Community Calendar

Blount Mansion’s Centennial Anniversary Lecture Series: The Women Who Changed Blount Mansion’s History!

Blount Mansion is proud to present local living legend, Laura Still, for our Centennial Anniversary Lecture Series!

One hundred years ago, in a time of fluctuating values and new cultural concepts, a group of women banded together to salvage a piece of our disappearing past: the Blount Mansion.

Meet the women who had the vision to see a decaying old house as the birthplace of Tennessee and took on the tremendous challenge of saving it for future generations.

Native East Tennessean Laura Still is a published poet, playwright, and local history author. She created Knoxville Walking Tours in 2012 and works full-time as a storyteller and walking history guide. She has researched and written 15 tours, including three ghost walks. She is partnered with the Knoxville History Project and proceeds from her tours support KHP and other history-oriented nonprofits in Knoxville. Co-owner of Celtic Cat Publishing since 2016, she has four published books: Guardians (2009), Acts of the Apostles, Vol. 1, (2010), A Haunted History of Knoxville (2014), and A Fair Shake: The Leaders of the Fight for Women’s Rights in Knoxville (2021), in addition to several articles about notable women in Knoxville history.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Join us for the first of many lectures with the Historic House Museums of Knoxville commemorating America's 250th anniversary! Come see us at Marble Springs on August 21st at 6:30pm for free sweet treats and a free engaging lecture by Dr. Jim Piecuch as he explores one of the most fascinating chapters in East Tennessee history; the state of Franklin. Enjoy some Andy's Frozen Custard as this presentation dives into the people, background, and ultimate failure to create a new state following the American Revolution. Learn what motivated figures like John Sevier who believed East Tennessee should become America's 14th state!

Blount Mansion's Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series - A Government of Laws and Not of Men The Structural Foundations of Constitutional Liberty

Blount Mansion is proud to present Dr. Josh Dunn of the University of Tennessee who will speak on "A Government of Laws and Not of Men The Structural Foundations of Constitutional Liberty." This lecture will explore the structural safeguards the Framers designed to protect liberty before the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution. America’s most enduring defense of individual rights arises from this constitutional architecture that diffuses authority and restrains the abuse of power. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 84 that "the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.” This constitutional logic, in turn, shows why a self-governing republic depends on the informed participation of citizens.

These lectures are sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

-Lecture starts at 6pm
-The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West -Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902
-Light refreshments will be served
-Limited free parking onsite
-$10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
-RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org

Blount Mansion’s Semiquincentennial Celebration Lecture Series with Dr. Katy Chiles - Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution

This lecture is sponsored by The National Society of Colonial Dames Knoxville Town Committee to honor America’s 250th Anniversary!

Blount Mansion is proud to present Dr. Katy Chiles of the University of Tennessee. She will speak on ”Phillis Wheatley and the Black American Revolution.”
Phillis Wheatley was a Black poet enslaved in Boston during the American Revolution.

This talk discusses how her poetry takes up the themes of liberty, freedom, and slavery and how she started the African American literary tradition.
Katy Chiles is an Associate Professor of English and Affiliate Faculty in Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee. Her first book, Transformable Race: Surprising Metamorphoses in the Literatures of Early America was published by Oxford University Press, and her scholarship has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society. With Professor Cassander Smith (University of Alabama), she is Co-Editor of Early American Literature.

• Lecture will start at 6pm
• The special speaking event will be at Blount Mansion Visitors Center, 200 West Hill Avenue, Knoxville TN 37902.
• Limited free parking onsite
• $10 Donation suggested at the door. Cash and card accepted
• RSVP to Rose@BlountMansion.org