This year’s recipient of the award, Thomas A. Gray, was born into a family for whom service to museums and preservation organizations, and the appreciation and conservation of material culture was not only encouraged, but expected. He received his undergraduate degree from Duke University and a master’s degree in Early American Culture from the Winterthur program at the University of Delaware. He then served at the director of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts at Old Salem Museums and Gardens.
Tom’s dedication to the success of Old Salem and MESDA has always been significant. After serving on the staff, he served on the Board of Trustees for 30 years. For three of those years he was the chairman. He has also served as the President and founder of the Historic Preservation Fund of North Carolina, a Trustee of the NC Museum of Arts, and a Board member of the Decorative Arts Trust. His devotion to preservation causes in North Carolina earned him the highest award in preservation in North Carolina, the Ruth Coltrane Cannon Award, in 1983.
With his mother, another ardent supporter of Old Salem and MESDA, Tom co-founded the Old Salem Toy Museum in 2002. The Museum was regarded as one of the most important exhibitions of its type, with toys representing 1700 years of childhood, with the German toys so well known by the Moravians as the centerpiece. Accompanying this amazing collection was a series of publications including the recipient’s book, The Old Salem Toy Museum. The sharing of this amazing collection in the form of the Toy Museum prompted the governor of North Carolina to honor Tom with the State of North Carolina’s highest civilian award, the order of the Long Leaf Pine, in 2002.
When the Toy Museum closed in 2010, Tom created endowed purchase funds for Old Salem and MESDA with the proceeds from the auction of the toys. The establishment of that fund has been transformative for the care and collecting of Moravian objects.
With the closing of the Old Salem Toy Museum, our recipient turned his attention to filling another conspicuous need of Old Salem and MESDA. Tom saw the need for a fully renovated library and research center and took up the mantle of making it happen. As icing on the cake, he created a special space where his rare book collection could be housed and made accessible to scholars of Southern regional history and decorative arts.
In recognition of his many generous philanthropic endeavors that have benefited Old Salem throughout the years, in 2012 the Old Salem Board of Trustees awarded our recipient with the Frederick Williams Marshall Award.
In recognition of Tom’s receipt of the Archie K. Davis Award, the children of Archie K. Davis sent the following message:
As the children of Archie K. Davis, we congratulate our cousin Tom Gray, and we are so pleased that his efforts on behalf of Old Salem are being recognized with this award. Our father was a life-long student of history, and particularly as it related to Old Salem and the history of the Moravian Church. He would be so pleased with this presentation.
Archie H. Davis Savannah, Georgia
Bonnie D. Bennet Atlanta, Georgia
John Haywood Davis New York, New York
Dr. Tom W. Davis Todd, North Carolina
Written and presented by Johanna Brown, Fall 2023
