Casey Jones Museum Announces Traveling Exhibit
Posted by Casey Jones Village at 1/20/2012 3:10 PM 
Categories: Events, Ongoing Events, Shoppes, The Shoppes, Casey Jones Museum, Village Events, Old Country Store, Upcoming Events, In the News, Jackson Area Plectral Society, Gift Shoppe, Live Music, To Go, Songwriters Depot
Categories: Events, Ongoing Events, Shoppes, The Shoppes, Casey Jones Museum, Village Events, Old Country Store, Upcoming Events, In the News, Jackson Area Plectral Society, Gift Shoppe, Live Music, To Go, Songwriters Depot
Casey Jones Museum Welcomes
Traveling Exhibit
Traveling Exhibit
(Murfreesboro, TN) As the 150th anniversary of the Civil War gets into full swing this year, the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area has enlarged its traveling exhibition on emancipation. Two new panels focus on the fight for freedom in West Tennessee, where a groundbreaking contraband camp was established in Grand Junction in November 1862. The enhanced exhibition will debut at the Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum on Friday, February 3rd and be on view through March 20th, 2012 as a part of the Museum tour. Museum admission is $6.50, Seniors $5.50 and children 6-12 $4.50.
Entitled “Free at Last!” the 4-panel exhibition emphasizes the significance of emancipation as a result of the Civil War. “Free at Last!” provides an introduction to the joys and challenges shared by African Americans in Tennessee during the aftermath of slavery. The exhibition looks at the intersection of Union military action and the influx of former slaves to Union lines in West Tennessee, which provides an important case study of wartime emancipation. The Reconstruction years were crucial to the development of African American communities throughout Tennessee. Former slaves founded scores of schools and churches. “Free at Last” highlights some of the emancipation communities that are wonderfully preserved in our state.
The exhibition debuted in February in 2007 and has since traveled to the Roy Bailey African American History Center in Lebanon, the Sam Davis Home in Smyrna, the Granville Museum in Jackson County, the McLemore House Museum in Franklin, Oaklands Historic House Museum in Murfreesboro, the Rutherford County Archives in Murfreesboro, the Great Smoky Mountain Heritage Center in Townsend, the Germantown Regional History and Genealogical Center, several churches in the Denmark and Mercer communities in West Tennessee, the Discovery Museum of West Tennessee in Jackson, the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton, the James E. Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University and Margaret Allen Middle School in Nashville. In addition, the exhibition has been on view at the Legacy of Stones River Symposium in Murfreesboro, the Civil War Preservation Trust Summer Teacher Institute in Chattanooga, the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference in Nashville, the International Heritage Development Conference in Charleston, S.C., the MTSU Scholars Week Exposition in Murfreesboro, and the Journey from Slavery to Freedom: Emancipation During and After the Civil War Social Studies Camp in Murfreesboro.
“Our goal is to tell the whole story of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Tennessee,” says Laura Holder, federal liaison for the Heritage Area. “These venues are terrific places to tell the emancipation story.” The Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area receives funding from the National Park Service and is administered by the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University.
Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum is located at 30 Casey Jones Lane in Jackson, Tennessee. It features the historic home of famed railroad hero Casey Jones. For more information visit www.caseyjones.com.
(Photo courtesy of Paul Jackson)
Comments