North Carolina Museum of History
The idea for the North Carolina Museum of History germinated during Samuel A’Court Ashe’s trip to Boston in the early 1880s. Ashe found the history of the city so well preserved that he started a campaign to collect artifacts from North Carolina’s history. The museum eventually opened with those items in 1902 and continues to grow with the opening in 2011 of the permanent exhibit “Story of North Carolina.”
“The museum has everything from artifacts from the earliest settlers to part of the counter in Woolworth from Greensboro,” said Smith. “It gives people who do not have a sense of North Carolina’s history a really good grasp of what the state is all about.”
The 20,000-square-foot “Story of North Carolina” follows more than 14,000 years of the state’s history in the largest exhibit ever produced at the museum. Artifacts, multimedia presentations, dioramas and hands-on interactive components keep the past accessible to visitors.
Stone tools dating from 12,000 to 1,000 B.C. tell most of what the world knows of the state’s earliest inhabitants. In another display, groups can examine a cannon, gold flakes and other items recovered from Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, which was discovered off the state’s coast in 1996.
Two full-size historic houses, the state’s fourth-oldest house, dating from 1742, and a restored 1860 slave cabin, also allow guests to step inside a piece of history. Artifacts from the Civil War, an interactive textile-mill weaving room and a replicate of the Wright brothers’ first plane also help visitors connect with historic events.
Artspace
Whether a group wants to discover the process behind an elaborate artwork or dirty their own hands with paint, Artspace can provide both opportunities. The downtown visual-arts center seeks to engage the community with art through rotating exhibits, on-site working artists and workshops led by professional art instructors.
“Throughout the day, people can walk through, and if there is a potter making pottery, they can talk to the potter to find out more about the pottery process,” said Smith. “It’s really an opportunity for groups to get some one-on-one time with the artists.”
About 30 artists create works in a variety of media inside the 30,000-square-foot facility. Previously the city’s livery and a car dealership, the historic building in downtown Raleigh welcomes 100,000 visitors annually.
Guided tours tell stories about the founding of the program and lead groups through the facility’s gallery spaces and artist studios for hands-on demonstrations. Artspace encourages guests to ask questions to understand more about creating art.
