The museum in state capital Harrisburg is one of the few state museums in the northeast that aren’t free. It’s just across the street from the Pennsylvania State Capitol so hold on to your ticket in case you need to come back after a capitol tour. I recommend starting from Read more
This is America’s first Amish museum established in 1956. It’s east of Lancaster deep in Pennsylvania’s Amish country. The region also has Quaker and Mennonite families. There are now 43,000 Amish people in Lancaster County, out of 370,000 in the world. Over 40% of the state’s revenue comes from dairy Read more
Many Swiss and Germans immigrated to Pennsylvania staying in the heartland and planting native wheat and corn for sustenance in the 17th century. They escaped religious persecution in Europe for their Anabaptist beliefs. Pennsylvania became known for thrifty farmers, German beer, and accurate clocks. By the 18th century, there were Read more
Milton Hershey opened his first business selling confectionary, fruits and nuts in Philadelphia when he was 18, coinciding with the 1876 Centennial Exposition. However, he didn’t see success and went bankrupt in 1882 after his father joined his business and then left him to pay the bills. He finally got Read more
Right in the state capitol complex in Charleston is a cultural centre with a museum underground. It’s a noisy museum with audio playing in every gallery interpreting state history. The audio overlaps in the corridors. It’s also a very southern museum. European invaders who duped the natives out of their Read more
All car museums are laid out the same way, I’ve been to enough of them to know. There’s always a big entranceway with a two-tiered display of a couple of dozen cars angled toward the visitor. The whole thing started when the depression-era bootleggers needed to run from the law. Read more
This free-admission museum in uptown Charlotte only features temporary exhibitions. It focuses on post-Civil War racial justice issues to the modern day. The exhibition I saw was on climates of inequality about how climate change disproportionately affects poorer people and racial minorities. The government forced racial segregation by redlining zones Read more
Harvey Bernard Gantt was the first black student at Clemson University, the first black mayor of Charlotte where this center is and became an architect after completing a graduate degree at MIT. The center has three temporary exhibits that rotate out about every three months. Nearly all the works are Read more
It’s the only museum worth visiting in Greensboro is pretty good. The third floor has an exhibit on the relationship between freedom and democracy, with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement. It also has a mock-up town square with historical buildings around it showing how people lived during Taft’s Read more
It’s a small museum in Mount Airy, NC about actor Andrew Griffith’s life. He grew up in the town and filmed the Andy Griffith Show here, which is where Mayberry is based on. It’s mostly on the Andy Griffith Show with the original courthouse signs, desk, and clothes, but there Read more