explorers & ADVENTURES
The Variety Vacationland New exhibit in Raleigh displays roots of North Carolina’s tourism industry
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BY » Renee Roberson | Photos courtesy of » North Carolina Museum of History
ooking for a fun road trip? Why not check out some of the free museums at the state capitol of Raleigh, a mere three and a half hours away from the Lake Norman area? The North Carolina Museum of History recently announced a new photography exhibit titled, Are We There Yet? North Carolina’s Variety Vacationland, 1930s-1970s. Readers of LIMITLESS may well remember this state-run marketing effort that depicted the state of North Carolina as both modern and progressive, but with strong ties to its past. Exhibit curator Katie Edwards, who is also the curator of popular culture at the North Carolina Museum of History, got the idea during the start of the pandemic last year to create a tourism exhibit that could open when things began to return to “normal.” It would promote a variety of sites throughout the state from a historical standpoint. 10 LimitlessMagOnline.com | June 2021
She first came across the Variety Vacationland campaign while working on a large exhibit on North Carolina filmmaking. Edwards learned that during the Great Depression of the 1930s, politicians and business leaders began efforts to boost North Carolina’s economy by lobbying for a statewide campaign to showcase tourism attractions. This eventually led to a full-color tourist guide titled North Carolina, a Variety Vacationland, first printed in 1937. It was soon followed by billboards, postcards, movies, television programs, and even a jingle. “In this exhibit, I tried to highlight the nuances of the Variety Vacationland campaign,” she says. “It was effective in that it did successfully bring tourism to the state, but it was a campaign that neglected to include all North Carolina’s citizens and tourists.” When she first began curating the
exhibit, Edwards says it had not occurred to her that the campaign took place during the Jim Crow era. All the sites advertised were only accessible to white tourists. There were several places in the coastal area that welcomed Black residents, such as Freeman’s Beach and Hammocks Beach and Jones Lake State Park. She could not find any state-supported sites in the mountain areas that welcomed anyone other than white tourists, though. Visitors to the exhibit can learn the origins of the campaign, view photographs of sites the campaign promoted, and view media produced for the campaign. The exhibit also has an interactive component where visitors are encouraged to submit their own favorite North Carolina vacation photos to #NCVacationland. North Carolina Museum of History 5 East Edenton Street, Raleigh, N.C. www.ncmuseumofhistory.org
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