About Us
Old Salem Museums & Gardens is a historic site telling the stories of people, including Moravian, Black, and Indigenous peoples, in the American South. As one of America’s most comprehensive history attractions, our museums — the Historic Town of Salem, the galleries at Frank L. Horton Museum Center, including the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, and the Gardens at Old Salem—engage visitors in an educational and memorable historical experience.
The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) contains the finest collection of its kind in the nation, featuring architecture, furniture, ceramics, metalwork, needlework, paintings, prints, and other decorative arts made and used in the early American South. Old Salem Inc. is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization.
Our Mission
Old Salem Museums & Gardens shares the rich, authentic, and diverse cultural history of the early South–with special emphasis on the Moravians in North Carolina, enslaved and free people of African descent, and Indigenous peoples of the Southern Woodland, through the preservation and interpretation of material culture, architecture, and cultural landscapes.
Old Salem has structured its mission-driven activities around several key objectives, which together cultivate a lively and inclusive historical site. These efforts are deeply rooted in honoring the town of Salem’s rich past while ensuring its vibrancy and relevance for future generations.
At its heart, Old Salem is a home for education. As educators, we serve as ambassadors for the preservation of people, places, and communities that made the town of Salem so special. Our historic interpreters bring everything our district represents in a customized context where everyone, whether they be a kindergartener or someone with a doctorate, will walk away with something new learned.
Additionally, Old Salem invites partnerships with educational institutions (elementary through colleges and universities) to create learning opportunities for students and for adult professionals seeking curriculum-based and continuing education courses taught within the historical context of the subject.
Old Salem Museums & Gardens is dedicated to sharing the truth about the lives of all those who lived within the Salem community, including the enslaved and free people of African descent. This important community participated in building the town and worked in the shops, industries, and homes of its white residents. Their contribution to the mercantile prosperity of Salem cannot be overstated. Their descendants and the post-Emancipation African American population to the present-day are part of the story as well.
Frequently, accurately relaying these stories is hard. Old Salem is dedicated to making use of decades of research to share these hard truths and make sure that every resident of Salem is included in what we do.
Old Salem Museums and Gardens is dedicated to achieving the highest possible degree of engagement for all visitors, and that includes practicing the historic commercial trades that shaped the daily life of the Salem community. These trades were fundamental to the town’s development and prosperity. From blacksmithing to pottery, these craftspeople contributed significantly to the vibrant economy and deep cultural legacy of Salem.
Old Salem brings these historic trades to life through meticulous research and authentic demonstrations, ensuring the stories of all who contributed to Salem’s trades are told authentically. By highlighting the skills, innovations, and contributions of these artisans, Old Salem aims to honor the legacy of every individual who played a role in shaping the community.
Historical horticulture is crucial to the legacy of Salem.
Our efforts are aimed at highlighting the histories of Old Salem’s historic plant collection in ways that are engaging to visitors. Old Salem’s restored landscapes and gardens have always been rooted in the reintroduction of historically appropriate trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, grains, and vegetables, including both the beautiful and the pragmatic. This effort has resulted in a significant collection of heritage plants and seeds. The histories behind these species are significant. By learning and participating in these seeds’ stories they become part of our representing a vital part of the town of Salem
Institutional History
In 1950, a group of dedicated volunteers established Old Salem, Inc. as a way to begin preserving and restoring the town and gardens of Salem for future generations. As Old Salem grew, more buildings were restored and new facilities were added–including the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA).
In addition to having two National Historic Landmark buildings, the Salem Tavern and the Single Brother’s House, Old Salem was designated as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) District in 1966. The dedicated staff at Old Salem have worked since the 1990s to expand the historic district and engage community stakeholders in order to share a more authentic and diverse history of Salem and the early South. In 2016 the National Park Service approved an expansion of the NHL district, including changes to the boundaries, additional time periods of significance, and additional resources that allow us to share a more comprehensive history of Salem and the neighboring freedmen’s community of Happy Hill.
Preservation & Restoration
Salem’s earliest structures used Germanic architectural features, including half-timbering, herring bone doors, central chimneys, and steeply pitched roofs. The town’s later structures were influenced by styles popular in the U.S. at the time, including Federal and Greek Revival designs. Salem still retains most of the features from its original town plan.
After years of neglect, the Salem area became the focus of a major preservation effort following World War II. The city of Winston Salem rezoned Salem as a historic district in 1948, setting up an architectural review board to control alterations to historic structures in the area. A second major step toward the preservation and restoration of Old Salem came in 1950 when Old Salem Museums and Gardens was incorporated. This nonprofit corporation was given the mission of restoring and reconstruction the Moravian town of Salem.
At the state level the North Carolina General Assembly of 1965 passed legislation authorizing local governments to rezone areas as historic districts. Winston Salem created a new Old Salem Historic district with this law in 1966. Old Salem was the first district in North Carolina under the new legislation. The city formed the Winston Salem Historic District Commission, now the Historic Resources Commission to regulate the Old Salem Historic District. Also in 1966, the district was designated as a Local Historic Landmarks by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Old Salem Museum and Gardens continues this legacy of stewardship to ensure that the comprehensive historical significance of this built environment will be shared with our diverse visitors for many more generations to come. We continue to work closely with the Forsyth County Historic Resource Commission and North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office to perform maintenance and restoration on our buildings and grounds using the proper tools, techniques, and materials to maintain their historic integrity in accordance with the accepted preservation guidelines.
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