The University of Tennessee at Nashville joined a one-year-old project to gather and edit the papers of President Andrew Jackson. The Ladies Hermitage Association and the National Historical Commission had begun the project on January 1, 1972. UT provided the editorial services of Dr. Sam B. Smith, professor of history at the Knoxville campus since 1969 and former state librarian and archivist.
In 1979, with the court-ordered closure of UT at Nashville, the materials of the editing project were moved to Jackson’s home, the Hermitage, with the project continuing to be a UT effort. In 1987 the editing project was relocated to the UT campus—as was the editing project of the papers of James K. Polk (from Vanderbilt)—and was combined with the editing project of the papers of Andrew Johnson into the Tennessee Presidents Center.