author
John Trotwood Moore
1858–1929
A colorful Southern journalist and storyteller, this Alabama-born writer built a loyal readership with fiction, poems, and magazine work rooted in rural life and regional history. He later became Tennessee’s state librarian and archivist, helping shape the state’s historical collections.
2 Audiobooks
The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
by John Trotwood Moore
Jack Ballington, Forester
by John Trotwood Moore
About the author
Born in Marion, Alabama, on August 26, 1858, he spent his early years in Alabama before making his literary career in Tennessee. He worked as a journalist, editor, novelist, poet, and local historian, and became especially known for writing about Southern life, humor, and history.
His career ranged widely: he founded a school in Pine Apple, Alabama, wrote poems, short stories, and novels, and later helped launch Taylor-Trotwood Magazine in Nashville. In 1919, he was appointed Tennessee’s State Librarian and Archivist, a role he held until his death in 1929, and he is remembered for expanding the state’s historical and archival holdings.
Modern reference works also note that his legacy is complicated. Alongside his popularity as a regional writer, he has been described as an apologist for the Old South, and some modern accounts explicitly identify his support for racist violence. He died in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 10, 1929.