In Popular Culture
In the 1930s, the building of Norris Dam and the changes it brought to the region inspired films, books, stage plays, and songs. Folk songs from the construction period frequently express enthusiasm for the benefits that the project brought to the region.
TVA continues to be a subject for popular culture:
- Director Elia Kazan's 1960 film, Wild River, depicts a fictional confrontation between TVA and a Tennessee landowner who refuses to evacuate her soon-to-be-inundated property.
- The Everybodyfields song "T.V.A.," from the album Halfway There: Electricity and the South rejects the Tennessee Valley Authority, saying "I don't need no dam or no damn FDR."
- The Drive-By Truckers have recorded a number of songs that either directly or indirectly address the TVA. "TVA," written and sung by Jason Isbell on the band's 2009 album "The Fine Print," praises the TVA while "Uncle Frank," written and sung by Mike Cooley on the band's 1999 album Pizza Deliverance laments the displacement the dams and flooding caused.
Read more about this topic: Tennessee Valley Authority
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)