Joseph Walker McSpadden attended UT beginning in November 1893. He graduated in 1899 and moved to New York. He and two other UT alumni (Marshall Lawrence Havey and John S. Coppers) organized a U.T.N.Y. luncheon group in 1899, which was expanded to become the Tennessee Society of New York in 1905.
McSpadden was a prolific author. He is best known for his Robin Hood (1891) and succeeding tales of Robin Hood. Among his other publications are Opera Synopses (1920), Operas and Musical Comedies, Light Opera and Musical Comedy (1936), Shakespearian Synopses (1923), The Fables of Aesop, Based on the Texts of L’Estrange and Croxall (1903), Stories from Great Operas (1923), Alps: As Seen by the Poets (1912), California: A Romantic Story for Young People (1926), Boys’ Book of Famous Soldiers (1924), Famous Ghost Stories (1918), Famous Psychic Stories (1920), Famous Sculptors of America (1924), Synopses of Dickens’s Novels (1909), The Book of Holidays (1935), and Storm Center: A Novel about Andy Johnson (1947).