VHS CURRENT EXHIBITIONS:
What Remains of Edward Beyer’s Blue Ridge: Landscapes of Salem and Liberty
Through January 5, 2014
In the 1850s, German artist Edward Beyer traveled throughout western Virginia and painted landscapes of many of the small towns in the Blue Ridge Mountains. These paintings are remarkable not only for their beauty but also their attention to detail. This exhibition uses Beyer’s landscapes as documents to compare the bustling communities of the middle of the nineteenth century with the Blue Ridge towns of today.
Revolutions: Songs of Social Change, 1860–65 and 1960–65
Through January 5, 2014
What does one of Bob Dylan’s best–known songs have to do with slavery and the American Civil War? How did spiritual songs recorded by Union soldiers in the 1860s become popular protest songs 100 years later? Every song has a history, and Revolutions offers a comparative look at two dramatic periods of civil strife and the music they inspired. This exhibition features a banjo head used by singer-songwriter Pete Seeger, a copy of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” signed by its author, Julia Ward Howe, and numerous examples from the VHS’s extensive Civil War–era sheet music collection. Two listening stations allow visitors to compare songs from the 1860s with those from the 1960s.
The Story of Virginia, An American Experience
Long-term
This 10,000-square-foot, family-friendly exhibition includes several interactive features. It showcases more than 1,000 objects and covers 16,000 years of Virginia history from prehistoric times to the present.
Silver in Virginia
Long-term
This exhibition includes hundreds of pieces of silver not only produced in such major urban centers as Alexandria, Norfolk, and Richmond, but also works crafted in small towns like Dumfries, Fincastle, and Waynesboro.
Four Seasons of the Confederacy: Murals by Charles Hoffbauer
Long-term
French artist Charles Hoffbauer was commissioned by the Confederate Memorial Association to paint a series of Civil War murals, which were unveiled in January 1921. The murals follow the changing seasons and include Confederate commanders and battle scenes. (Please note: the Hoffbauer murals are currently undergoing major conservation. Portions of the murals may be obstructed by equipment, but the murals can still be viewed during this process.)
Making the Murals: Studies by Charles Hoffbauer
Long-term
This exhibition shows the models, tools, and techniques Charles Hoffbauer used to produce the large-scale mural paintings, Four Seasons of the Confederacy, that progress through the seasons of spring to winter, from the opening years of the Civil War to its close.
Virginians at Work
Long-term
Hundreds of objects in this exhibition tell the story of how Virginians have made a living and why jobs have changed. The exhibition follows four economies: agricultural (1607–1790), commercial (1790–1865), industrial (1865–1945), and service (1945–2006).
The Virginia Manufactory of Arms
Long-term
This exhibition presents weapons made in Richmond from 1802 to 1821. Examples of flintlock muskets, pistols, swords, and rifles supplied to the Virginia militia by the state are on display.
Solving History’s Mysteries: A History Discovery Lab
Long-term
This interactive exhibition, co-organized by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, focuses on the process of discovery, how we learn, and the important role historic architecture and archaeology play in defining our communities and culture.
The War Horse
Long-term
This life-size sculpture designed by Tessa Pullan of Rutland, England, was installed at the VHS’s Boulevard entrance in September of 1997. Mounted on a six-foot stone base, the bronze riderless figure is a memorial to the 1.5 million horses and mules of the Confederate and Union armies that were killed, wounded, or died from disease during the Civil War.
The Great Western Virginia Cover-Up: Historic Quilts & Bedcovers
August 3, 2013 – January 5, 2014
The Great Western Virginia Cover-Up exhibition showcases southwest Virginia bedcover-making traditions from the 1700s to 1950. The show includes more than twenty premier examples of “whitework” spreads, album quilts, Virginia Rose quilts, crazy quilts, and the exceedingly rare bed rugs. This is a traveling exhibition created by the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum at Ferrum College.
Banner Lectures begin at noon and cost $6/adults, $5/seniors 55+, $4/students and children under 18, and free for VHS members. Banner Lectures are sponsored by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Reservations are not required. Seating is offered on a first-come first-served basis. For descriptions, visit http://www.vahistorical.org/
July 11 “The Jefferson Hotel: The History of a Richmond Landmark” Paul N. Herbert
July 25 “Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia” Brian D. McKnight
Cosponsored with the Museum of the Confederacy
August 8 “Ocracoke: The Pearl of the Outer Banks” Ray McAllister
August 22 “War and Pieces: Quilts through America’s War Years” Neva Hart
September 4 “Fighting for Freedom: African Americans and the War of 1812” Gene Allen Smith
October 10 “First House: Two Centuries with Virginia’s First Families” Mary Miley Theobald
October 31 “Family of Assassins: The Surratts of Maryland” David O. Stewart
November 14 “Carillon: The Story of a Richmond Community” Elizabeth O’Leary
December 5 “Mapping Virginia: From the Age of Exploration to the Civil War” William C. Wooldridge
March 6, 2014 “Virginia Women, 1607–1861” Cynthia Kierner
Gallery walks begin at noon and cost $6/adults, $5/seniors 55+, $4/students and children under 18 and free for VHS members. Gallery Walks are sponsored by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Reservations are not required. For descriptions, visit http://www.vahistorical.org/
July 17 Moving through Time: Transportation over the Ages
August 21 Religion in Virginia: From Powhatan to Pat Robertson
September 18 Revolutions: Songs of Social Change, 1860-65 and 1960-65
October 16 The Great Western Virginia Cover-Up: Historic Quilts & Bedcovers
November 13 Good Art or Bad Art: What’s the Difference?
