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Brown Bag Lunch and "Tennessee Tragedies" at the East Tennessee History Center
"Tennessee Tragedies: Natural, Technological, and Societal Disasters in the Volunteer State," a Brown Bag Lecture by Allen R. Coggins will take place at Noon, Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street. Attendees are encouraged to bring a "brown bag" lunch.
The new book Tennessee Tragedies
by Allen R. Coggins is the first such compilation of historical disasters for any state. The comprehensive work ranges widely from floods, earthquakes, heat waves, and tornadoes to mining accidents, fire, labor strikes, transportation crashes, epidemics, Ku Klux Klan violence, race riots, and everything in-between. The lecture by Coggins on July 11 will include a historical overview of the subject and a closer look at some of the more compelling stories, as well as our response to human tragedy. Coggins is a former emergency management specialist and is currently a subcontractor with the Environment, Safety, and Health Office of Oak Ridge Associate Universities. He recently received an "Award of Research Excellence" from the East Tennessee Historical Society.
A one-of-a-kind reference book, Tennessee Tragedies examines a wide variety of disasters that have occurred in the Volunteer State over the past several centuries. Intended for both general readers and emergency management professionals, it covers natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes; technological events such as explosions, transportation wrecks, and structure fires; and societal incidents including labor strikes, political violence, lynchings, and other hate crimes.
At the center of the book are descriptive accounts of 150 of the state's most severe events. These range from smallpox epidemics in the eighteenth century to the epic floods of 1936–37, from the Sultana riverboat disaster of 1865 (the worst inland marine accident in U.S. history) to the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Included as well are stories of plane crashes, train wrecks, droughts, economic panics, and race riots. An extensive chronology provides further details on more than 900 incidents, the most complete listing ever compiled for a single state. The book's introduction examines topics that include our fascination with such tragedies; major causes of death, injury, and destruction; and the daunting problems of producing accurate accountings of a disaster's effects, whether in numbers of dead and injured or of economic impact. Among the other features are a comprehensive glossary that defines various technical terms and concepts and tables illustrating earthquake, drought, disease, and tornado intensity scales.
The program is sponsored by 21st Mortgage Corp, and free and open to the public. The lecture will begin at noon at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville. Guests are invited to bring a "Brown Bag" lunch and enjoy the lecture. Soft drinks will be available. For more information on the lecture, exhibitions, or museum hours, call 865-215-8824 or visit the website at www.EastTNHistory.org.
Knoxville Summer Book Reads and Leads
Published July 2, 2012
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