Given my new job I am embarrassed to admit that until today I had never made it over to the Levine Museum of the New South. But at least I've corrected that.
I met up with staff historian Tom Hanchett this morning.
"It's a really good place for people to come to figure out where they've come to," he said as he started to guide me through the place.
The permanent exhibit, "Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers: Charlotte and the Carolina Piedmont in the New South" covers 8,000 square feet and takes visitors through the Charlotte area in the post-Civil war era to Charlotte as a banking center.
It's an interactive, not on-the-walls exhibit. Visitors -- there were 54,000 of them last year -- can step inside a one-room tenant farmer's house and run their hands through a pile of see cotton. They can sit in a pew from Good Samaritans Hospital Chapel, one of the first African-American hospitals in the South, or at a lunch counter and listen to personal accounts from the Piedmont's Civil Rights era sit-in leaders.
"This is an area that people don't think has history, but it really does," Hanchett said.
The museum also has special exhibits. "Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look at Southern Stereotypes in Cartoons" runs until April 13. It examines six cartoons, including "Snuffy Smith," one of the first Southern-themed strips to start in the 1930s and that is still running worldwide. The others: "Li'l Abner," "Pogo," "The Mountain Boys," which ran in Esquire magazine in the '30s; "Kudzu," drawn by former Observer cartoonist Doug Marlette, who died in July; and Fox television's "King of the Hill." The museum got its hands on original artwork from the cartoons.
My 70-minute tour piqued my interested. I can't wait to go back for a closer look.
More info: www.museumof thenewsouth.org.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Getting schooled
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4 comments:
Great recommendation. I'm a native, and this place really captures Charlotte. My favorite parts are the busing/civil rights area and the 1920s downtown. For those who don't understand why we do things a certain way, this is a good place to find out.
Red I am trying my little heart out to get a MADAME TUSADES WAX MUSEUM like Washington D.C. just landed. The MADAME TUSADES wax figures are so real you wonder if they come alive at night. Its wonderful to see General LEE and many subjects also General Grant and many many more; They also the current Queen of England , former Presidents and race car drivers. Madam Tusades is a real treat and they serve ice cream at the front.
Red I have been all around the WORLD in many MUSEUMS; I really like the MINT MUSEUM portraits of Queen Charlotte and King GEORGE; Id like to mention that those paintings areon loan from the HOUSE OF WINDSOR and were painted by the famous Scottish painter 'RAMSAY" who painted all ROYAL figures of the British Empire. Look close as you will see QUEEN CHARLOTTE was Flemish/Moorish mulato and her Father was the ruler of PORTUGAL and its CANE SUGAR monpoly. Her Mother was German and had family ties there as well.
If anyone wants to know more about the MINT MUEUM paintings look up the famous painters Portraits and see 'QUEEN CHARLOTTE' She was also known for having slavery abolished in England and may have tried to persuade the colonies to do the same in the AMERICAS .
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