About the Exhibit

Thomas Day was a free man of color who owned and operated one of North Carolina’s largest cabinet shops before the Civil War. He created unique furniture and architectural interiors that survive today.

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

In conjunction with the NC Museum of History, former curator Patricia Phillips Marshall published a book about Day with coauthor Jo Ramsay Leimenstoll. Thomas Day: Master Craftsman and Free Man of Color won the 2010 Ragan Old North State Award from the NC Literary and Historical Association.

Day was inducted into the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame in October 2024.