Norris is a model community constructed in 1933 by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as part of the Norris Dam construction project. The TVA was a technological and social experiment in which methods informed by local, empirical research were made accessible to the residents of the valley region. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, “the work proceeds along two lines, both of which are intimately connected - the physical land and water and soil end of it, and the human side of it.” (Van West 2001)