Category: North Carolina

I thought initially that this was a recreation of some hut used by gold miners, since it was located next to the display about the history of that subject. However, it’s an actual one-room building that was moved to the museum in the 1990s and it was once lived in by seven African American slaves. It once stood in Martin County, which is off towards the east of North Carolina and it was moved here as it would otherwise have been lost to yet another road widening project in the state. Although it might look cosy since it’s in the middle of a warm museum, I can imagine that this was a damp and miserable structure in which to have to reside.

One thing the museum mentions about this recreation is that there aren’t large numbers of possessions surviving which were once owned by slaves, as they were hardly from a prosperous class. Instead, their story has to be told in different ways and imagining seven people shoved into this small space with few possessions seems a powerful way of telling that story. And there’s a limit to how much can be said about the people who lived here, as even though attempts have been made to establish who the residents would have been, there isn’t enough documentary evidence to let their story be told in that way. There is far more information available about the ‘owner’ of the slaves, who was Andrew Jackson Purvis, but it seems wrong to make this post about him.

One of the shocking (to me anyway) statistic is that there were around 331,000 slaves in North Carolina in the years before the American Civil War, which was around a third of the state’s population. That’s a lot of people by any measure and 160 years ago isn’t really that long away in the country’s past. And the politicians in the state’s General Assembly weren’t going to change much, as 85% of them owned slaves in 1860, which is more than in any other state.

As another aside, I’m also going to come back in a post shortly about whether the museum is racist and pro-confederate in the way that it shows its exhibits, as I’ve noticed a few articles about this, although very few negative reviews from visitors. As a slight spoiler about this, I didn’t have the same depth of concerns about the museum, but more on this later.

It’s true that there is a lot of Confederate ‘stuff’ at the North Carolina Museum of History, which is very well reviewed on sites such as Google and TripAdvisor, but there are occasional posts such as at https://www.everywhereist.com/2016/02/the-revisionist-narrative-of-the-north-carolina-museum-of-history-raleigh/ which question the intentions of the museum staff. Although to be fair, these are very rare criticisms of the museum indeed compared to the number of positive reviews that are made. It’s sitting at 4.8 out of 5 on Google Reviews, which is realistically as high as museum ratings go.

I don’t want to get overly involved in the matters relating to the Civil War, but I have been interested in how this subject matter has been covered in institutions that I’ve visited in the region. There’s a need to avoid sensationalising it, or indeed putting it on a pedestal as was done literally in the early twentieth century, but there’s still a clear requirement to tell the story of something so important to American history. The hatred and intolerance that led to the Civil War continued in a different form after the end of that conflict, and in many ways continues to this day in terms of inequality of opportunity.

On that theme, I’m disappointed when there’s sometimes outright abuse of museums rather than a positive discussion on how displays are presented. It is possible to argue why is there a confederate flag in this display? This is the Confederate Second National Flag that was carried by the 13th regiment of the North Carolina Troops into the Battle of the Wilderness. But, I’m not sure where else these flags are supposed to go. You can’t fly them on the top of Government buildings, they have to be put in storage of some kind as part of the nation’s heritage and I don’t see any advantage in putting them into a cupboard where the public can’t see them. The museum does have a few of these flags, and it might be useful to place them all in one cabinet so that the imagery is only shown once, but they’re all telling a different story and relating to different parts of the Civil War.

I’m not sure that I hold this imagery is problematic, it’s showing that 35,000 North Carolina Confederate soldiers died during the Civil War, leaving families devastated. And it’s the case that this disastrous war left victims all over the place, not least amongst the wives and children of those who died defending a cause that was perhaps always going to be in vain.

I’m going to claim that this is accurate rather than political. One element that German and Polish museums refer to a lot about the end of the Second World War is the vast displacement of peoples in forced resettlements where Germans were moved west and Poles took their place. I’m not sure that’s a “woe is me, the poor Germans”, it’s far more showing the huge damage that was done by the Second World War. The way German institutions handle the Second World War is perhaps relevant here, and it’s usually done in a similar manner to this museum which is to be informative and not really to hide anything. Being respectful is important, using carefully language is essential, but there’s still a story to be told.

