The 12 galleries in this unique museum on the southern edge of Old Salem showcase the furniture, painting, ceramics, and metalware used in the area through 1820. The bookstore carries hard-to-find books on Southern culture and history.
One of the most interesting museums in the state, MESDA was conceived as a showcase of furniture design and decorative arts in the American Southeast during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It originated as the result of the outrage generated at a lecture by the then-president of the Winterthur Museum (Delaware) in 1949, when he implied that nothing of artistic importance was produced south...