Midlands Gives Spotlight: The Sumter Museum

Tyler Ryan learns about the Sumter Museum directly from the Executive Director, Annie Rivers

SUMTER SC (WOLO) – Midlands Gives returns on May 3, where over 500 local charities come together in hopes of collectively raising money through the amazing generosity of the community.

One of the many organizations is The Sumter County Museum.  According to Annie River, the Executive Director of the Museum is made up of a comprehensive collection of history, spread over a large campus and several buildings with historical significance and education.

Rivers says that   the most recent addition to the Museum, the Temple Sinai Jewish History Center, tells the story of Sumter’s Jewish community and its place in the larger story of the Jewish diaspora in America. The Center features a moving permanent Holocaust exhibition and Ackerman Hall, a multi-use space for traveling exhibitions and cultural events, as well as Temple Sinai itself, one of the nation’s oldest Reform congregations.

Other areas of the experience include the historic Williams-Brice House dating to 1916, the modern Heritage Education Center, and the Carolina Backcountry Homestead, an assemblage of late 18th to early 19th century structures relocated from around the area that allows visitors to get a feel for what life was like two centuries ago in the South Carolina back country.

Rivers says that there are opportunities to take classes which will teach some period crafts, including blacksmithing, dewing, and other skills.

You can learn more about the Sumter County Museum HERE.