The Virginia Museum of History & Culture is closed for daily visitation through its grand re-opening on May 14, but it continues to hold select in-person and virtual programs.
March programs include lectures on a variety of topics and an installment of the popular Between the Lines Book Club.
Lectures
March 10, 6 p.m. – Reclamation
Growing up in Black middle-class Washington, D.C., Jessup White was 13 when she first heard the family lore. Fueled by personal loss and professional angst, she devoted herself to uncovering the truth, a commitment that ultimately led her to Monticello, where she became the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s first community engagement officer. Reclamation is an intimate exploration race, class, and redemption in a country that continues to struggle with its complicated and painful origins.
White is the first descendant of Jefferson and the families he enslaved to be employed by the Foundation. She is the author of Reclamation: Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson, and a Descendant’s Search for Her Family’s Lasting Legacy.
This lecture is open to VMHC Members in-person and will be livestreamed on the VMHC YouTube and Facebook channels for public viewing.
March 15, 12 noon – How Imperfect is Our Past? A Conversation with Charles Bryan
The late southern writer John Egerton observed that there are three kinds of history: what actually happened, what we are told happened, and what we finally came to believe happened. It is that third type that author and former VMHC president and CEO Charles Bryan addresses in many of the essays in Volume 2 of Imperfect Past.
Bryan challenges many of the assumptions about the past his generation was taught in schools some sixty years ago. A once simplistic story has become more complex, but at the same time, more compelling and provocative. The lecture will consist of a conversation between Dr. Bryan and current VMHC president and CEO Jamie Bosket.
Bryan is an American historian who spent most of his career in the museum field, including twenty years as president of the Virginia Historical Society. He is the author of several books, including Imperfect Past: History in a New Light and Imperfect Past Volume II: More History in a New Light.
This lecture is open to VMHC Members in-person and will be livestreamed on the VMHC YouTube and Facebook channels for public viewing.
March 18, 12 noon – The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760 – 1840
This lecture is part of the John Marshall Center’s Marshall Scholar Series. It is co-presented by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
When the US Constitution won popular approval in 1788, it was the culmination of 30 years of passionate argument over the nature of government. But ratification hardly ended the conversation.
For the next half century, ordinary Americans and statesmen alike continued to wrestle with weighty questions in the halls of government and in the pages of newspapers.
- Should the nation’s borders be expanded?
- Should America allow slavery to spread westward?
- What rights should Indian nations hold?
- What was the proper role of the judicial branch?
In The Words that Made Us, Akhil Reed Amar unites history and law in a vivid narrative of the biggest constitutional questions early Americans confronted, and he expertly assesses the answers they offered. His account of the document’s origins and consolidation is a guide for anyone seeking to properly understand America’s Constitution today.
This lecture is free for JMC Members, VMHC Members, Teachers, Students, and Military. General admission is $10. Register at VirginiaHistory.org/events.
March 24, 12 noon – The Material World of Eyre Hall
Erected in 1759 on the Eastern Shore, Eyre Hall is still occupied by descendants of its builder, Littleton Eyre. Since construction, succeeding generations acquired and preserved a rich variety of documents and objects including furniture, books, silver, and paintings. Only a small handful of houses in Virginia can claim such continuity.
The Material World of Eyre Hall examines the everchanging meanings of this place in Virginia history. Its origins reveal the cultural aspirations of a deferential society built on slavery that emerged in the colonial period. The plantation suffered the tribulations wrought by the Revolution, Civil War, Reconstruction, and several depressions, undermining its social and economic foundations. By the early twentieth century, the house was seen as a nostalgic exemplar of an earlier age, a storehouse of family legends and traditions. Preservation and survival rather than expansion and change became the dominate attitude toward the house and grounds. What does this inheritance mean today in the wake of transformative events that continue to reshape the interpretation of Virginia’s past?
Carl R. Lounsbury retired as the senior architectural historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2016. Over a thirty-five-year career, he was involved in the research and restoration of many buildings in Williamsburg’s Historic Area. Since 2002, Lounsbury has taught architectural history at William and Mary. His many publications include An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape; The Courthouses of Early Virginia; An Architectural History of Bruton Parish Church; and, most recently, The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History.
This lecture is open to VMHC Members in-person and will be livestreamed on the VMHC YouTube and Facebook channels for public viewing.
Between the Lines Book Club
March 29, 7 p.m. – Tidewater by Libbie Hawker
Join VMHC Education and special guest Shaleigh Howells, from the Pamunkey Indian Museum & Cultural Center in an evening book club conversation about Tidewater: A Novel.
About the Book: In 1607, three ships arrive on the coast of Virginia to establish Jamestown Colony. Their only hope of survival lies with the Powhatan tribe. In the midst of this struggle, Pocahontas, the daughter of the great chief, forges an unlikely friendship with Smith. Their bond preserves a wary peace―but as each seeks to fulfill their own ambitions, their delicate truce begins to crack. Soon the colonists and Powhatans are locked in battle, and Pocahontas must choose between power and servitude―between self and sacrifice―for the sake of her people and her land.
About the Pamunkey Indian Museum & Cultural Center: The Pamunkey Indian Reservation (Reservation), established in 1646, is perhaps the oldest inhabited Indian reservation in North America. The Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center is a tribal museum located on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation. The museum focuses on the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s history and way of life from 12,000 years ago through to the present. As Cultural Resource Manager and Museum Director, Shaleigh manages educational programming and day-to-day operations of the museum.
This virtual program is free, but registration is required.
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