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Presents abstracts of papers presented at the 51st annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers on April 11-14, 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee. Research in the design and use of geography teaching materials; Influence of underlying rock structures on valley profiles in the Georgia Piedmont; Review of the users of public land survey records as descriptive resources.

The article, through the example of Nashville, Tennessee, convinces that progress in urban geography will be made only by a comparative study of a large number of urban centers. The study in this article is concerned with the commercial district or business area but more particularly with the retail section of the commercial area. The quality of buildings and business in general is the highest from Fifth to Seventh. Most of the buildings are new and are the largest in the retail business sections of the city.

This article reports on techniques and findings of a two-year econometric study devoted to development planning in the Elk River area, a subregion of the Tennessee Valley. The area is one of a number of economically lagging regions in which local development efforts have been receiving concentrated planning assistance from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Certain of the socio-economic problems confronting the study area are mentioned but this paper's principal concern will be with the rationale and application of the planning model itself. The eight-county Elk River area occupies some 3,850 square miles in south-central Tennessee and northern Alabama. The population, now increasing slowly after two decades of decline, is about 200,000. The Elk River provides the unifying feature and drains a little over half of the region as it flows southwest to meet the Tennessee, just east of Muscle Shoals. The area lies in the interstice of four centers of commercial and cultural activity: Nashville, Huntsville, Chattanooga and the Muscle Shoals region. Interaction is greatest with rapidly industrializing northern Alabama; of the one-third of all area factory workers who commute to jobs outside the Elk River area, most are employed in, or near, Huntsville.

This article discusses Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) approach to sub-regional development. Tributary area development is essentially an approach which utilizes local interest and initiative, both governmental and private citizen, to carry forward a comprehensive resource development effort directed at uplifting the social and economic well-being of residents of sub-regions of the Tennessee Valley. The program concentrates on areas which have lagged behind the development pace of the rest of the Tennessee Valley, and TVA's role within this framework is to provide assistance to tributary organizations by building on and learning from experiences in earlier programs that were Valley-wide in scope. The purpose of this paper is to describe TVA's tributary area development program, review a few of its accomplishments, and suggest some problem areas for further consideration and research. TVA's first effort at working in the development of a multicounty tributary area began about 1939 in the Chestuee watershed in southeastern Tennessee.

In this article the authors have attempted to develop a plant-location model capable of explaining plant locations in terms of sensitivity to the six classes into which location factors may be divided: First, personal factors, second, procurement cost factors, third, processing cost factors, fourth, distribution-cost factors, fifth, location demand factors and sixth certainty factors. According to the author, the economics of plant locations are determined by the contribution and variability of procurement, processing, distribution and location demand to total operational cost and revenue. structured interviews were obtained from persons involved in the selection of the cites of 307 manufacturing plants locating in Tennessee between 1955 and 1965, inclusive, each plant employing twenty-five or more persons within one year after production began. The study made by the authors revealed many differences in sensitivity among the major industrial groups with respect to the six variables under consideration. Their findings supported the theory that plant locations involve a balancing of supply and demand factors of location.

Numerous studies of residential propinquity as a factor in mate selection have appeared during the past twenty years. These studies seem to have established the general conclusion that the urban American tends to marry someone who lives within a fairly limited distance of his or her home. When these studies are examined more closely, however, numerous variations are found which raise questions about the meaning of the findings beyond this general conclusion. It is a major purpose of this paper to examine the implications of some of these variations in the earlier studies of propinquity. The discussion will be divided into four parts: (1) a consideration of the findings of a recent study of propinquity in Nashville, Tennessee; (2) some observations about the methods of data gathering and analysis used in propinquity studies; (3) consideration of the value of the collected findings of studies of propinquity; and (4) suggestions for further research. The study of Nashville followed the general design used in earlier propinquity studies. The sample studied consisted of all of those Negro couples and one-half of those white couples applying for marriage licenses in Davidson County, Tennessee, during 1950 who met the following criterion: at least one member of the couple gave a "non-institutional" address within the area covered by the census tracts of metropolitan Nashville.

