The Public History Program, of UNCW’s Department of History, operates the Public History Suite, a three-room laboratory for instruction in collections management, exhibition design and production, and documentary filmmaking. The suite’s computer room is equipped with graphic design and film production software, a wide format printer, scanner, and vinyl cutter. The collections area houses American artifacts utilized didactically in teaching artifact management and registration skills, object-based exhibition, and the interpretation of material culture. The third space doubles as a classroom and workshop, where students create exhibition mounts and signage. In the Public History Suite undergraduates and graduate students gain practical skills while experimenting with new techniques for facilitating public dialogue concerning the past.

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Graduate student Jen Whitmer works on her M.A. thesis project, a documentary entitled Protest in the Port City: The Story of the Wilmington Ten.

During an interpretation laboratory exercise, students Stacie Rogers, Cynthia Marshall, and Brooke Martin discuss a long-playing punk rock album from the 1980s.

Undergraduate student Erin Johnson inspects a mid-twentieth-century Viewmaster set designed to represent reality in three dimensions.