For more information, or to register for a behind the scenes tour, visit http://www.vahistorical.org/
A View from the Inside: A Behind the Scenes Tour of the Virginia Historical Society
This tour features areas of the VHS not normally open to the public, including the conservation lab, collections and manuscript storage, and rare book rooms. Participants also get the chance to see unique items in the collection that are not routinely on display. Each tour will focus on a different theme. Tours take place at 10:30 a.m. and cost $10 for VHS members and $17 for nonmembers. Each tour is limited to 20 participants.
July 27 Stolen Property, Liberated Books, and Fugitive Manuscripts
During the American Civil War, looting by soldiers on both sides was a common practice. A hungry soldier usually confiscated food and livestock, but sometimes men carried off personal items, such as books. This tour will feature liberated books, manuscripts, and objects that were taken from Virginia during the Civil War, which eventually found their way into the VHS collection.
August 31 Round Robin: Social Networking before Facebook
From 1920 to 1961, multiple generations of the Pollard family wrote letters to each other in small notebooks they called “round robins.” Each relative made an entry, some of which included newspaper clippings and photographs, and then mailed the book to another family member who would do the same as well as comment on previous entries. Within this early form of “social networking,” the authors, including former Virginia governor John Garland Pollard, candidly addressed political and social issues of their day, including women’s suffrage, the World Wars, and the civil rights movement. Join us behind the scenes as we connect topics from this unique correspondence to artifacts in the collection.
September 28 Duck and Cover: Exploring Virginia’s Atomic Culture in the Digital Age
Air raid drills. Conelrad. Bomb shelters. Duck and cover. Many of these were familiar terms to Americans in the Cold War culture of the 1950s. The future looked uncertain in the new Atomic Age because of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. People lived with the threat of nuclear war as part of their daily lives. This tour will feature survival literature, manuscripts, and objects from Virginia during the Cold War, along with a look at how the VHS uses technology to share its collections with a worldwide audience.
October 26 No Child Left Behind: Education in Virginia
In 1869, the new Underwood Constitution mandated that the commonwealth establish and maintain a statewide system of public schools. Of course Virginians had been educating their children, both formally and informally, for centuries. In this tour, we examine photographs, student notebooks, teacher rosters, diaries, primers, textbooks, artifacts, and other items in the collections that document the long history of children’s education in Virginia.
November 30 MoVember: A History of Facial Hair
Funky facial hair is all the rage today, and much of the inspiration comes from history. During this behind-the-scenes tour we’ll take a trip through the history of facial hair as depicted in portraits, prints, photographs, and objects in the collection.
December 28 For My Eyes Only: Early Virginia Diarists Tell All
A surprisingly large number of adult Virginians kept diaries during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and we are fortunate when their journals survive for later generations to appreciate. Most diarists never expected anyone else to see their writings. So, when their observations are detailed, they often tend to be very frank. This tour will feature a wide range of diaries kept by well-known and unknown Virginians and offer candid excerpts that sometimes sound surprisingly like modern postings to Facebook or tweets on Twitter.
Evening See You In Class programs take place from 5:30–7:00 p.m. Classes cost $50 for VHS members and $65 for nonmembers. For more information, or to register for a class, visit http://www.vahistorical.org/
September 26 &
October 3 Chesapeake Watermen: Their Culture and Way of Life
For centuries Virginians of Tidewater have made a living from the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay and its estuaries. In their wood-hulled, deadrise workboats, watermen have harvested oysters, crabs, and fish to feed their families and sell to markets along the East Coast. In this two-part class Larry Chowning will explain and illustrate the distinctive way of life for the watermen and those who supplied them with boats and specialized tools and tackle. Chowning is the prolific author of numerous books on Chesapeake life and culture.
October 31 &
November 7 Gone With the Wind: From Printed Page to Silver Screen
On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the motion picture Gone With the Wind, discover how the novel by Margaret Mitchell and the film by David Selznick became the most popular entertainment phenomenon of the 20th century. The first session will explore how Mitchell created Scarlett O’Hara and then spent the rest of her life minding Scarlett’s business. The second session will study the making of the movie, which gripped the public’s interest for three-and-a-half years and broke box-office records that stood for decades. Participants will also learn about Virginia’s connections to both book and film. Instructor John Wiley, Jr. is the coauthor of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood and editor of the forthcoming My Scarlett, a collection of Mitchell’s letters about the film.
