On December 5, 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society opened the Tennessee Judiciary Museum in the Nashville Supreme Court building. The mission of the museum is to educate Tennesseans about the role of the judiciary and the rule of law in our society.
Phase I of the museum included, among other things, the original hand-written Constitutions of 1796, 1835 and 1870, which were loaned to us from The Tennessee State Library and Archives. The Society also replicated Chief Justice Grafton Green's Chambers, installed a touchscreen multimedia display and created an exhibit focused on the State v. Scopes case.
For the second year of the museum, the Society expanded the physical footprint of the museum and added additional exhibits from eight historic Tennessee cases. We also launched a website for the museum, www.tennesseejudiciarymuseum.org which highlights the current exhibits and provides downloadable lesson plans for middle school and high school teachers whose students visit the museum.
After installing museum cases in the Knoxville Supreme Court building so that select museum exhibits could be rotated to that site, the Society turned its attention to another expansion. In 2016, the Society opened Phase III of the museum featuring two new alcoves on women and African-Americans in the legal field.
For more information on the Tennessee Judiciary Museum or to financially support the museum, please visit www.tennesseejudiciarymuseum.org.