiber and Wireless to the Premise (FTTP) Feasibility Study...
- Tennessee's automotive industryIn recent months, there has been significant media attention on the auto bailout being proposed by Congress. Although at first glance this bill seems only to be of importance to Detroit and the traditional manufacturing regions of the US, the auto industry plays a significant part in Tennessee's economy. In 2008, 160,000 Tennesseans were employed by the auto industry providing $6.5 billion in payroll. Of these Tennesseans, approximately 10,000 are employed by the Nissan and Saturn/GM assembly plants. The proposed Volkswagen assembly planet set to open in Chattanooga will provide an additional 2,000 jobs...
Online Resources
- Hemp IndustryThis is an exciting time for hemp production in Tennessee. In an effort to streamline the regulatory process for farmers, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture offers the following guidelines:
- The Mineral Industry of TennesseeStatistics and information on the nonfuel mineral commodities produced in Tennessee.
- Nashville's Music IndustryThis comprehensive study of Nashville’s music and entertainment industry completed in conjunction with the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce shows it has a $10 billion annual economic impact on the Nashville region.
- Oak Ridge National LaboratoryWe apply expertise in advanced materials, supercomputing, neutrons, and nuclear science to national priorities in energy, security, and scientific discovery...
- Office of Energy ProgramsThe TDEC Office of Energy Programs (OEP) provides education, outreach, technical assistance, and/or funding and financing opportunities for the following:
• energy efficiency;
• energy management;
• renewable energy;
• energy security planning, preparedness, and response; and
• energy in transportation (alternative fuels and sustainable transportation options). - Restaurant IndustryThe “Tennessee Pledge” is a plan to help Tennesseans
get back to work in a safe environment, restore their
livelihoods and reboot our state’s economy... - Tennessee Industry and Occupational Employment Projections 2012 – 2022Tennessee’s total employment is expected to grow to more than 3.1 million by 2022. (See table
1.) This represents a return to employment levels not achieved since 2007, when employment
peaked at 2.8 million, at the beginning of the Great Recession... - Tourism-ResearchAs Tennessee’s No. 2 industry, tourism has had another exceptional year, continuing to break visitation records and exceed economic impact numbers year over year.
Tennessee Agriculture
- Tennessee AgricultureTennessee is blessed to have a strong agricultural economy. Each region of the state is unique in its diversity of agriculture in keeping the ag industry as the backbone of our overall economy.
Booming tech industry in Middle Tennessee
- Booming tech industry in Middle TennesseeWhen you stop to think about what Nashville is known for, more than likely country music is the first thing that comes to mind. But today, there are so many businesses and industries that are changing what Music City is so ironically known for.