November 14 & 21 Virginia Politics: 2012–13
This program examines the forces, people, and issues that have transformed Virginia politics in the past two years. The two-part course will focus on key elections, major policy innovations, and the principal challenges that face the state today. Robert Holsworth is one of the state’s leading political analysts, a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award Winner, and founding director of the Center for Public Policy and the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
December 5 & 12 Revisiting Bacon’s Rebellion
In 1676, Virginia was not yet seventy years old when it found itself torn by strife, both internal and external. What caused Bacon’s Rebellion? Was it a precursor to the American Revolution, just one hundred years too early? This two-part class will explore the causes and complexity of this event that transformed the colony. Virginia would never be the same, and the colony’s growth took a new course afterward. Robert Dunkerly, a park ranger at Richmond National Battlefield Park, has written widely on military history and is active in historic preservation.
Quilt Documentation & Discovery Day
September 28
Quilt owners are encouraged to bring quilts (limit three per person) made before 2000 to the VHS for a Documentation & Discovery Day. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., volunteers from the Virginia Consortium of Quilters will be photographing and recording information about the quilts and their makers for a statewide database kept at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, Va. The group is interested in learning how quilters and quilt styles have changed over time. The emphasis will be on quilts made by Virginians, but all quilts will be recorded. Owners are encouraged to bring information—including unframed photographs—about the quilt maker to be copied. This event is free and open to the public.
For information about children’s programming, contact Caroline Legros at (804) 342-9652 orclegros@vahistorical.org.
Stories at the Museum
The Virginia Historical Society is offering special educator-led readings of history books. Every program will include a group reading of the selected history-themed picture book and a craft activity related to the text. Each month the books will have a different theme. Programs take place the first and third Saturday of each month at 11:00 a.m.Stories at the Museum programs are free and open to children of all ages. For book titles and descriptions, visithttp://www.vahistorical.org/ education/stories.htm.
September 7 & 21 National Hispanic Heritage Month
October 5 & 19 Famous Virginians Month
November 2 & 16 Native American Heritage Month
Girl Scout Patch Day Programs
October 12, November 9 and December 14
Girl Scouts (both individuals and troops) have the opportunity to earn a Virginia Historical Society patch. Girl Scouts will use replica artifacts in The Story of Virginia exhibition to learn about girls’ and women’s lives during each period in Virginia history. Girls will also learn how to use primary sources for research by reviewing letters, diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs related to the history of women in Virginia. The Patch Day program begins at10:00 a.m. and costs $5 per girl; adults are admitted free of charge. Registration is required by contacting Caroline Legros at (804) 342-9652 or clegros@vahistorical.org.
Virginia House, owned and operated by the Virginia Historical Society, is located at 4301 Sulgrave Road in Richmond’s Windsor Farms neighborhood. All Virginia House events require advance registration. For information, or to register for Virginia House events, contact Tracy Bryan at (804) 353-4251 or tbryan@vahistorical.org.
Diggin’ in the Dirt Summer Camp
August 5–9
This camp, cosponsored with Agecroft Hall, introduces participants to a variety of educational and craft activities. During the week-long program, campers ages 6–8 learn about Virginia plants, weather, and gardening. Projects include creating butterfly gardens, growing herbs, making stepping stones, learning cloud types, and weather charting. Camp takes place from 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. daily and costs $135 per VHS member’s child or grandchild and $150 for nonmembers.
Garden Tour
September 5
Join the staff for an in-depth look at the more than eight acres of grand gardens at Virginia House. It took 20 years for Virginia Weddell, working with noted landscape architect Charles Gillette, to create the picturesque gardens. From formal spring tulip displays to the naturalistic plantings, the gardens and grounds of Virginia House provide a rich tapestry of texture and color throughout the year. Today, close to 1,000 types of ornamental plants thrive throughout the gardens. This event begins at 5:00 p.m. It is free for VHS members and $6 for nonmembers.
Behind the Scenes Tour
On this guided tour, guests will visit seldom-seen areas of the house and enjoy a close look at the collections of Virginia and Alexander Weddell. The house, preserved much the same as it was when the Weddells resided there from 1928 to 1948, includes English and Spanish antiques, silk draperies, oriental carpets, and fine silver and china. After the tour, guests are welcome to stroll through the more than eight acres of grand gardens at Virginia House. This tour is free for VHS members and $6 for nonmembers.
September 12 5:30 p.m.
September 13 2:00 p.m.
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For more than 182 years, the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) has been connecting people to America’s past through the unparalleled story of Virginia. The VHS—a history museum and research library—features award-winning exhibitions that are entertaining and educational for visitors of all ages. The Society is the only museum with all of Virginia’s history under one roof—all centuries, all regions, and all topics are covered. Although designated the Official State Historical Society, the VHS is a privately funded non-profit organization that relies on contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations to sustain its operations. The VHS is located at 428 North Boulevard in Richmond’s Museum District. Admission is free. Museum hours are Monday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m.–5 p.m. Library hours are Monday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m. For more information, call (804) 358-4901, visit www.vahistorical.org, or find the VHS on Facebook and Twitter.
