Thursday, March 28, 2002

WILMINGTON, NC – The exhibit “Pirates, Patriots and Progress,” which spotlights Wilmington’s pre-Depression festival Feast of Pirates, will open Saturday, April 6, at 5051 New Centre Drive.

Designed and installed by students in UNC Wilmington’s History Department, the display features rare artifacts, photographs and documents from local institutions as well as private collections.

Feast of Pirates was a three-day festival held in Wilmington every August from 1927 to 1929. UNCW graduate history students Jeanne Barnes, Dianne Eelman, Michael Jarrell and Clare Kersey created “Pirates, Patriots and Progress” under the supervision of Dr. Virginia Stewart, associate professor and director of the university’s Public History Program.

The display, which is the result of a two-semester seminar on museum exhibition, illustrates how a group of local civic boosters created the festival to put Wilmington on the tourism and industrial “map” of the Southeast. The exhibit includes the festival’s official hand-painted pirate banner as well as sporting trophies and medals. Festival activities included beauty contests, motorcades, speedboat races, street dances and other pop culture elements associated with the Roaring ’20s.

As part of the exhibit, the UNCW Music Department recorded the festival’s official song “Feast of Pirates.” Written by Herbert Buie, it hasn’t been performed since the festival’s demise. This free, public display is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays during April.

For more information, contact Jeanne Barnes at 910/784-1509 or Dr. Stewart at 910/962-3305.