Penn Center welcomes new museum director, historic interpreter

Michael Turner Webb has been hired as director of Penn Center’s York W. Bailey Museum.

In his role, Webb will serve as a historic interpreter, dressing in period garb to tell the stories of Civil War and Reconstruction. Webb said he plans to operate a youth program and have children reenact one of the Union Army’s first black regiments by drilling, camping and dressing as the soldiers did.

Webb studied history at Johnson C. Smith University, volunteered at museums in Charlotte and Gastonia and is a recognized Negro League baseball historian.

He comes to St. Helena from Historic Brattonsville in York County, where he donned period clothing and reenacted the lives of soldiers, the people enslaved on the property during the Revolutionary War and their experience after the Civil War.

The experience helped him earn the similar role at Penn Center.

“I think they found the right guy,” Webb said.

This story was originally published August 23, 2017 at 12:14 PM with the headline "Penn Center welcomes new museum director, historic interpreter."