Bogue and Palmore's technique for estimating direct fertility measures from indirect indicators is applied to the 95 counties of Tennessee,, 1960 and 1970. Findings based on these data tentatively suggest that this technique may be better suited for cross-national research than for analysis of small population units. It is recommended that the "own child" method is more appropriate for estimating fertility when utilizing data on counties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the recreational use of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) lakes. The TVA lakes represent an example of the development and utilization of recreation facilities over time and also offer an excellent source of thorough and well kept data. While formulated as a flood control and economic development program, the TVA projects have simultaneously developed into important recreation facilities. According to the authors, outdoor recreation, to a large extent involves water. The problem of supplying adequate water recreation facilities to meet the growing demand has been noted by many public agencies and the resulting policy recommendations are numerous. A major concern of recreation study, however, which has not been well investigated is the time-path of user responses to the introduction of water recreation facility. The analysis done in this article is divided into two parts, a theoretical section and an aggregate time series study. In the theoretical section the difference between the structural demand and supply equations and the reduced form is delineated. The empirical analysis shows that the changes in the area of recreational water available have a greater effect on water-oriented recreational activity than the changes in the supply of ancillary facilities.

The article describes a new approach to teaching elementary economics. It was stimulated both by experience with Economic Workshops of Tennessee Council on Economic Education and by Report of American Economic Association on "The Teaching of Undergraduate Economics." In the report, economist Laurence Leamer urged that economists interested in general education should seek to build a cumulative literature on their subject. Progress in economic education is hardly to be made in the next sixty years if one persists in retracing previously trod paths. According to leamer, an economist doing research ordinarily proceeds by finding out how far previous workers have advanced knowledge of the subject, he then builds on past work, trying to make a new contribution on which other workers in turn will build. An economist writing on economic education confines himself to his own limited experience and his own limited thinking and he does not bother to inquire whether he is saying anything new. Leamer states that such contributions are not valuable.

Economists and international trade theorists have not been permitted to make their maximum potential contribution to the formation of public policy in the U.S. In any case, the question whether economists should strive generally for a more active role in formulating policy is a difficult one. The article examines views of Cordell Hull, economist and statesman from Tennessee, on foreign trade during his years in the U.S. Congress. Hull's unusual interest and competence in the field of international economics made it possible for him to be both the spearhead of the movement towards a more liberal policy for the United States and a substantial part of its driving force. To Hull, commercial aspects of foreign policy were always of paramount importance. He traces his interest in the tariff and other problems of trade to his first excursion into politics. The history of the Trade Agreements Program, which has furnished the core of U.S. economic foreign policy since 1934, deserves great and exploring consideration of long-held views of this statesman from Tennessee.

The article presents information on various aspects of religion in rural community of southwestern Tennessee. The analysis of religion presented here is only one aspect of a broad cultural study. A modified anthropological approach was followed in securing and analyzing the data. There were approximately 252 families in the community area. Cotton farming is the dominant type of agriculture. Throughout the study, emphasis was placed on comparison of owners and tenants to present tenancy problem in its cultural setting.

Discusses the unit area method of land classification in Tennessee. Development of the method by the Land Classification Section of the Tennessee Valley Authority; Adaptation of the procedure with the fractional-code method; Reasons for the development of the unit area method.

Teacher tenure in the schools of Knox County is short as shown by a ten year study, varying from a minimum of a few weeks to a maximum of thirteen years and averaging 1.73 years. Important factors affecting tenure were the isolated location of many one-room schools, the high pupil-teacher ratio, lack of books and equipment, low salaries, short school terms, and provincial viewpoint of local school officials. Improved tenure may be secured by more highly trained teachers paid more adequate salaries, achieved through a state equalization school fund; the development of a stronger esprit de corps among teachers; and a more socially minded group of teachers. The consolidation of a number of schools during the thirties, and salary increases made effective during the war years, will tend to attract teachers with professional standards and lengthen teacher tenure in the schools of this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports on rural socio-economic developments in various states of the U.S. as of December 1, 1940. The essential reforms needed for the local government in Michigan-based Cheboygan County, are currently unattainable because of the rigidity of constitutional provisions. The article elaborates on many advantages of the one-variety community for farmers in Tennessee. In other areas where cotton is customarily bought on the hog-round basis, ginner-buyers feel that they cannot buy cotton according to grade and staple without losing the patronage of growers whose cotton is inferior. With the development of one-variety communities this obstacle to the buyer will be removed, farmers can induce the buyer to purchase on a quality basis, and an incentive will be provided for growers to improve their production and harvesting practices. Despite extremely low levels of living in the Louisiana-based Black River Settlements, reflected by shabby, small houses, lack of screens, primitive sanitation, lack of medical care, low educational status, dependency, and meager incomes, the people have not sunk to the depth of the worst rural slums.

Taking courtroom etiquette and decorum as a complex instance of socialization, the article explores current challenges to the courtroom as the last citadel of etiquette by looking in detail at two famous instances of courtroom confrontation: the Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, and the Conspiracy trial before Judge Hoffman in Chicago in 1970. The article concludes with an assessment of the viability of the courtroom, given the current styles of protest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the employment patterns of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee. Social and economic characteristics of the city; Main factors that influence the employment patterns; Remedial programs designed to upgrade the employment status of blacks in the city.

