Barbecue Nation opens at the Atlanta History Center on Saturday, May 5, 2018, in celebration of National Barbecue Month. The exhibition explores how barbecue has come to claim an enduring place at the American table, and how it connects us to cultures around the world, in addition to traditions, history, and the future.

Organized by the Atlanta History Center, the exhibition includes a wide array of artifacts, images, and oral histories from restaurants, festivals, community gatherings, and archives and museums from across the country.

Barbecue Nation includes historic photos and '50s and '60s advertising images (including an ad for the astonishing-in-retrospect Armour's Ribs in a Can), and features cookbooks, postcards, menus, place settings, and other artifacts from iconic barbecue joints.

Vintage grills demonstrate the evolution of backyard cooking from trench to brick pit to mobile cooker. Among them: a 1948 Char-Broil Wheelbarrow Picnic Cooker, a 1965 Weber kettle, and a Japanese kamado brought home by a U.S. serviceman in the 1970s. Also on view is President Dwight D.

Eisenhower's GE PartioCart, a high-end, dual-fuel cooker trimmed in turquoise that he fired up at his retirement home in Palm Springs, California. A more contemporary eye-catcher is the 13-foot-long “Space Shuttle BBQ Pit” created by Houston-based Gator Pit of Texas.

On another presidential note, Barbecue Nation also tells the story of the 1909 banquet that Atlanta threw for president-elect William Howard Taft in which the main course was—wait for it—barbecued possum.

Weaving together a story that is deliciously complicated, contested, and alluring, Barbecue Nation is organized into seven thematic sections that consider these topics:

• International grilling traditions: Receiving focus are indigenous Taino “brabacot,” European contributions in meat and method, and West African grilling customs. These predate American barbecue while also contributing to its eventual form. A wall mural of Washington laying the U.S. Capitol cornerstone is a large visual element in this section, accompanying a discussion of how enslaved labor built America (particularly barbecue traditions), and how that story has largely gone untold. A rare original copy of the 1707 British pamphlet The Barbacue Feast, containing the first use of the word to describe barbecue being served at an event, is among artifacts on view. This pamphlet is one of only three known to remain in the world and the only one in North America.

• Contributions to our sense of place and identity: This section looks at particular barbecue traditions in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, including variations within their borders. Barbecue rivalries based on geography are also considered. Major barbecue events, and their role in cementing barbecue as a provider of place and regional identity, are chronicled. Objects include a chopping block from Skylight Inn BBQ in Ayden, North Carolina; and an 11-foot-long sign from Southside Market & Barbecue in Elgin, Texas.

• The commodification of barbecue as it spread out from the Southeast: Several restaurants are explored in detail, including Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue and Gates Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as popular Georgia spots such as Sprayberry’s Bar-B-Q and Fresh Air Barbecue. The rise of the automobile in barbecue’s widening popularity is addressed. So is the story of barbecue restaurants as places of resistance to segregation and Jim Crow. Objects on view include Auburn Avenue Rib Shack’s neon sign, a counter modeled on the one at Arthur Bryant’s, and pieces that illustrate the story of service station barbecue.

• Grilling as an element of personal convenience and expression: A timeline of grills lining one wall includes a 1930s Ford charcoal grill, a 1948 Char-Broil Wheelbarrow Picnic Cooker, a 1965 Weber Kettle in a “Westerner” motif, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s GE Partio Cart, a 1959 Bernzomatic gas grill, a Caja China, and a Japanese kamado (Big Green Egg cites “ancient cookers” from China and Japan in this style as a design inspiration). Artwork, images, advertisements, cookbooks, and other ephemera cover the walls, providing an engaging look at personal barbecue as an element of recreation and community. Barbecue’s role in perpetuating gender, racial, and class stereotypes is chronicled, as are ways that women and people of color have celebrated their heritage and communities through grilling despite this. A display of sauce bottles illustrates the growing popularity of barbecue sauce as well as the increasing use of barbecue as a flavor.

• A video “Pit Experience”: Visitors enter a re-creation of a traditional barbecue pit and view three screens set within, showing pitmasters Helen Turner (Helen’s Bar-B-Que in Brownsville, Tennessee), Robert Patillo (Patillos BBQ in Beaumont, Texas), and Ricky Scott (Ricky’s BBQ in Kingstree, S.C.) expressing themselves through barbecue.

• Barbecue’s role within popular culture and in people’s daily lives: Includes an audio listening station where visitors may select snippets of songs relating to barbecue; and a display of barbecue-inspired art. Big barbecue competitions also are covered. Clips from film and television past and present that involve barbecue play on a monitor.

• The future: This section explores the craft barbecue movement, and suggests where barbecue is headed. It also touches on how American and international food traditions are blending to create a new cultural identity for barbecue. On exhibit is a 6-foot-tall burn barrel used by Charleston, S.C., restaurateur Rodney Scott.

Barbecue Nation continues through June 16, 2019, and is accompanied by a schedule of special programs, including an interactive opening celebration on Saturday, May 5, 2018; a screening of the Southern Foodways Alliance film Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ with a barbecue panel discussion on Wednesday, May 23, 2018; cooking demonstrations and a talk by author-chef Michael W. Twitty on African and African-American food traditions in Southern barbecue, as part of the free Juneteenth event on Saturday-Sunday, June 16-17, 2018; and Hogtoberfest, a “whole hog” barbecue dinner, on Friday, October 5, 2018.

The exhibition is presented with generous support from presenting sponsor Char-Broil; major sponsors Jim 'N Nick’s, YETI, and The Rich Foundation; and additional support from Georgia-Pacific.

“Char-Broil is honored to be part of this exhibit and all that it reflects -- a rich history and an integral part of our American culture,” said Chris Robins, President and CEO of leading grill manufacturer Char-Broil. “A Columbus, Georgia-based company celebrating its 70th anniversary, we are proud to be part of the evolution of barbecue and the American lifestyle.”