eastern, c-span 2. historic ek, we go to places to learn about american history. the museum of early southern in winston rts salem, north carolina, features furniture, paintings, textiles and ceramics used and made by people in the southern states. curator ackerman highlights objects that tell the history of the colonial h through the antebellum era. minutes.about 20 the museum of southern decorative arts has one of the ost important collections of objects made and used in the early american south. today we're going to look at just a few of those things that us to tell the story of the south through the objects made nd used by the diverse people who have called it home for more than four centuries. he south is an absolutely fascinating place because it's so diverse. i mean, we tend to think about as being made of three regions. the chesapeake bay, the area virginia, and ,

northeastern north carolina, the carolina low country, through n, south charleston and savannah, and -- place we call backcountry. beyond those states that are art of them, just a few miles in the south and everything changes from the style of furniture to the kind people are making, to the food they are eating. mcnamara ding in the master works gallery, one of the self-guided galleries at mesda, and we put some of our iconic and meaningful things there. ne of my favorite objects is the tomahawk over here made by in 1780. tennessee what fascinates me about the is how it fuses traditions together. the european form of tomahawk

smoking pipe. this is actually one of only two pipe-tomahawks that were both made and used in the kentucky tennessee backcountry. when you watch a fourth grade single me in and every student just has their noses glued to that case. they are fascinated by the form. it's both utilitarian, useful, but also beautiful. curly maple turned into the shaft, and then this head put onengraved to it. it's the kind of october that treasured l was both because it was useful, but also treasured because it was and meaningful, and symbolic and that's why it survived. passed down from generation to generation, and here ultimately ended up in a case at the museum. see thee're going to go mariners ceramics gallery where we try to tell the history of

south in one kind of october. objects made of clay. > we're in the mariners ceramics gallery and we're looking at one of the largest of most monumental examples pottery produced in the edgefield district of south carolina. edgefield, south carolina, in 19th century, was home to a number of what were essentially plantations. places where free and enslaved converted the clay of the local materials into these very practical vessels. we don't know the names of the potters, but there is one big exception. dave. phenomenally talented potter, just the sheer physical force required to convert raw into a vessel this large is a testament to his skill but speaks to us through

his work. more than 150 examples of his even more hat's -- pots ant are the pats where he adds his own poetic inscriptions. illegal tohen it was teach an enslaved person to read or write he's doing both. dating riting his name, his pots and giving the name of his owner, they are an affidavit of resistance, and he's creative. not just with his hands but his mind as well, adding poems to the back of his pottery. in this case, the words, "i saw saw a lion, a leopard's face, and felt the need of grace." n adaptation from the book of from a man who is enslaved in this place. powerfu statement what's so fascinating about dave his t only does he write

biography for us in clay, but carried all the way through the civil war. to ugh emancipation, and that moment, where he signs his name, now no longer on a t but a piece of paper to register as a voter, and, at that moment, being just known as dave, to being something more important. essential. david drake, something more dignified. he takes on this complete name his begins to take on free man dentity as a in the post-civil war south. largest is home to the collect of 17th century southern objects. made between the founding of jamestown in 1607 all the way up to 1700, as its nia begins to move focus away from jamestown and into williamsburg. known objects in

is this one.n it's a cork cover, the 17th of side board. this is earliest piece of southern venturature we know of today. of all the piece we know of it's probably the only piece of made in jamestown that survives. happens when what probably an english trained craftsman comes to america and confronted for the first time with the kinds of natural available.they have so he's actually mixing three very different woods to create object. he's using oak, a material he would have been very familiar for the railsand, and styles. he's using walnut for the turn elements, although he's doing something very interesting. he'staking this walnut and

ebonizing it. making it appear like rare ebony and this is n, really significant, he's taking yellow pine, wood, and he's using it for the shelves and panels. we always love objects here at mesda for their formal qualities we also love them when they tell the history of people. this the earliest southern object we have, but it's also an object that has an family history going all the way back to the 17th named , and to a woman mary percy who lived in new york s.unty, in the 1650 this object actually descended and her to her daughter from mother and daughter all the and hrough the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries the in nearly 20th century it male a home with its first family owner who was using it not in the finest room of one of he finest virginia brick

houses, that would have been used in the 17th century, but porch of n the back his house in south side virginia. where he was using it to store hams and tools and chicken feed. fortunately, it was recognized it was by som early antiques dealers, who ere, at that point, traveling the south trying to recover these objects from obscurity. market and ht to eventually found its way to rank horden, our museum's founder and it was the first serious object frank acquired. it in 1949, decades before he decided to found mesda. in 1965, when we opened and it remains today one and most t important iconic objects in our collection. galleries really tell the story of the chesapeake bay region. hat's the area that surrounds the bay, maryland, virginia, the northeastern north carolina.

