Sheffield Hale, President & CEO, Atlanta History Center

In an interview with Focus:, Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of Atlanta History Center, discussed the institution’s evolving exhibits and community engagement strategies. “We strive to present history in a straightforward, fact-based manner,” he said, emphasizing the importance of inclusive storytelling supported by innovative technological uses.

What have been the significant milestones and achievements for the Atlanta History Center over the last 12 to 18 months?

One of the most impactful developments has been the opening of the Goizueta Children’s Experience in January 2025. This addition to our campus has been extraordinary, driving membership and visitor growth in a dramatic upward trend. The months of January, February, and March were particularly remarkable in terms of visitor numbers and new memberships. The exhibit has been a tremendous success, offering an engaging and interactive experience for children between the ages from crawlers to eight-year-olds. 

The current theme, Our Great Big City, allows children to explore Atlanta through hands-on activities, including a section featuring the Fox Theater and The Varsity, where they can even smell distinct aromas like French fries or frosted oranges. In May 2026, the exhibit will transition to a new theme, Atlanta Sports, featuring our city’s favorite sports teams, ensuring fresh and relevant content for young learners.

Simultaneously, we are preparing to reimagine our other exhibits in 2026. Our Civil War exhibit closed in May 2025 to make way for a completely redesigned 9,000-square-foot presentation. This new exhibit will expand into an additional 6,000-square-foot gallery called the Goldstein Gallery, showcasing a broader range of artifacts, including uniforms and equipment, to illustrate the Civil War as the first truly industrial conflict. The new exhibit will span from the 1840s through the 1880s, examining the causes, events, and lasting consequences of the war, many of which remain relevant today. In the fall, we are also presenting a new exhibition focused on the forced removal of the Cherokee and Muscogee Nations from Georgia.

What kind of capital campaign is necessary for these exhibit changes, and what progress has been made toward that goal and the milestones anticipated in the coming year?

Thanks to the generosity of the Atlanta community, foundations, corporations and individuals, we are celebrating the conclusion of our Future Atlanta Campaign, raising more than $60 million for key exhibits, special projects, and our endowment.

Next year marks our 100th anniversary, a monumental occasion that will see the entire institution revitalized. The capital campaign supports this transformation, ensuring that our exhibits, facilities, and programming reflect our approach to history as outlined in our Guiding Principles.

How has the role of cultural institutions like the Atlanta History Center evolved in recent years, particularly in a city experiencing rapid growth and demographic shifts?

Several years ago, we adopted guiding principles to broaden our outreach and engagement efforts. In today’s polarized climate, where discourse is often fragmented and contentious, we strive to present history in a straightforward, fact-based manner. Our approach emphasizes evidence-backed narratives, offering perspective without editorializing.

We believe it is essential to bring diverse voices to the table, fostering mutual understanding through shared history. Rather than segmenting history into isolated narratives, we emphasize its interconnectedness, ensuring that all visitors feel seen and represented. This commitment requires careful language and presentation, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric while still addressing difficult truths. In a time of cultural flux, we remain steadfast in our mission to provide a space for dialogue, education, and reflection.

How is Atlanta History Center using technology to ensure people can engage with the center at home or at schools?

Currently, schoolchildren and anyone who is interested can see some of the video from our exhibitions, such as a 12-minute illustration of the Civil War in Georgia. We also released our first podcast as an institution in partnership with local NPR affiliate WABE. The podcast is called 1912: The Forsyth County Expulsion and Its Aftermath and details the history of the expulsion of Black residents from Forsyth County in the early 1900s. It is a fascinating and tragic story, which also myth-busts long-held beliefs about a haunted Lake Lanier. Those are the kinds of things we want to make available to people whether they visit or not, because we think it is important to our mission. Additionally, if they experience it, they might want to come and see the rest of it. We are very excited about this. 

I also visit museums around the world and the country, asking, “What can we do? What is the next thing?” We are not getting rid of the artifacts, that is what we have, but how do we show them more fully? Why are they important? Recently, I went to the Grand Egyptian Museum, which just opened in Cairo, and they have some very impressive interactive exhibits. Our new exhibitions are incorporating similar immersive technologies which make the history even more impactful for visitors.

What role do partnerships play in your success and growth strategy, and how do you leverage them?

There are a couple of ways we do partnerships. Our biggest partnership right now is with an organization called Made By Us, which is actually an LLC operated by Atlanta History Center. It is a cooperative effort with hundreds of history museums around the country. The leadership of this group includes a number of the biggest museums, including the Smithsonian, the National Archives Foundation, History Miami, the New York Historical and the Wright Museum in Detroit. We have a volunteer board running the program, but we are reaching out to hundreds of museums about how to approach the 250th anniversary of the country this year. We are particularly focused on engaging people between 18 and 30 years old, helping them become civically active. This partnership has given us a lot of insight into how to reach that cohort of young adults.

Locally, we work with everybody we can. We collaborate a lot with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights on programming. We have also set up something called the Atlanta Civic Collaboratory, which brings in people from all over the community to explore how we can make Atlanta a better place. We also receive calls from people asking for help with exhibits, archives, or historical documentation.

Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for the Atlanta History Center over the next couple of years?

We want to be in the best fiscal and physical position we have ever been. Attendance has gone up, driven largely by families. We want to continue that and broaden it, reaching more people so they discover what we have here on our 33 acres.

We also reopened the Margaret Mitchell House in Midtown last year with a great exhibit that has received a lot of praise. That was a hard exhibit to do without becoming a target from one side or another. I think we threaded that needle very well, telling that story in an authentic way where people can understand it. We are good at telling difficult history, and we are trying to get better at it because times are more fraught, and it is harder to reach people when they are polarized.

Lastly, one of the key things we are doing, and plan to continue to do, which has nationwide importance, is our approach to history and our methodology. In this time, with people reacting negatively to history or saying they do not want to hear anything unpleasant, the way you tell history is very important. We are going to stay the course and do what we have always done, just trying to do it better. In 2026, when we reopen the other exhibits, they will be of equal quality to the children’s experience, and you will see that come to fruition. We are bringing in children, their parents, caregivers, and grandparents. I have talked to so many grandparents who are thrilled to have this opportunity to take their grandchildren to a place that is a lot of fun. They can also climb on a locomotive and then go outside, see the animals, and run around. It is a best-of-both-worlds opportunity.