Edward Tatum, UNCW MA student and Colonial Williamsburg enthusiast, tells us all about the historical importance of the "Pudding cap." Pudding caps were toddler crash helmets whose material details offer information about its owner's class and status and about societal ideas about childhood at the dawn of the American Revolution. 

Graduate student Aryn explores the making and meaning of the 1898 Memorial installed in Wilmington, North Carolina more than a century after the violent events of Nov 10, 1898. Along the way, Aryn looks at the false historical memories that forestalled public acknowledgment of the role of white supremacy in the coup and massacre and examines the political process of memorialization.

In the seventh episode of this season's Object Project, undergraduate Brian explores the violent white supremacists, The Red Shirts. Through examining the material and meaning of the symbolic garment, Brian shows how intimidation was central to many steps of the conspiracy to overthrow democratically elected officials, costing many Black lives along the way. 

Undergraduate History student Buket describes how a small personal pin worn on a man's lapel over a hundred years ago leads us to a century-long legacy of violence and political control. The Wilmington Light Infantry played a central role in the coup and massacre of 1898. The men who wore such a badge have last names that still resonate powerfully in Wilmington today. 

Graduate student Maddie outlines the intimidating role of an expensive, high-powered weapon in the massacre and coup of 1898. The almost -100-pound rapid-fire gun may not have taken many lives on November 11, but it was given place of privilege in the white supremacist plans to take over Wilmington. 

UNCW history undergrad Nicole discusses the secondhand printing press used by Black newspaper editor Alex Manly to combat the white supremacist media rhetoric vilifying Black men as rapists and dishonesties politicians. Manly's press was specifically targeted in the November 1898 violence, as the perpetrators burned the building housing the machine nearly to the ground.

UNCW graduate student Tess examines the meanings and processes behind a daguerreotype cartes de visite of Alexander Manly, the editor of the Daily Record, Wilmington's only Black newspaper at the time of the 1898 massacre. Manly's anti-racist editorials provoked white supremacist anger, and some went so far as to blame Manly for the violence. Manly and his family escaped just before the violence ensued, never to return to Wilmington, and his printing press was burned to the ground. 

In this episode of Object Project, UNCW student Lena offers an inside look at the meaning and value of Alfred Waddell's gavel, held in the North Carolina History Museum. Including a scathing but sometimes humorous biography of one of the chief perpetrators of the violence in 1898 Wilmington, this episode delves deep into what a single object can symbolize about power and control across generations. 

In the first episode of Object Project's season discussing the material culture of the 1898 Wilmington Massacre, UNCW grad student Aeris introduces Valentine Howe's Fire Horn. This artifact, housed at the Cape Fear Museum of History and Science in Wilmington, frames a story about how the status and value of fire departments (both Black and white) played a intricate part in white supremacist campaign to upend the power and resilience of Wilmington's Black community. 

Join us, through a nineteenth-century door in Wilmington, North Carolina's Bellamy Mansion. Upon this door, an enslaved man wrote his name several times, leading Andrew Craig and Rebecca Mullins on an exploration of enslaved lives, literacy, and the ideals of freedom.