Cotton Fields to Skyscrapers
Levine Museum of the New South

Students visited the Levine Museum on Friday, January 17, and viewed its signature exhibit - a comprehensive overview of post-Civil War regional history. This exhibit explores the economic transformations that pushed the Piedmont from a region of small farms after the Civil War to America's main textile factory region by the 1920's, to the second largest banking center in the U.S. today. Highlights of the exhibit include:
* Remaking the Countryside - recreated cotton field.
* Bringing the Mills to the Cotton - mill village porch and oral history video.
* Building a Region of Cities - explore "Main Street", try on clothes at the 1930's Belk Department Store, listen to Charlotte native Billy Graham.
* Newsreel Theater - President Franklin Roosevelt's "Green Pastures" speech in Charlotte, Charlotte native Randolph Scott in a movie trailer.
* We Shall Overcome - the segregated south, a 1960's lunch counter.
* Banking Boomtown - the rise of Charlotte as a financial center.

Students also took in the Americanos Exhibit at the Levine Museum.