KNOXVILLE: Crossroads of the New South

A native of South Carolina, Dr. William ]. MacArthur Ir. graduated from Limestone College with a BA degree in history. He received an MA in history from the University of South Carolina, and in 1967 moved to Knoxville to ~pursue a Ph.D. with a specialty in the history of the South. He has become an authority on the history of the city of Knoxville. In 1970,

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MacArthur became head of the Public Library’s McClung Historical Collection, where he has initiated a number of special projects to expand the collection and to make its materials more useful to researchers. It is as a writer and speaker on Knoxville’s past, however, that MacArthur is perhaps best known. His chapter “Knoxville’s History: An Interpretation” in Heart of the Valley: A History of Knoxville Tennessee, published by the East Tennessee Historical Society in 1976, has been separately issued as a paperback. In 1981, the University of Tennessee Press published his Old Knoxville: Thirty-two Historic Postcards. He has made hundreds of speeches to groups throughout East Tennessee and has published articles and reviews in a number of_journals.

MacArthur has severed as editor of the East Tennessee Historical Society’s Publications and is a member of the society’s executive board. He was a founding director of Knoxville Heritage, Incorporated, and is a trustee of the Speedwell Heritage Foundation. Since 1975 he has served on the State Advisory Board of the National Historical Publication and Records Commission. Dr. MacArthur is currently president of Tennessee Archivists and belongs to the Tennessee Library Association, Southern Historical Association and the Society of American Archivists.