strength of our collection. as you move out of the 17th 18th ry and into the century, what you begin to see places liketyles of london and edinburgh are having impact throughout the entire south. you begin to see not just people for land but also tradesmen, professional abinetmakers, professional artists, coming to the south, see an opportunity to make things for the new elite. planter so this next gallery really represents the kinds of objects hat would have been made in that region as you move into the mmediate period before the revolutionary war. now, notice around me is this architectural interior. this is actually architecture that came out of a house in maryland.ounty, that was built in the first decade of the 18th century. the kind of person who would

in a house like this was by no means poor. his is the kind of house, one room, a lot of above, three wall, walls, a brick end that somebody in the upper 10 or is going to in maryland, read probate you inventories from that period they have quite a number of fine things. going to have ey some locally made furniture like a walnut table here but they are imported to have ceramics. they are going to have imported glass. just because they are living on what at the time is the edge of he english empire, does not mean that they don't have access to those global markets. global markets are bringing them those kinds of things. pottery bringing them nd glass, and metalwork but they are also bringing ideas of hat's fashionable, and so it

doesn't take very long for what is fashionable, in the cabinet of london or edinburgh or way to to make its america and even make its way fairly seholds that are sort of democratic level. while the settlements around the chesapeake bay are flourishing starting in the mid-17th century 18th century, there is also colonization going on along the tidal rivers in what become the carolinas and even georgia. by the middle of the 18th century, in fact, the carolina to some of is home the wealthiest people in north america. he objects in this room represent some of the earliest things made in the southern low country. to go re actually going ahead and take a walk through this door here and see the kinds places ts being made in like charleston, south carolina, right on the eve of the

war, when ary charleston is one of the wealthiest cities in british north america. american of the revolution, charlton was in many to london than it was to its other colonial cities. more people in charleston were ending their children to education abroad than from any other colony. that wealth is based on trade. based on the trade for ice, for indigo, that's being grown in huge quantities by plantations outside of the city and along the rivers. really fortunate here at the museum to have an art great ion, one of the views of charleston from that period. the thomas leach painting of the city done in 1774. leach was an english painter who to charleston and actually advertises in the newspaper that view reparing to paint a

of the city, and that he's going to send that painting back to engraved. have it you have to imagine that, in the and certainly d in the back of those reading the advertisement, there is sort of there is sort of the implication that if you pay in advance for your print maybe your house is just a little bit delineated in it. leach was a man of his word. paints the view of charleston harbor right on the eve of the revolution. he shows charleston at the of its commercial supremacy, and he goes back to london. painting, and he has the ntengraved, and what produces is end of the cityive view on the eve of the revolutionary identifiableof the charleston landmarks. st. michael's church. building.nge st. phillips church. you have a laden ship coming

harbor, and perhaps even if you want to get a little bit hilosophical about it, maybe these waves and the clouds in portend themeant to revolution to come and the fact that even at this point, even in city in north america, there are storm clouds and that these colonies maybe won't be colonies for that longer. we're really lucky at mesda to have an incredible collection of grown needle work. i always like to say these samplers are the work of our artists. these are being worked by young irls who are seven, eight, nine, 10 years old. but for me, one of the smallest collection is also one of the most important. it's right here. that blessed is he eliza erth the poor, baynard, valley towns -- the

work stitched bay cherokee girl at the school in cherokee county, north carolina. the baptist e by actually 1821, and oman in baltimore.oung girl for eliza, a amed philanthropist and donor to the school. addition to this work by this young cherokee girl we also have selection a second sampler from the same school, worked not by one of the native at the school but actually worked by a 12 year old katherine cleaver in 1823. the cleaver family were some of missionaries who actually left their homes to come to this place. two samplers are both beautiful objects, but they are testament to a terrible story. only a few years later, the

and the removal of the cherokee west to oklahoma schools dissolved, and all we have left are things objects to tell their stories. along the coast in the in the lowregion and country, you're seeing the kinds of objects being made by directly come re from the mother country but when ou get into the southern backcountry you begin to see when diverse craftsmen come from mixing in different and interesting ways. that's especially true here in carolina, where ou have not only british craftsmen coming west from the eastern part of the state, but huge so have this migration come down the great wagon road and into this part of north carolina. and so you have german-speaking

