This fall, Wake Forest University senior William Valtos is helping the museum build a database that pulls together the people, places, and events associated with the Wake Forest Plantation from 1820 to 1832. To learn more about William, we asked him to complete a short questionnaire.
Read moreTag: African American history
Historical Walking Tour: Northeast Community
Join us as we explore a new part of historic Wake Forest every month, including the Wake Forest Historic District, Glen Royall Mill Village, Downtown, the […]
Read moreHistorical Walking Tour: Northeast Community
Join us as we explore a new part of historic Wake Forest every month, including the Wake Forest Historic District, Glen Royall Mill Village, Downtown, the Northeast Community, and the SEBTS campus.
Read morePorch Living: The Material Culture of the Ailey Young House
The Wake Forest Historic Preservation Division is partnering with the Wake Forest Historical Museum to offer a series of Zoom webinars on interesting aspects of the town’s history. […]
Read moreNC Reads… Pauli Murray: A Personal and Political Life
The Wake Forest Historical Museum is excited to announce that it will be part of North Carolina Humanities’ statewide book club for 2022. We will join […]
Read moreIntern Reflections: The Material Culture of Textile Production
The spinning wheel that currently sits in the Calvin Jones House has long stopped producing thread, but while I studied it I was inspired me to think about conflicts around spinning and textile production and consider how this history is as political as it is material. The spinning wheel, though not original to the home, would have been the style of wheel used by enslaved women like Judy, Becky, and Comfort who lived and labored on Calvin Jones’s plantation in the 1820s. With great skill and patience, these women would have been able to produce large quantities of yarn in a relatively short time using this wheel. Several letters between Calvin and Temperance Jones suggest that Judy, Becky, and Comfort frequently refused to spin, despite being ordered to do so. This kind of resistance from enslaved workers refusing to spin is documented in other sources as well.
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