Visited the "New" Greensboro Historical Museum
by SouthernFriedInfidel | Published on July 27th, 2010, 3:08 pm | Greensboro
They had the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the museum today. I happened to hear about this on the news a few days ago, and what with my wife and I both being off work today, I thought it might be interesting to see what all the work and botheration was about.When we arrived and walked in, the entrance lobby looked the same as always, but of course IT was never touched by the changes. We went up to the top floor, and man -- there was a real treat for me: the entire floor is a sort of interactive display of what Greensboro was like in the first decade of the 20th Century. You walk in through a hotel lobby (complete with telephones that play recordings about life in the city) into a central area that has displays to tell you about the city's fire engine companies, the local school where O' Henry grew up, a cinema (showing 5 or 6 films from the 1900's) and the drug store. All of these places had interactive displays that were fun to read, and he simple activities that could be used by small children to help them in learning a few things as well.
What I liked about this area most were the notices. In several spots, there were bulletin boards with "notices" that might have been posted by people of the day. Also, in several spot, there were little booklets with laminated pages that could be read in 3 to 5 minutes, giving a little more detail about the area you were in. I thought it was interesting that they thought they had to put an advisory at the entrance to the area, saying that there were going to be uses of the words "negro" and "colored" because those were in common use in those days. For me, that information should have been a given... apparently, there are some folks among their clientele that would be surprised by such a fact. Oh well.
It was just before the last of the movies started that the power went off in the museum. The blasted thunderstorms that rushed through over the afternoon cut power to a fair-sized chunk of Downtown, and the museum personnel started herding everyone out to the main lobby.
So the rest of our stay at the museum was rather a hurried set of glances among dozens of dimly-lit but very interesting displays. I gotta say -- this place was amazing. I'll definitely be going back. And of course, the free admission (donations CHEERFULLY accepted, of course) makes it a great value for an afternoon visit.
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