We are so pleased to announce that Dr. Carole Bucy has come on board as Official Historian of the Suffrage Coalition. Dr. Bucy has researched and written extensively on the Suffrage movement, especially in Tennessee. As a professor, a writer and community servant her contributions have been very significant. She also serves as the official historian for Davidson County, a testament to the respect she has earned. To learn more about her work and credentials, see below.
Dr. Bucy will be authoring two suffrage articles per month which we will publish on our website (suffragecoalition.com) and on our Facebook page. Join me in welcoming Dr. Carole Bucy!
Carole Bucy is professor of history at Volunteer State Community College and holds degrees in history from Baylor University, George Peabody College, and Vanderbilt University. She also currently holds the honorary position of Davidson County Historian.
As a longtime advocate for local and state history, she regularly conducts teacher workshops on the incorporation of Tennessee history into existing U.S. history courses and is a frequent speaker across the state on a variety of historical subjects. She is the author of the textbook used in 4th and 5th Social Studies classes in Metro Schools as well as other districts across the state. She has also written several scholarly articles about Tennessee women. This Spring she has done a series of online classes, “Tennessee 101,” for the Tennessee Historical Society which are free and open to the public. as well as retirement learning classes for Vanderbilt University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
Dr. Carole Bucy has done extensive research writing, and public speaking about the ratification of the 19th Amendment and has extensive knowledge about the details of the fight in Nashville as well as all of the efforts of Tennessee suffragists across the state. Most recently, she was the humanities scholar for “The Suffrage Movement in Children’s Literature: A Traveling Literature Kit for Tennessee Teacher,” a Humanities Tennessee grant awarded to the University of Tennessee’s Departments of English and Education. In June 2021, she gave a lecture, “Suffrage Showdown: The Awakening of East Tennessee’s Public-Spirited Women related to her work for the Society’s “Suffrage Showdown” virtual exhibit. She is finishing up an article on this topic for the Journal of East Tennessee History.
During the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the woman suffrage amendment in 2020, Dr. Bucy was the lead researcher for the Nashville Public Library’s Votes for Women Room, commemorating the 100th anniversary. as well as a consultant for the Tennessee State Museum’s Woman Suffrage Exhibit.. She is also featured on “By One Vote”, Nashville Public Television’s documentary about Tennessee’s ratification of the 19th amendment which had nationwide distribution to public television stations across the country.
- “The Suffrage Movement in Children’s Literature: A Traveling Literature Kit for Tennessee Teacher,” a Humanities Tennessee grant awarded to the University of Tennessee’s Departments of English and Education in 2020-21
- Interviewer of Elaine Weiss, author of The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, the award-winning book about Tennessee’s ratification of the 19th Amendment, Tennessee State Museum, September 2021.
- Scholar on East Tennessee Historical Society’s “Suffrage Showdown: Virtual Exhibition of Tennessee’s Pivotal Role in Votes for Women”, 2-2-21
- Lead Researcher, Nashville Public Library’s upcoming “Votes for Women” room to open in June 2020.
- Scholarly Advisor, Tennessee State Museum suffrage exhibit, to open in May 2020.
- Keynote speaker on Woman Suffrage in Tennessee at various venues across the state.
- Teacher workshop facilitator & presenter, as well as writing of a Tennessee Woman Suffrage Teachers Guide.
- “The Thrill of History Making”: The Remarkable Tennessee Women That Made Tennessee “the Perfect 36”. Winchester Lecture, Tennessee Technological University, April 2, 2019.
- “Tennessee Women & the Right to Vote,” keynote speaker, annual meeting, Tennessee Historical Society, May 2, 2018.
- “Tennessee’s Women & the Ratification of the 19th Amendment, conference presentation, sponsored by the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Commemorative Collaborative, March 2018.
- “Tennessee & the Equal Rights Amendment: How Women’s Rights Became the Catalyst for Statewide Political Realignment”, a paper given at the IWY Anniversary Conference, University of Houston, November 2017.
- “From ‘Wet’ to ‘Dry’: The Tennessee Woman’s Christian Union’s Crusade to Ban Alcohol in Tennessee,” a paper in progress, with research funded provided by Bartley Award from the Southern Historical Association.
- “Shall the Women Be Silent?: A Tennessee New Woman’s Challenge to Southern Church Patriarchy,” Their Work in the Public Sphere: Tennessee’s New Women in the Progressive Era, edited by Mary Evins, 2013.
- “Mary “Molly” Hart Kimball Massie Todd: ‘Face of a Grandmother, Heart of S Saint, Soul of a Warrior’,” Tennessee Women of Vision and Courage, edited by Charlotte Crawford and Ruth Johnson Smiley, 2013.
- “Tennessee in the Twentieth Century: A Historiography Essay,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Winter 2010. “With All My Worldly Goods I Thee Endow”: Legal Disabilities of Women in Tennessee in the Nineteenth Century,” published in two parts in Chronicle of the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society, Summer and Fall, 2010.
- “Martha Ragland: The Evolution of a Political Feminist,” in Tennessee Women: Their Lives and Times, volume 1, Sarah Wilkerson Freeman and Beverly Greene Bond, eds. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2009, pp 214-242.
- Tennessee Through Time (a 4th & 5th grade textbook on state approved textbook list and used in counties across the state). Layton, UT: Gibbs-Smith Publishers, 1st edition 2008; 2nd edition, 2014.
- “Interracial Relations in the YWCA of Nashville: Limits and Dilemmas,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 2, Winter, 2002.
- “Catherine Kenny: Fighting for the Perfect Thirty-Six,” in Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives: Women in American History, Kriste Lindenmeyer, ed. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc. 2000, pp 197-213.
- Women Helping Women: The YWCA of Nashville, 1898-1998. Nashville, J. S. Sanders and Co., 1998.
- Your Metropolitan Government. Nashville: League of Women Voters, 1996.
- “The Thrill of History Making: Suffrage Memories of Abby Crawford Milton.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Fall, 1996.
- “Women’s Work in Tennessee, 1796-1996: A Historic Overview.” Tennessee’s Business, vol. 6, no. 2, Summer, 1995.
- Oral History of the Creation of Metropolitan Government in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee. Nashville: Metropolitan Historical Commission, 1995.
- “Suffrage in Tennessee: Teachers’ Guide” Nashville: Woman Suffrage 75, Inc., 1995.
- Tennessee Women, A Guide for Teachers. Nashville: Tennessee Humanities Council, 1993.
- “Quiet Revolutionaries: The Grundy Women and Women’s Voluntary Associations in Tennessee.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 1, Spring 1995.
About Author