This hat was worn by General William R. Cox (1832-1919), the commander of the brigade that fired what transpired to be one of the last volleys from the Confederate side. He seems a complex figure, he was the 10th Secretary of the United States Senate from 1893 until 1900 and played a substantial part in national politics after the country came back together as best it could.

The wallet that belonged to Colonal Thomas F. Toon that he used during the Civil War.

Items from the CSS Neuse, an ironclad boat that was launched in late 1863 and spent some time stuck in the mud before it was scuttled by the Confederates on 12 March 1865 to stop the union forces using it. The remains of the boat were raised in 1963, a century after it was launched, and these are artillery projectiles from it.

And iron plates from the ironclad.

But, back to the museum. Personally, I thought the museum curators had done the job that they needed to do, telling this part of the state’s history and explaining the damage that the Civil War did to the country. Confederate troops were brave, which doesn’t mean that they were right in what they were fighting for, it’s just an unfortunate fact in many ways that the men fighting often do their very best in difficult circumstances. That the slave owners themselves were exempt from going to war just shows the futility of the cause in which those men were fighting.

There are large exhibits at the museum on slavery as well as the civil rights movements during the twentieth century, so these topics weren’t ignored. But I’m not sure there’s anything to be scared of by saying the Confederate troops were courageous and their almost inevitable demise didn’t have a huge impact on their families. That’s the cost of war, division and hatred, I’m not sure that it can be much disregarded. But, I accept, it’s not for me to say what should be in the museum, the communities who live in North Carolina will have to decide that for themselves. And the displays have been there since 2011, so they’re probably in need of an update, but I hope they continue on a similar theme to what they have, but building and improving.

Unfortunately, despite the right to the vote for black men, as the museum notes, this wasn’t accepted by many in North Carolina. That lack of tolerance led to the next disaster for civil rights, the Jim Crow laws, which as I mentioned, the museum moves onto next.

Anyway, I’m sure there are always improvements that can be made to the text of panels in the museum and many institutions are quite rightly working through that process to ensure wording and terminology is appropriate and inclusive. But my general thoughts about the museum as an outsider was that it followed good practice in telling the story of those who fought in the war, which it would be odd to just miss out. I didn’t leave the museum suddenly deciding the Confederate cause was somehow misrepresented, just a little more knowledgeable about how much damage was caused to North Carolina by the Civil War. That messaging seems appropriate to me.

This is a reproduction of the Wright Flyer, important because it was the first sustained manned flight in the world and it took place at Kitty Hawk, which is in North Carolina. And it seems fair that this museum should make quite a thing of that. I’ve seen the original in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, but I hadn’t realised that it was on display at the Science Museum in London between 1928 and 1948 due to arguments between Orville Wright and the Smithsonian. That all revolved around Charles Walcott refusing to credit the Wrights with their achievements and wanted to give credit to his friend Samuel Langley, later causing great damage to the reputation of the Smithsonian. But I digress and this is an impressive replica of the original.

I was just pleased to see this, bits of the 1905 plane and a letter from Orville Wright. The covering of the plane in Washington is a replacement, so it’s quite exciting to have seen this early bit of fabric. And it’s quite a thing to think just how aviation has improved in such a relatively short period of time. As an aside, this looks to be the item auctioned in 2014 at https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21652/lot/108/, I would have thought it was worth more than $10k (they flog off even small bits of modern aircraft for quite large sums), but then again, I’m not really an expert in early twentieth century fabric from aircraft.

I like to visit State Capitols and this is no exception, although unlike many others it’s no longer in use as originally intended as they constructed a new building in the 1960s. There was the usual security process to get in, but the guard was helpful and welcoming. It was a bit unclear at first where to go as there aren’t any printed guides, but nearly everything was open and visitors could just walk in, so that proved to be easier than I had expected.

