New Bern Historical Society
100 Year Anniversary: Through the Looking Glass

NEW BERN, NORTH CAROLINA

A century of storytelling! The New Bern Historical Society began in 1923 with a mission to celebrate and promote New Bern and its heritage. In 2023 the exhibit “Through the Looking Glass, A Journey with the Storytellers” opened to celebrate the 100 year anniversary in the Tryon Palace Visitor Center. The exhibit is designed in a circular clock like form, spanning through the years of history and taking deep dives into stories of diverse characters, some ordinary and some extraordinary. These storytellers shape the character and heritage of New Bern.

The Design Dimension team developed the exhibits with the New Bern Historical Society team in a collaborative design process. Using curated artifacts, images old and new, post cards and even some New Bern “lore” from local historian Miss Gertrude Carraway – we developed an experiential space to capture time.

Through explorers, battlefields, floods, hurricanes, fires, and great growth on the waterfront visitors can read story after story– unraveling the remarkable threads of New Bern’s impact on our state and nation! 

Central to the exhibit experience, visitors are enveloped in the “Drop me a line” hanging sculpture. Postcards and photographs hang as history surrounds when the exhibit journey comes to an end, leaving space for reflection and appreciation.