Focuses on racial discrimination induced by parents in their children in the U.S. by referring to a lawsuit filed by the Anderson County School Board, Tennessee against black parents' demand for a black high school in the county. Evidence of the presence of racism in the judiciary system of the country; Verdicts of the Court that encouraged equal educational opportunities for children; Impact of racism on children.

This article discusses family life in a rural community in Tennessee. The Stantonville community is located in the east-central part of McNairy County, Tennessee. The inhabitants of Stantonville are people of the soil most of whom were born on farms. The Stantonville community was studied in great detail for the purpose of portraying the culture of a community selected according to criteria that might yield a study of the tenancy problem which would be particularistic and con- sequently less general than the usual study of tenancy. Of 80 school children from whom information was obtained, 79 percent work in the field regularly during the cropping season, 7 percent help during rush periods, and 14 percent do no field work. Work is the lot of the woman in the Stantonville community. There is no stigma connected with the working of women. Men even boast that their wives help them with the farm work. A striking feature of the economic function of the family is the fact that it is operative within the patriarchal pattern. .

The article presents information on migration to Knoxville, Tennesse. Several questions present themselves in relation to selective migration to metropolitan areas, are the natives more or less intelligent than the migrants? If there is a difference in intelligence between migrants and non-migrants, is the difference genetic or environmental? If the differences may be attributed to environmental influences, what is the relationship between length of residence in the city and achievement? A sample study of selective migration was made in Knoxville, Tennessee, a city of slightly more than 105,000 population as of March 1, 1939, were divided into two groups, migrants to the city and those born in the city. The migrants were divided into three groups according to place of residence prior to their coming to Knoxville, the three groups being rural, urban, and large urban. The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not there is selective migration, hence, it was desirable to divide the migrants into groups according to place of previous residence because it is probable that different factors operate in different types of areas to condition the characteristics of migrants from a given area.

The article presents information about the treatment of juvenile offenders in Tennessee. Few, if any, social institutions, as sociological and anthropological studies have demonstrated again and again, originate wholly and completely at one time and place. Instead, the various elements or parts, which taken together form an institution, may have their root or origin at many different points of time and many different places. This fundamental cultural principle is applicable to a relatively new social institution,-the present day public system for the treatment of juvenile offenders. Children as well as adults become law violators. Until quite recently juveniles in the western culture were held responsible for violations of the social code in the same manner as adults. Under the law they received the same punishment, or the same corrective measures, which were specified for adult offenders. Within the last century, however, there has developed within western culture, and particularly in the United States, a fundamentally different viewpoint or philosophy concerning the nature of antisocial behavior of children and a different method of dealing with juvenile offenders. Under this changed conception the treatment of juvenile delinquency has assumed a professional as well as a legal character.

Tennessee is named from its principal river. The meaning of the word in the original Indian tongue is not clear, though the most generally accepted definition is river of the big bend. On the grounds of these and other explorations the area now comprising Tennessee was claimed by the Spanish, French and the English. The Spanish, however, made no attempt at settlement and the French ceded their claims to Great Britain in 1763 at the close of the French and Indian War. The present area of Tennessee was included in the Virginia grants of 1609 and 1612, part of the area was included in the extension of the grant two years later. Hence the State of Tennessee was formed out of the western half of North Carolina. This region at this time was uninhabited and was a splendid hunting ground. Here was probably the line of "least resistance" on the whole frontier. The continued migration of the Scotch-Irish from Virginia and Pennsylvania together with the desire of many North Carolinians to escape from arbitrary and inefficient rule in North Carolina aided in confirming the ascendancy of the Scotch-Irish in this portion of the old Southwest.

Presents information on the speech program at Tennessee State University with respect to the history and organization of the Department of Speech and Drama. History and organization of the Department of Speech and Drama; Purposes and objectives of the department; Contributions of the department to the U.S. armed forces overseas.

Describes the general format of the variety theater program in Memphis, Tennessee from 1859 to 1880. Problem of the variety show; Means used by Memphis managers in their attempts to solve the problem; Factors that served to restrict variety shows.

The article presents a study which analyzes the validity of the Cornell Medical Index in the subjects (Ss) from the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA). Three types of VA Ss were considered for the study. Ninety Ss were randomly selected from the domiciliary at VA Center, Mountain Home, Tennessee for the test. The test was conducted in small groups.