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![]() Main entrance | |
Location in North Carolina | |
Former name | St. John’s Museum of Art |
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Established | 1962 |
Location | 3201 South 17th Street Wilmington, North Carolina |
Coordinates | 34°11′02″N77°54′55″W / 34.1840°N 77.9153°W |
Type | Art museum |
Director | Heather Wilson |
Architect | Charles Gwathmey |
Website | www |
The Cameron Art Museum, formerly known as St. John's Museum of Art, was established in 1962 in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina in the 1804 Masonic Lodge building. [1] The museum operated successfully in the downtown area for forty years and, eventually, outgrew its space. In 2001, the museum was relocated to the intersection of Independence and 17th Streets, changing its name to the Cameron Art Museum. The museum's new facilities allowed for the construction of three exhibition areas along with a lecture and reception hall. In addition, it provided space for outdoor exhibits, a clay studio, and an arts education center. [2]
Louise Wells Cameron was a volunteer at the original museum for 35 years and her husband, Bruce B. Cameron, had served on the museum board of directors. In 1999, the Bruce B. Cameron Foundation initiated the endowment campaign for a new museum with a $4,000,000 donation, and the children of the Camerons donated the land that the museum now sits on. The board of directors voted to name the new museum after Louise Wells Cameron. [1]
The Cameron Art Museum offers rotating exhibitions of historical and contemporary significance. The museum's permanent collection is composed of work by international, national, and local artists and covers a variety of disciplines.
The Cameron Art Museum's new location on Independence Street is home to the Civil War site of the Battle of Forks Road fought on February 20, 1865. The Confederate loss at the Battle of Forks Road, directly following the Fall of Fort Fisher, marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. The loss at Forks Road placed the Cape Fear Port in the hands of the Union, cutting off supply lines to General Robert E. Lee in Northern Virginia and leading to the final surrender of the Confederate Army. The museum grounds are lined with Confederate revetments built during the Battle of Forks Road, and every year the museum commemorates the lives lost on its property with a re-enactment of the battle followed by lectures, workshops, and artillery demonstrations. [3]
In 2018, the Cameron Art Museum was awarded an Inclusive Public Art Grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to build a public monument recognizing the legacy of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), who fought for the Union at the Battle of Forks Road. [4] Durham-based artist Stephen Hayes was selected to produce the bronze monument, titled "Boundless." [5] The monument depicts 11 life-size marching troops, including a standard-bearer and a drummer. Civil War reenactors and descendants of the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Forks Road served as models for the hands and faces featured in the monument. [6] "Boundless" was completed and dedicated in November 2021. [7]
The Museum School at the Cameron Art Museum offers a range of beginning and master classes, for children and adults, some of which can include CEU credit through New Hanover County Schools. Students of the Museum School have instructor-guided access to the museum's exhibitions and select objects in the museum's permanent collection not on view, and access to the museum's non-circulating art library numbering over 2000 publications and monographs. Additionally, the School creates employment opportunities for area artists and instructors. [8]
The Second Battle of Fort Fisher was a successful assault by the Union Army, Navy and Marine Corps against Fort Fisher, south of Wilmington, North Carolina, near the end of the American Civil War in January 1865. Sometimes referred to as the "Gibraltar of the South" and the last major coastal stronghold of the Confederacy, Fort Fisher had tremendous strategic value during the war, providing a port for blockade runners supplying the Army of Northern Virginia.
The Battle of Olustee or Battle of Ocean Pond was fought in Baker County, Florida on February 20, 1864, during the American Civil War. It was the largest battle fought in Florida during the war.
United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total by the end of the war in 1865, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army, according to historian Kelly Mezurek, author of For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops. "They served in infantry, artillery, and cavalry." Approximately 20 percent of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35 percent higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.
The Killer Angels is a 1974 historical novel by Michael Shaara that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The book depicts the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, and the days leading up to it: June 29, 1863, as the troops of both the Union and the Confederacy move into battle around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and July 1, July 2, and July 3, when the battle was fought. The story is character-driven and told from the perspective of various historical figures from both the Confederacy and the Union. A film adaptation of the novel, titled Gettysburg, was released in 1993.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
Fort Fisher was a Confederate fort during the American Civil War. It protected the vital trading routes of the port at Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1861 until its capture by the Union in 1865. The fort was located on one of Cape Fear River's two outlets to the Atlantic Ocean on what was then known as Federal Point or Confederate Point and today is known as Pleasure Island. The strength of Fort Fisher led to its being called the Southern Gibraltar and the "Malakoff Tower of the South". The battle of Fort Fisher was the most decisive battle of the Civil War fought in North Carolina.
The second USS Louisiana was a propeller-driven iron-hull steamer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
The Battle of Wyse Fork, also known as the Battle of Kinston, was fought in the Carolinas Campaign of the American Civil War, resulting in a Union Army victory.
The Carolinas campaign, also known as the campaign of the Carolinas, was the final campaign conducted by the Union Army against the Confederate Army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. On January 1, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman advanced north from Savannah, Georgia, through the Carolinas, with the intention of linking up with Union forces in Virginia. The campaign culminated in the defeat of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army at the Battle of Bentonville, and its unconditional surrender to Union forces on April 26, 1865. Coming just two weeks after the defeat of Robert E. Lee's army at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, it signaled that the war was effectively over.
During the American Civil War, North Carolina joined the Confederacy with some reluctance, mainly due to the presence of Southern Unionist sentiment within the state. A popular vote in February, 1861 on the issue of secession was won by the unionists but not by a wide margin.
The 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was composed of ten companies that came from various counties across North Carolina and Virginia. It is famous for being the regiment with the largest number of casualties on either side during the war.
The Confederate Memorial was erected in 1924 by the estate of veteran Gabriel James Boney, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and a Confederate veterans association in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. In August 2021, the City of Wilmington removed it from public land and stored it, awaiting the UDC chapter to take possession.
The Wilmington campaigns were part of a Union effort to take Wilmington, North Carolina, from the Confederates. Wilmington was the last major port on the Atlantic seacoast available to the Confederacy. Fort Fisher guarded the Cape Fear River and in order to capture Wilmington, Fort Fisher had to fall.
Fort Johnston was a British fort, later a United States Army post, in Brunswick County, North Carolina on Moore Street near Southport, North Carolina. It stands on the west bank of the Cape Fear River, four miles above its mouth.
The 49th North Carolina Infantry Regiment was a Confederate States Army regiment during the American Civil War attached to the Army of Northern Virginia.
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
Allen Dester Carter, known as 'Big Al' Carter, was an Alexandria, Virginia artist and public school art teacher in Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth Bradford is an American artist living in Davidson, North Carolina, best known for her large-scale paintings of landscapes. Her works have been widely exhibited throughout the southeastern United States and are collected in museums and collections, both private and corporate, across the country.
Eliza Hall "Hallie" Nutt Parsley was an American civic leader and educator. She worked as a school teacher after the American Civil War and established her own school for children in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1894, four years before the Wilmington massacre. A war widow, she was active in glorifying the Confederacy through her role as a member of the Ladies' Memorial Association, raising money to build Confederate monuments in North Carolina. Parsley became a prominent figure within the United Daughters of the Confederacy, establishing the Cape Fear Chapter in 1894 and the North Carolina Division in 1897. She served as president of the North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy for two years, travelling across North Carolina to recruit new members and promote the pseudohistorical narrative of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Under her leadership, in 1898, the Cape Fear chapter established the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science.