Free admission
 Free parking
 Nearby restaurants
 Guided tours offered
 Wheelchair/stroller
   accessible
Carolinas Textile Exhibit

Beginning in the 1870s and 1880s, the Carolina Piedmont started to build and operate textile mills. The development would have profound impact on the region's economy and social development.

By the 1920s, Gaston County had become the center of the U.S. textile business. 

The permanent Carolinas Textile Exhibit, The Ties That Bind, presents the history of the people and the businesses that created the economic engine of the 20th Century for this region.

Using audio-visual recorded interviews and rare artifacts -- including one of Thomas A. Edison's original electric generators (used at the McAdenville Mill -- now part of Pharr Yarns) -- the story is revealed through its technology revolution, community development and economic impact.

Exhibit Creation
In 1995, a committee was finally put together to formulate plans for utilizing part of the main floor for a major textile exhibit. The original organizing committee was composed of Pamela K. Warlick, Linda S. Hoyle, Lucy R. Penegar, Rebecca H. Rhyne, May C. Barger, James F. Love III and Robert A. Ragan and J. Bynum Carter. In 1996, Barbara H. Brose was selected as the new Executive Director for the museum. She immediately gave the project top priority. 
  
Professional consultants were brought in to give the idea a focused direction, a permanent curator was appointed, and a community consultation group was formulated to advise the exhibit development and implementation. In addition, a Peer Review Committee, composed of nationally and regionally known scholars whose research and publications are dedicated to studies of the Southern Textile industry, was set up to advise on the presentation.   

The Carolinas Textile Exhibit Campaign, under the chairmanship of Bynum Carter, commenced in 1998 and received major support from  A.B. Carter, Inc., J. Bynum Carter, First Gaston Foundation, American & Efird, Inc., The Dickson Foundation, Robert A. Ragan and Jocelyn Ragan Rose, Stowe-Pharr, Inc., R.L.Stowe Mills, The Glenn Foundation, The Community Foundation of Gaston County, Charlton K. Torrence, Jr. and Parkdale Mills, Inc. 
 
In September  2001, "The Ties That Bind" Carolinas Textile Exhibit opened. The focus of the exhibit is on the transformation of Gaston County and the region from an agrarian economy of the 1860's to a modern industrial economy and center of America's textile industry.   









  © 2005. The Gaston County Museum.
 
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