The grand entrance area and the statue of George Washington. I had to take this photo at the end of my visit as I was about to take a photo at the beginning when the tour guide pushed past with her group. I was more amused than anything else at the situation as the group were mostly ignoring her and she seemed a bit oblivious to everything else around her. She also blocked the steps for other visitors later on after deciding she would have her group stand on the stairs to listen to her quite boring monologue. She wasn’t a patch on the lovely guide at the Virginia State Capitol.

Rolling back a little on the history of the building, the first section was opened in 1794, replacing the previous Capitol at Tryon’s Palace. The denizens of the state were very pleased with their building, extending it between 1820 and 1824. And then it burnt down in 1831, which it was unanimously agreed wasn’t entirely ideal.

A new building replaced it in 1840 and that’s the one that stands today, although it came at a huge cost of $530,000 which was a ridiculously large sum for the time.

Some of the ground floor rooms in the building are still used for State business and this is one of the Governor’s rooms.

The first floor (or second floor if you’re American) with the two former legislative chambers on either side.

I thought that this was suitably grand. I did debate doing something similar in my flat, but then thought it might be a bit ambitious.

This is the North Carolina House of Representatives, in use between 1840 and 1961, and this was originally known as the House of Commons. There’s some poignant history here, this is the room where in May 1861 delegates unanimously agreed to secede from the union.

The same room and it’s a shame that they couldn’t have kept sitting here for reasons of heritage, but I imagine they didn’t feel that there was enough space. To be fair, the tour guide managed to block half the building on her own, so it’s hard to picture the scene of hundreds of legislators and their staff.

The North Carolina Senate, also in use between 1840 and 1961. There were fifty members who sat in this Chamber, compared to 120 in the House of Representatives.

And the same room from a different angle.

I very much liked this, it’s the key to the 1831 building that burned down. It’s also the first exhibit that was obtained by the North Carolina Museum of History (that I’ve just written several posts about) although clearly they weren’t allowed to keep it.

The statue of Washington I mentioned earlier is a replacement because the original, designed by Antonio Canova,was destroyed in the fire. This is one of the bits that they salvaged. Not really enough to patch something together with.

And some bricks, as I like historic bricks, from the foundations of the first State House in the city.

One advantage in the building mostly coming out of use is that they’ve been able to open sections of it up, including the first library. It was used as the State Library between 1840 and 1888, but they had to start again as their other books were destroyed in the 1832 fire with the exception of a huge number that had been taken out by Archibald Murphey and were long overdue.

Viewing the Senate Room from above.

On the other side of the building is what was in 1840 the State Court, but that soon moved and this became a geology room which was used as something of a museum. Fortunately, the building wasn’t too badly damaged when the Confederates handed the Capitol over to the US army, although some items did go missing.

I didn’t have much time to really explore the grounds of the building, nor indeed visit the replacement Capitol, as I had a third museum to visit, a bar and then had my train to catch. But I very much enjoyed looking around this Capitol, it is more of a museum than a working building, but it felt quite authentic for that reason. And no prizes for guessing that my favourite room in the building was the library, I felt that was really quite peaceful and charming.

I’m fairly sure that the museum doesn’t call this their dinosaur conservatory, but in the absence of knowing how they define it, it doesn’t seem an inaccurate term. I don’t have much to comment on this other than it’s a striking use of the space available to the museum curators.

And this isn’t a T-Rex, it’s the real skull of an Acrocanthosaurus which once trampled and traipsed around what is now the United States.

And the skeleton of an Acrocanthosaurus, which is a dinosaur of which I hadn’t previously heard of.

I’ve already mentioned about the dinosaurs and the snakes at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences as they were the two elements that I thought were particularly memorable to me. It was though a large museum and not only was it free of charge to enter, there was plenty to see. One of the first exhibits that visitors to the museum see is the not insubstantial collection of skeletons that were hanging from the ceiling.

There are also sections showing the nature and landscapes of North Carolina.

Some of these also have water running through them, with a selection of fish and other marine life.

Various types of stone from North Carolina, presented for some reason in the shape of bowling balls.

