Moving Beyond Knoxville: TVA and Norris Dam*
SCHWARZENBACH: “Even though, at Norris Dam, two giant generators
produce electricity and rejuvenate that stretch of land; even though
the displays in the TVA windows convey to every visitor what wellplanned
and intelligent willpower can achieve when it fights poverty and
backwardness; even though a new vision of a better life is created, one
does not need to venture far within Knoxville to find its shadowy side.
It feels like bitter irony that in Knoxville, only 30 miles away from
Norris Dam, there are entire quarters that have neither electricity nor
running water. A ring of such dark quarters surrounds Knoxville, just like
it does in each and every other factory town in the South.”
*NOTE: Panels Seventeen and Eighteen are meant to be viewed together, as an example of the similar impressions had by Schwarzenbach, McCarthy, and Buddy and The Huddle.
Moving Beyond Knoxville: TVA and Norris Dam*
SCHWARZENBACH: “Even though, at Norris Dam, two giant generators
produce electricity and rejuvenate that stretch of land; even though
the displays in the TVA windows convey to every visitor what wellplanned
and intelligent willpower can achieve when it fights poverty and
backwardness; even though a new vision of a better life is created, one
does not need to venture far within Knoxville to find its shadowy side.
It feels like bitter irony that in Knoxville, only 30 miles away from
Norris Dam, there are entire quarters that have neither electricity nor
running water. A ring of such dark quarters surrounds Knoxville, just like
it does in each and every other factory town in the South.”
*NOTE: Panels Seventeen and Eighteen are meant to be viewed together, as an example of the similar impressions had by Schwarzenbach, McCarthy, and Buddy and The Huddle.
...the journey seems to me less an adventure and a foray into unusual realms than a concentrated likeness of our existence: residents of a city, citizens of country, beholden to a class or a social circle...
— Annemarie Schwarzenbach —