lutherans. you have quakers. ou have scotts irish presbyterians, all mixing in his fascinating and somewhat unpredictable ways and those ies come out in the kinds of objects they make. is filled with objects that look very, very different, and yet, they were all made a hundred miles of the museum. now, one of my favorite objects this chest of drawers, because it really clearly tells story of different people from different communities coming together, and making a new kind of america here in the southern backcountry. in basic form, it's a quaker chest of drawers from pennsylvania. but it was made for a german family, the foust, and we know who because it has their initials on it.

fousts were people of german stock. german roots, who had also come down the great wagon road into piedmt of north carolina. when they needed a chest of drawers they turned not to a communityber of their but to a quaker craftsman who ived nearby in a place called stinking quarter creek. such a great name. nd this craftsman makes them a chest of drawers in the form that he's most familiar with, but when it comes to decorating of drawers, he does something a little different. decoration andhe the initials, and then pours them and phur into then planes off the excess to leave behind this sulphur inlaid gf, bf, and the date 1796. see is not a technique you in quaker furniture being made in southeast pennsylvania but it a technique you see up and down the great wagon road, speaking in german

communities. so here in this object for the foust you have the mixing of form, german decoration, a family of german descent in. many ways that represents what an american, to take bits and pieces of particular cultures and recombine them together to create something really special like this chest of drawers. we've only had a chance today to a small selection of objects from our collection, though the ast majority of our collection is easily accessible and on view o the public for study, for learning from. for enjoying. incredibly s are diverse, from the very fine to the very simple, from the very small. the very with you all these objects have one thing in common, and that is used by were made and

the diverse people who lived and worked in the early american the first english footsteps at roanoke and jamestown all the way through american ing of the civil war. eople who lived in maryland, virginia, north carolina, south arolina, georgia, and even in tennessee and kentucky. > on c-span 3, we're also taking your questions and your comments, your vote, i should c-span history and the question is, which party changed 1968?ost since and the vote right now with more than 24,000 casting their votes changed theemocrats republicans at posted, from women's rights to

race relations. and an tweet us questions comments during live events, see video previews of upcoming rograms, or look back to what day in american history. c-span history. attends a g trump summit event in canada, we look ack to when president ronald reagan attended a g-7 event in toronto. ere's a portion of president reagan's remarks to the empire club of canada on june 21 as the summit ended. [applause] president reagan: brimming with trength, vitality and self-assurance, with our similar heritage and common values hasnade relationship between the united states and canada unique in world history. friends, n best

important trading partners, and llies for more than a century and a half. in many ways, america's relationship with canada has the vanguard of our relations with other nations. environmental treaty over boundary waters involved canada. mutual t permanent defense relationship was with canada. and the agreement to remove war from the great lakes was our first arms reduction pact. have heard me say that nations don't distrust each other because they are armed. they are armed because they other.st each with the longest undefended border in the world, canada and the united states are the proof side of that. when nations live in trust and friendship, they live in peace. today our relations are better than ever. four years, the canadian u.s. partnership has strengthened, that's

all for the good. changing before our eyes we need each other's ever before and in many ways, that is what brian three days the last in toronto, has been about. he changing world and the role of north america in it. finished meeting with the leaders of the five industrialized democrats. hese summits have played an important role in the revival of growth in the industrial world. of course, a different country serves as host. ver the past eight years i've noticed that the leader of the host nation sets the tone and to determines the meetings. the this year's summit was informal focused, get down for business. and the progress achieved may

fulliest for months but it was essential. i should say substantial. much of the credit for this success belongs touchdown of the strongest andld's best leaders, and someone whose friendship i cherish. it is rare that a personal friendship between two leaders the course of history. rarer still that it changes for i believe that's i believe future generations will regard our work of the great e to the world.rth nor do we see eye-to-eye but irish man ever did. so let me pause and say thank vision, leadership and friendship to my colleague your prime minister, -- n

[applause] >> interested in american history tv? visit our website at c-span.org/history. you can view our tv schedule, and ew upcoming programs watch college lectures, museum tours, archival films and more. history tv, at c-spa c-span.org/history. ext on american history tv we learn about muslim and arab culture in detroit. sally howell, at the center for arab american tudies at dearborn and the islam," f "old rediscovering the american muslim in the past. it's just ov5