Looking like a furniture showroom, this is a collection of different types of wood from the state.

This interested me more because it was created as a display in 1873 for the World’s Fair in Vienna, Austria rather than because it’s an intriguing piece of stone.

An alligator glued onto a piece of wood by Herbert Hutchinson Brimley, a long time director of the museum.

A stuffed snake. I’m always slightly sceptical that these are genuinely stuffed and dead, just in case one has cleverly crept into a cabinet to surprise members of the public. I have trust issues with snakes.

And a snake in a display jar. I’m a little happier when they’re pickled like this, I’m more readily able to believe that they are actually dead.

This plant is 220 million years old, which I think it’s fair to say is quite something. This is also almost exactly the same time as mammals started to evolve to put that into some form of context. Incidentally, snakes have been around for 125 million years, just as even more perspective to this.

And it makes this 65 million year old oyster shell seem quite young.

And a great white shark tooth from around 4 to 6 million years ago.

The skull of a T-Rex to scare the children with.

Visitors are positively encouraged to touch this 4.5 billion year old meteorite and since I didn’t want to miss out, I did. It felt like a lump of rock. It’s relevance to North Carolina is that in 1936 it fell into a farmer’s field in the state. The earth is 4.5 billion years old as well, but more disappointingly to me, the museum doesn’t give any information as to what the farmer thought about this rock appearing on his land.

There are more dinosaurs at this museum than you could shake quite a robust stick at.

This is Willo the Marvellous Lizard, perhaps the most complete skeleton found of a thescelosaur. This very skeleton has been the cause of much controversy, some claim it’s the only dinosaur uncovered in the world which still has a heart, although others claim that it most certainly isn’t any such thing. I don’t feel that I’m qualified to comment on the whole arrangement, but there’s more on the matter at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/willo-the-dinosaur-loses-heart-93712793/.

The underwater tunnel.

That was pretty much the end of my visit to the museum, with this walk-through butterfly arrangement currently closed to the public, although it was possible to peer in through the glass. The reviews of the museum are very high, indeed there few similar institutions in the world which are better reviewed, although a visitor called Christopher noted:

“Nothing was fun to look at kids didn’t enjoy”

His kids must have enormously high standards if they managed not to find anything interesting or “fun” in the museum, but each to their own. Of the few negative reviews that the museum had, most relate to their keeping of live animals (primarily snakes) although I was surprised no-one commented on how angry the snakes looked. That must have just been me thinking that I guess.

As this was my third museum of the morning I was at this point quite ready to get food and drink at a bar I was keen to visit, but it was a popular venues with families (the museum, not the bar) and I’d merrily recommend a visit for anyone who is unsure.

I had caught the free Raleigh bus the evening before to get to the hotel, so I considered myself enough of an expert to get back again into the downtown area of the city. Until I realised that the local authorities seem to have forgotten to have put pedestrian crossings to get across the bloody road. When I took this photo I had already traipsed, slightly grumpily, about half a mile down the road and the crossing wasn’t until the dip in the road ahead.

I had already missed my bus by the time I had got to the pedestrian crossing and I merrily pressed the button to stop the five lanes of traffic each way. And does a road need five lanes of traffic each way?

I had walked so far down that I had reached the next bus stop by the time I was able to cross the road.

This is the main road into Raleigh and this is a transportation failure in evidence, vast numbers of cars and this is after the rush hour. They’re trying to encourage public transport usage and full credit for free buses, but the pedestrian infrastructure is in such a bad state they’ll have one hell of a job to get people out of their cars. Also, I hadn’t realised this at the time, but Raleigh has more cars per person than anywhere in the United States. A failure of a policy, as the congestion means that the local economy is taking a financial and environmental hit.

And the delays mean that the bus, which is now visible in the photo, get caught up in the traffic. They have five lanes of traffic to play with, but none are designated as a bus lane to speed them up.

Boarded, ready for the twenty minute journey back into Raleigh and running only half an hour late. And this is why travelling can be tiring….