The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is a cabinet-level department within the state government of

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

dedicated to overseeing projects in the arts, culture, and history within the borders of the state. The current Secretary of Natural and Cultural Resources, the cabinet-level officer who oversees the department, is D. Reid Wilson. Wilson has been in office since January 2021 and was immediately preceded by Susi Hamilton, who served as secretary from 2017 to 2020

History

The department was founded as the North Carolina Department of Art, Culture, and History. It became operational on January 25, 1972. Its first secretary was Sam Ragan, poet and arts advocate who later became North Carolina Poet Laureate. It was renamed to Department of Cultural Resources in 1973. In 1973, Grace Rohrer succeeded Ragan, becoming the first woman to hold a cabinet-level office in North Carolina. Many of the offices and divisions of the department were founded as separate institutions, such as the State Library of North Carolina, founded in 1812, the North Carolina Museum of History, founded in 1902, and the North Carolina Symphony, founded in 1943. These organizations either remained independent or were gradually combined under the Office of Archives and History until 1971, when the Department of Cultural Resources became the first cabinet-level office of any state in the United States to deal solely with history, the arts, and cultural knowledge. On September 18, 2015, the Department of Cultural Resources was renamed the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The name change came with a transfer of several divisions to the department, including North Carolina's

state parks State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

aquariums An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

, zoological park,

museum of natural sciences The Museum of Natural Sciences (, ; , ) is a Brussels museum dedicated to natural history. It is a part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (; ), itself part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSP ...

, the Clean Water Trust Fund and the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program.

Property and holdings

The Department of Natural and Cultural Resources supervises and cares for a large number of historic sites, documents, pieces of art, and other items and places of cultural value for the state. The State Archives, for instance, contain over 100 million historic documents, including North Carolina's copy of the

United States Bill of Rights The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten list of amendments to the United States Constitution, amendments to the United States Constitution. It was proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the Timeline of dr ...

and the original 1663 charter for the

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

as granted by

Charles II of England Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and King of Ireland, Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the eldest su ...

. Perhaps the most prominent building supervised by the department is the

North Carolina State Capitol The North Carolina State Capitol is the former seat of the legislature of the U.S. state of North Carolina which housed all of the state's government until 1888. The Supreme Court and State Library moved into a separate building in 1888, and th ...

, an 1840

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

building that contains a substantial number of historic artifacts, furniture, and monuments related to the history of North Carolina. The

North Carolina General Assembly The North Carolina General Assembly is the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of the Government of North Carolina, state government of North Carolina. The legislature consists of two chambers: the North Carolina Senate, Senate and the North Ca ...

's appropriation in 1947 of $1 million for the purchase of artworks and sculpture to be housed in the Museum of Art made it the first state in the nation to use public funds for the purpose of building a state art collection

Department structure

The department is organized in the following manner (all divisions located in

Raleigh Raleigh ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most populous city in the state (after Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte) ...

unless otherwise noted):
Office of Archives and History
* State Archives of North Carolina (formally known as the Division of Archives and Records) ** Outer Banks History Center in Manteo ** Western Regional Archives in Asheville ** State Historical Records Advisory Board * Division of State Historic Sites and Properties: manages 24 historic sites throughout the state and indirectly oversees and coordinates with the 3 historic commissions
Division of Historical Resources

State Historic Preservation Office

Office of State Archaeology
**Office of Historical Research, coordinating th
North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program
an
Historical Publications
unit
distributed through Longleaf Services and the University of North Carolina Press
***''North Carolina Historical Review'', an academic journal on North Carolina history **the agency'
Western Office
service branch in Asheville, North Carolina *Division of State History Museums ** North Carolina Museum of History **

Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum The Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is a maritime museum that focuses on the maritime history and shipwrecks of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The museum is located in Hatteras Village, the southernmost community on Hatteras Island, N ...

in Hatteras ** Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City ** Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex in Fayetteville ** Mountain Gateway Museum and Heritage Center in Old Fort **

North Carolina Maritime Museum The North Carolina Maritime Museum is a system of regional museums within the North Carolina Museum of History, which in turn part of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. There are several branches of the Maritime Muse ...

in Beaufort and

Southport Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...

* Roanoke Island Festival Park Commission in Manteo * Battleship North Carolina Commission in Wilmington *

Tryon Palace Tryon Palace, also called the Governor's House and the Governor's Palace, is a two-story building located in the eastern part of New Bern, North Carolina. The building is a faithful reconstruction of the original 1770 residence built by archite ...

Commission in

New Bern New Bern, formerly Newbern, is a city in Craven County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. It had a population of 31,291 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is located at the confluence of the Neuse River, Neuse a ...

;Office of Arts and Libraries * North Carolina Arts Council * North Carolina Museum of Art ** Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem * North Carolina Symphony * State Library of North Carolina **Government and Heritage Library **Library Development **Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped ;Division of Land and Water Stewardship * North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund *North Carolina Natural Heritage Program ;Division of North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences * N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh *N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Whiteville ; Division of North Carolina Zoo ; Division of State Aquariums ; Division of State Parks and Recreation

Other responsibilities

The Department of Natural and Cultural Resources also oversees the North Carolina Award.

References

{{authority control Government of North Carolina Natural and Cultural Resources Natural and Cultural Resources Government agencies established in 1971 1971 establishments in North Carolina Organizations based in Raleigh, North Carolina Natural resources agencies in the United States Natural resources in North America

History

Property and holdings

Department structure

Other responsibilities

See also

References