Support Group Receives Arts Grant To Benefit Cordell Hull Birthplace State Park

The Friends of Cordell Hull, a support group for Cordell Hull Birthplace State Park, has received a grant of $4,900 from the Tennessee Arts Commission, paving the way to continue classes at the park on traditional folk art. The group received the grant for the sixth year in a row.

The funds will pay traditional artists to teach classes on painting, basket weaving, soap making, sewing, weaving, spinning, chair caning, and other crafts. The park focuses many of its programs on the first four years of Cordell Hull’s life in the 1870s. Hull went on to become a Nobel Prize-winning diplomat.

“We are grateful to the Tennessee Arts Commission for the grant and to the Friends of Cordell Hull for all its efforts to support the park,” said Monique Johnson, park manager at Cordell Hull. “We want to give park visitors the flavor of what life was like in those days, and this grant will help us continue with these informative programs.” 

The Cordell Hull Museum at the park includes a variety of artifacts and an activities center. A library and archives house the entire Cordell Hull Collection of books, photographs, documents, and other objects including a replica of his Nobel Prize.

Hull was Secretary of State for President Franklin Roosevelt and was recognized as the force behind creation of the United Nations. He served in both the U.S House of Representatives and the U.S Senate and left the Senate to accept his appointment as Secretary of State in 1933. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945.

The Cordell Hull Birthplace and Museum is part of a 55-acre historic park located on the Highland Rim, near Byrdstown, north of Cookeville, close to the Kentucky border. The site includes a representation of Hull's log cabin birthplace and gardens.