Featured Events
Featuring award-winning speakers, tours, and family activities for all ages and interest levels. To browse all upcoming events, please click through to our calendar.
Themed Thursdays
Becoming Citizens Summer Intensive Class
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Front Lawn Fun
Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture: The Fate of the Day — The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780
Themed Thursdays
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Front Lawn Fun
Themed Thursdays
VMHC Movie Mythbusting LIVE! – The Patriot
Collections Up Close: Pitch Perfect — The History of Music in Virginia
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Collections Up Close: Pitch Perfect — The History of Music in Virginia
Front Lawn Fun
Themed Thursdays
First Fridays at VMHC
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Virginia Brews
Front Lawn Fun
Themed Thursdays
Lecture: Proximity to Power — Rethinking Race and Place in Alexandria, Virginia
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Member Mondays
Front Lawn Fun
Themed Thursdays
Special Event: Defiant Spirits—Exploring the Legacy of Clementina Rind
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Lecture: Un/Bound Book Launch & Panel Discussion
Lecture: Virginians Will Dance or Die! - 18th Century Music and Dancing Demonstration
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
Member Mondays
Give Me Liberty Highlight Tours
First Fridays at VMHC
Member Mondays
First Fridays at VMHC
2025 Conrad M. Hall Symposium for Virginia History
First Fridays at VMHC
First Fridays at VMHC
Our Commonwealth
This signature exhibition provides an in-depth, multi-sensory journey through the five major regions of Virginia and features stories and artifacts from across the state to reveal that place is not only about geography, but also the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Featured Collections Items
The VMHC has a collection of more than 9 million items. Here are just a few them (please note that not all of them may be on display to the public). Search the Library or Museum Objects Collections databases to learn more.
Tennis Items, Arthur Ashe
Tennis racquet,bag, and wrist band, all belonged to Arthur Ashe.
Drawing, Natural Bridge
Pastel drawing depicting Natural Bridge in Snow by George Brewerton in 1872.
Painting, George Washington
Portrait in oils of George Washington by Charles Peale Polk, nephew of Charles Willson Peale, whose 1787 portrait of the general was the basis for this image.
Bowie Knife
Bowie knife taken from John Brown at Harper's Ferry in 1859 by J.E.B. Stuart.
Desk circa 1780-1805
Chippenale slant-front desk with bracket feet, Eastern Virginia, probably Richmond, based on Williamsburg prototype.
U.S. Navy WAVES Uniform
Complete WAVES uniform from World War II worn by Nancy E. Bailey (Bon Cogsdale).
Equal Suffrage League of Richmond Photograph
1915 Photograph show a group of women gathered in Capitol Square holding large banners which read "Equal Suffrage League and Richmond, Virginia" and "Votes for Women."
Program, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1962
Program from the Virginia State Unit of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference meeting, includes a black and white photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and five signatures (clockwise from
Photographic print, No. 3, Pocahontas [train], barrels by Shawsville on its night run to Cincinnati, 1955
Image depicting Norfolk and Western Train No. 3, the Pocahontas, in a shroud of exhaust with 13 cars of Christmas mail and passengers.
Tintype Portrait of Robert Thaxton
Tintype portrait of Pvt. Robert Thaxton, a Confederate soldier killed at the battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, in May 1863.