Immersive American Revolution Exhibit to Make East Coast Debut in Charlotte

More than three years of work will come to fruition on April 14 when Charlotte Museum of History (CMoH) opens American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition, which uses video game technology and augmented reality to immerse visitors in the key members of the Revolutionary War in the Charlotte area and beyond. 

Making its East Coast debut in Charlotte, the exhibition will be on view at the museum until April 2027, the only opportunity for audiences in the Carolinas to experience it.

Developed by Histovery in partnership with the Museum of the American Revolution, the exhibition is part of a nationwide commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. 

It will travel to other US cities through 2031 with a goal of reaching all 50 states, though CMoH will be the only venue to feature the exhibit for around 200 miles, or a four-hour drive, in any direction during its local run. 

To run alongside the nationally touring exhibit, CMoH has curated The Revolution in the Carolinas, a supplementary gallery that includes local scenes such as Captain Jack’s ride from Charlotte to Philadelphia, pivotal American victories at King’s Mountain and Cowpens, and the local resistance to the British occupation at the Battle of Charlotte.

“What we’re hoping to do is, yes, focus on Charlotte because we’re the Charlotte Museum of History, but then also talk about the role that our area and region as a whole played in the war,” CMoH President and CEO Terri White told Queen City Nerve during a sneak preview tour of the exhibit on Tuesday. 

“The war was won in Yorktown, but other than that, most people think of Philly, New York and Delaware, versus Charlotte, North Carolina,” she continued. “So we were hoping to use our part of the exhibit as a catalyst to get people involved with other historic sites in the state.” 

Created in collaboration with leading historians and scholars, the exhibition blends a physical display with augmented reality to create a fully immersive historical experience, with visitors using Histovery’s patented HistoPad tablet to journey through the years 1763–1789 via 3D re-creations. 

Patrons scan into displays involving scenes such as the Boston Tea Party, the Constitutional Convention, and the Battle of Yorktown; along with more localized settings including the 1774 Alexander Rock House on the CMoH property and the Charlotte Courthouse at what is now the intersection of Trade and Tryon streets. 

Visitors scan into the scenes using their tablet so as to view them in 360 degrees, witnessing patriots lying in wait for an approaching battalion of British forces and Loyalists, for example. Using a slider located under the image, they can compare the scenes with their present-day settings.  

The scenes include the Colonel William Bratton House in Brattonsville, South Carolina, where a group of Loyalists led by Capt. Christian Huck threatened Martha Bratton with a reaping hook to her neck, demanding to know where her husband was. 

She refused and later sent an enslaved man named Watt to warn her husband, Col. William Bratton, who went on to lead an ambush and kill Huck on the following day. 

The new exhibit gave CMoH a chance to better highlight the enslaved people who worked on the Hezekiah Alexander homesite on the museum’s property. 

White, the first Black president and CEO in CMoH’s history, pointed out that the immersive graphics provided an opportunity to give faces to all 13 of the enslaved people believed to have worked on the property. Though fictionalized, the graphics allow the museum to further humanize those people, about whom not much is known. 

The exhibition’s arrival follows the state’s designation of the 1774 Rock House as a site of statewide historic significance in 2025, recognizing its importance as a cultural, architectural and historical landmark. 

In 2024, the museum received a $444,500 grant from the National Parks Service to complete restoration work on the 1774 Rock House, the oldest home in Mecklenburg County. 

“Hosting American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition is a defining moment for our museum,” White said in a release announcing the opening date on Tuesday. “Our historic site offers a powerful connection to this era through the 1774 Alexander Rock House and its original owner, Hezekiah Alexander, a Revolutionary statesman and framer of North Carolina’s first Constitution and Bill of Rights. We are excited to welcome visitors for this one-of-a-kind experience and to inspire deeper reflection on our nation’s founding ideals of freedom and liberty.”

White has pleaded with city leaders in recent years to more regularly fund the museum the same way they annually fund other institutions in the city. On Tuesday, she said she hopes the new exhibit shows that she was serious when she came into her role and stated her goal to turn CMoH into a nationally recognized museum.  

She also emphasized the importance of more funding in order to continue to pursue that goal. While the exhibition has been funded by the John William Pope Foundation, Mecklenburg County, Foundation for the Carolinas and the city of Charlotte, more funds will be needed to capitalize on it. 

“We scrapped and scraped to get to this point, and we’re still technically fundraising to do the programming and educational activities connected with it,” she told Queen City Nerve. “When people see it and they’re like, ‘Oh, so they didn’t buy golden toilets. They really invested in something cool,’ I hope that that will show the transparency of what we’re genuinely trying to bring to Charlotte.” 

White and the CMoH team hope to work with other historic sites around the Carolinas to evolve and expand on the regional exhibit, loaning historic items and sharing research so as to help raise awareness for those sites and encourage visitors to check them out.  

“We really saw this as a way to bring tourism into Charlotte, you know, economic development, but also to push those people out to the smaller sites,” she explained. “So we really wanted this to not be just about us, but everybody connected to this.” 

Tickets to American Revolution: The Augmented Exhibition are available at the museum’s website.