A free man of color and successful businessman in antebellum North Carolina, Thomas Day created unique furniture and architectural interiors that survive today.

Behind the Veneer: Thomas Day, Master Cabinetmaker, a conversation with Patricia Phillips Marshall, curator of decorative arts at the North Carolina Museum of History

Thomas Day was a free man of color who owned and operated one of North Carolina’s largest cabinet shops prior to the Civil War. The museum’s former exhibit Behind the Veneer: Thomas Day, Master Cabinetmaker showcased furniture crafted by this accomplished artisan and entrepreneur from Milton, Caswell County, and explored the extraordinary story of a man who succeeded and flourished despite shrinking freedoms for free people of color in antebellum North Carolina.