Promoting local culture and heritage, natural resources, farm-to-table opportunities, and outdoor recreation, more visitors are now travelling to rural communities for these experiences. The goal for rural areas interested in tourism is to create viable and sustainable tourism through destination-marketing strategies. These strategies require extensive research, appropriate planning, and allocated funding, often managed by a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO). With the creation of the Tennessee Rural Development Task Force, Tennessee's strategy is to increase economic growth in rural communities. While there is a need for the DMO to form an alliance with industry stakeholders, lack of incentives and strained relationships can inhibit beneficial collaboration. This study examines the stakeholders' perceptions of trust in the DMO by exploring the social exchanges DMOs in Tennessee rural areas currently utilize to form alliances while examining the effects on the tourism area. To achieve a deeper understanding of the social exchanges and trust involved in the relationships between DMOs and their industry stakeholders, grounded theory was chosen to explore the social interactions and study the relationships. Through interviews, participants were able to share their unique experiences and points of view to identify patterns and key themes of the social exchanges. This study identifies the grounded theory of commitment to change stands between the realization of the need to expand social benefits for the community and identifying the appropriate strategies needed to support the development of rural tourism. When DMOs and stakeholders decide to expand benefits, they engage in social exchanges in which the DMO is perceived as trustworthy; dependable and reliable. When stakeholders commit to change, trust in the DMO and the vision rural tourism development intensifies. This results in an inclusive community identity that encompasses a brand image, a community self, and a sense of belongingness, for locals and non-locals alike. Committing to change depicts the social processes between DMOs and their stakeholders in rural Tennessee tourism areas. The social process provisions allow for the theory to be utilized to guide DMOs in formulating strategies that strengthen the alliances and build trust for successful rural development.

Reports for 1980-19 also include the Annual report of the National Council on the Arts.

Has the pastoral vision, so central to American history and culture, survived the twentieth century? Enduring Pastoral traces and analyzes the development of the middle landscape by examining the historical construction of a variety of private and public places in the Tennessee Valley. Moving from the aesthetically sculpted grounds of the Biltmore Estate and the environmental transformation undertaken by the Tennessee Valley Authority, to the adoption of the pastoral trope in Appalachian museums, the displays at the Chattanooga Choo Choo, and Dolly Parton's theme park Dollywood, Enduring Pastoral shows how the pastoral design has been simulated and commercialized for economic and political purposes. Showing how this process has disconnected the pastoral from its Jeffersonian and Thoreauvian roots, Enduring Pastoral proposes that when facing the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century, new forms of pastoralism may ultimately prove vital to integrating nature and culture in a sustainable future.

Seventeen original essays by prominent scholars uncover fascinating stories and personalities from the Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee, often regarded as isolated and out of pace with the rest of the country, but seen here as having a far richer history and culture than previously thought.

Tennessee History Book Award Finalist The Upper Cumberland region of Kentucky and Tennessee, often regarded as isolated and out of pace with the rest of the country, has a far richer history and culture than has been documented. The contributors to Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland discuss an extensive array of subjects, including popular music, movies, architecture, folklore, religion, and literature. Seventeen original essays by prominent scholars such as Lynwood Montell, Charles Wolfe, Allison Ensor, and Jeannette Keith uncover fascinating stories and personalities as they explore topics including wartime hero Alvin C. York, Socialist Party Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Kate Brockford Stockton, and even a thriving nudist colony, the Timberline Lodge.

Visionaries of all ages and places have pursued Utopias, dreaming impossible dreams of starting over in new communities fashioned more closely to their ideals. In Visions of Utopia, John Egerton traces the fascinating history of the experimental communities founded by such groups in Tennessee. He focuses in particular on three extraordinary colonies of the 19th century, each of them widely known in its time: Nashoba, and interracial settlement near Memphis in 1825; Rugby, an English cooperative community on the Cumberland Plateau in 1880; and Ruskin, a socialist community in Dickson County in 1894. John Egerton is a native Southerner - A Georgian by birth, a Kentuckian in his childhood and youth, a Floridian during the early 1960's, and a Tennessean since 1965. He is a grandson of one of the English colonists who started the Rugby settlement in 1880. As a journalist and author, he has written articles on a variety of subjects for more than twenty magazines, and has published two books about the South: A Mind to Stay Here (1970) and The Americanization of Dixie (1974).