" 1968: america in turmoil." militarybout the major and diplomatic about -- and theomatic elements of vietnam war. join the discussion. >> this weekend, american history tv is joining our spectrum cable partners to showcase the history of winston-salem, north carolina. citiesn more about the visit current tour, c-span.org. >> there's a real sense of history in this town, because we've been here a long time and we been a successful city for a long time. >> we took a driving tour of the city with retired radio

personality jr snyder. heading first? >> the art district. winston has an interesting history of being basically a factory town for a long time. without any assistance, they started kind of being an artists colony. all of these places have kind of grown from that. now there are lots of restaurants and stuff. what wasstarted with just people wanting to have a place to display what they did. initially, this would have all been tobacco factories during the time of the furniture market. >> winston-salem was kind of built up on tobacco, right? winstonder --j.r.:

specifically was starting in about 1880, because there was a lot of farmland around here. there were a number of tobacco factories. there were lots of people in tobacco before r.j. reynolds came here in the 1880's. mainly what they were doing was chewing tobacco before they started making cigarettes out of it. hen reynolds came here, really had an idea of the business part of it. from there, he could see the potential for that. >> we are seeing the r.j. reynolds tobacco factory. j.r.: that whole area has been turned into this fabulous facility. the irony of it is that the school of medicine that they trained doctors is down there. the biggest employer in winston-salem is the health industry. >> when did that change happen?

j.r.: it really started happening in the 1980's and 1990's. it had really come into its own starting in 2000 when this area really started growing and changing here. before that, downtown was dead. at 5:30, you could bowl on 4th street if you wanted to. now, at night, there's lots of people who live down here, lots of businesses, lots of reasons to be down here all the time. ashley: why do you think it turned around? j.r.: the catalyst is the people who said, here are these let's see what we can do with them. ashley: is this considered old winston? the city is a hyphenated city. tell me about the relationship

of winston and salem. it started as: salem. here and theycame founded a city as a church town. in the 1840's, they decided that they were going to make this a separate county. the moravians, the moravian religion, that controlled the town, didn't want the courthouse because court brings some pretty rowdy people. they sold, had a prime price, the land just to the north of us. that eventually became winston. winston was much more successful. ashley: should we go see old salem? j.r.: yes. ashley: look like we're going

back in time. are in the completely reconstructed town of old salem. ashley: there is still a moravian population here? j.r.: yes. kind oflow house sticking out over the street was the first town hall the people in salem had. this building was the mayor's office at that time. it was often used as a place ed uniforms sew during the american civil war. wheres the winkler bakery they continue to cook some things like they did. ashley: we're back in the car and it smells amazing. j.r.: we got moravian sugar cakes. it is made right here in salem. ashley: we're going to try it. j.r.: too bad we're not all smell-o-vision.

stops inne of the must salem. symbols originally the for mickey's tint shop. -- tin shop. it was up the street, it got banged up a couple of times. there's a lot of stories about being used to serve coffee for the moravians sunrise service and soldiers hiding in it. none of that is true. it has kind of been a symbol of hospitality. we are to see how some rich people used to live. ashley: what part of town is that? j.r.: we're going at -- going lda area.e reyno

, sheolds's wife built this estate. this is the estate on the right. this road was dirt originally. mrs. reynolds had a paved into downtown. this is the museum of american art. it is still a really neat place. it's not what you would think of as a massive home. ashley: it is not the opulence you would get from somebody like the vanderbilts. now it operates as a museum. how did that happen? j.r.: finally, they wanted to do something with the art collection and they decided that maybe a museum would be the best way to do it. this university land was given by the reynolds for the school to move here from wake forest,

north carolina. ashley: now we're going into wake forest university. tell me if there is something you would really like people to know about your town. what would that be? j.r.: it is still a great place to live. it is not that expensive, and we are four hours from the beach, three hours from the mountains. you come here if you want to vacation somewhere else, you still live here. a great place to raise your family also. >> our cities tour's staff recently traveled to winston-salem, north carolina, to learn about its rich history. learn more at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv. on weekend, every weekend, c-span tv.

>> university of richmond professor lauranett lee talks about how children were impacted during the civil war era and how morees into current era children and refugees. it is cohosted by the library of , thenia in richmond university of virginia center for civil war history. >> many of you may know lauranett in her former capacity as curator at the virginia historical society where she x --ed over a dozen exhibitions. one of her best accompaniment was her role as historian for the digital genealogy project "unknown no longer: a database of virginia slave names."