After visiting the Greensboro Historical Museum for the second time I visited the exhibits and went viewed them. The exhibits that I entered were the main exhibition, which was the “Voices” one, the period rooms and the pottery display, the “Gate City” exhibition, and the traveling exhibition called “Down Home”.
1) The first exhibition that I visited was the “Voices” one. As I first walked in I saw lots of words and quotes all over a series of walls as I was walking on the curved carpeted pathway. I next entered a large oval like shaped room with pictures of people all along one wall. The pictures all had different dates and were all different sizes going in order from way back all the wall until now. This gallery is called the “Ben and Eugenia Bowers Gallery”. After this I entered the main room where I saw a series of glass cases filled with objects and artifacts from different time periods and events and things that occurred. The first thing that caught my attention was a very large wagon that appeared to be very real seeming, although I am not sure if it was a replica or the real thing. Another thing that caught my attention and I thought was interesting was the banner titled college town. There was one for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and there was also one for the North Carolina Agricultural and Technological State University. These were interesting to me because the UNC-G one had a picture of students who attend the school. I thought that was cool since I am a student there as well. The last thing that I noticed in the exhibit was the picture of the woods of Greensboro North Carolina, showing what it looked like before they were cut down to create the city.
2) The second thing I went to was the period rooms and the pottery display. In my opinion the period rooms were very intriguing. I think they did an excellent job of displaying the furniture from the time period of 1867. When I looked in the rooms I felt as though I was in an actual house from the 1800’s, not in a museum. The first of the rooms that I looked in at was “The Belle Meade Bedroom”. In this room there was a somewhat small bed that had a very rich dark colored wood, the walls were covered with a peach like wall paper that had a design that was repetitive all over, it was very busy and confusing to the eye. Next there was “The Belle Meade Dining Room” which was a typical fancy set up with six chairs and the table was set with place settings. I next moved on to “The Belle Meade Parlor” it included very busy patterned carpet and fancy curtains. Next I viewed “The Mendenhall-Simpson Room” which had a sign stating that it was from 1800-1850. This room was quite different than the others because it was not fancy at all, it was rather plain, simple, and old fashioned. Encircling the room was all sorts of pottery displays behind glass. These were mostly plates, bowls, and vase like objects of all shapes, sizes and colors. These looked as though they were hand made very well and with good care.
3) The “Gate City” exhibition was the next place I ventured to in the Greensboro Historical Museum. Upon entering this exhibit I entered a room in which I had to climb up a flight of stairs to get to the main attraction. Along the curved wall of the stairs was a large white hanging sign that read “Welcome To The Gate City”. At the top of the staircase I entered a large room that was very busy with things every where. My eyes did not know where to look first. So I decided to start with what was to the right of me. That was a car that was fenced in, it was very small in size compared to vehicles of today. Behind the automobile was a room that I stepped inside. It was filled with all sorts of medicines and it included writing that told about them and how they were used and such from back then. There was a sign above the medicine cabinet that read “Vick’s Family Remedies Sold Here”. Next I went into the room that was the “Crystal Movie Theater” where there were only a few chairs to help one get the idea and a large screen. On one of the signs it stated that there were typically less than two hundred seats in a typical one and that it was the first theater for moving pictures. After that I went to “The Hotel Clegg”, this was in 1884. It included a check in desk and telephone booths. The room to the left of that was one that had the “General Greene Steam Fire Engine” and it opened in 1888. To me this was very interesting to see because it was so large in size and so complex, it had many different contributing factors that run and power it. The last part of this exhibit was “Miss Lina Porters School House” which was built in 1872 and schooled forty kids. This was after the Civil War had cause closure of NC schools. This exhibit as a whole was my favorite because of all of the neat aspects that it included and it was very organized in its layout mostly because it was set up as an actual city and you felt like you were outdoors.
4) The last exhibit that I came to was entitled “Down Home” which featured Jewish Life In North Carolina. It was a big room that had displays and objects and information in all corners and parts of it. My favorite part of this room was the kitchen area. It featured a stove and cabinets, but most importantly a fridge from this time period that you could actually open and look into. On the inside of the fridge there was all sorts of food that would be typical Jewish home, therefore it was kosher food. Next I continued in a circular pattern and came upon an area that included a table and chair with letters hanging up on a line. This is where one would sit to write letters for mailing purposes. As I was making my exit out of this room I saw a spot where they had Jewish clothing that people could try on for themselves.
Before I left the museum I made a stop in the gift shop and I feel as though it did a good job at selling things that were related to what was in the exhibits. It doesn’t really help me to better understand the identity of the museum better because it was basically everything that I had already seen. Overall, my second visit to the museum made me truly appreciate Greensboro as a city and I learned so entirely much about it that I did not know prior.
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