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Exhibition
A Better Life for Their Children
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![Elroy & Sophia Williams – Sophia Williams’s Grandparents, Former Slaves, Acquired and Donated Land for a Rosenwald School. Photo by Andrew Feiler. Two people hold an ornately frame painted portrait of two people in early 1900s dress](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/19%20Elroy%20%26%20Sophia%20Williams%20%E2%80%93%20Sophia%20Williams%E2%80%99s%20Grandparents%2C%20Former%20Slaves%2C%20Acquired%20and%20Donated%20Land%20for%20a%20Rosenwald%20School.jpg.webp?itok=njqvitgO)
From 1912-37, the Rosenwald schools program built thousands of schools, shops, and teacher’s homes across 15 Southern...
Exhibition
Agents of Change
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![AgentsofChange_HeaderImage.jpg AgentsofChange_HeaderImage.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/AgentsofChange_HeaderImage.jpg.webp?itok=g-ZiTR3t)
Organized in conjunction with the statewide Women’s Suffrage Centennial, this exhibition featured artifacts from the...
Article Set - Intro
An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia
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![ATP teaser.jpg ATP teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ATP%20teaser.jpg.webp?itok=MokOcNML)
An American Turning Point: The Civil War in Virginia is divided into two parts that pose a series of questions. Waging War examines how the conflict was fought and Surviving War measures the impact of the war on civilian life.
Article Set - Intro
Civil Rights Movement in Virginia
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![26 student protest 14'wide.jpg 26 student protest 14'wide.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/26%20student%20protest%2014%27wide.jpg.webp?itok=sc9_5xKV)
The civil rights movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was one phase in the longer black freedom struggle that began when the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619 and continues today.
Exhibition
Coming Out, Affecting Change
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![ComingOutAffectingChange_ExhibitionTeaserImage.jpg ComingOutAffectingChange_ExhibitionTeaserImage.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ComingOutAffectingChange_ExhibitionTeaserImage.jpg.webp?itok=7q9WtDqr)
For centuries, social and legal discrimination forced most lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+)...
Exhibition
Determined
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![Two Black students protest school closures in Farmville, Virginia Two Black female students protesting school closures by marching with posters](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Farmville%2BProtest%20%28002%29_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=4gqp-b6Y)
This exhibition examined the long history of black Americans in North America as they have fought for freedom, equal...
Article Set - Intro
Eye of the Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden
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![VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=m_EaTwQ0)
Through his 5,000-page personal memoir, Robert Knox Sneden takes us to the front lines of the Civil War.
Exhibition
Fresh Paint
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![VMHC_FreshPaint_Nico_small.jpg VMHC_FreshPaint_Nico_small.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VMHC_FreshPaint_Nico_small.jpg.webp?itok=HH9emF76)
This unprecedented exhibition explored the power of murals to encourage reflection on Virginia’s past by inviting...
Article Set - Intro
General Orders No. 61
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![G.O.61.jpg G.O.61.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/G.O.61.jpg.webp?itok=f56lVupR)
On May 2, 1863, during the battle of Chancellorsville, friendly fire struck Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson while he and others rode amid the chaos of the still-forming Confederate lines. Thus began the series of events that led eventually to Robert E. Lee composing General Orders No. 61, which announced to his army the death of Jackson.
Article Set - Intro
Lee and Grant
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![0.25 LetUsHavePEace_Grant_Lee.jpg 0.25 LetUsHavePEace_Grant_Lee.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/0.25%20LetUsHavePEace_Grant_Lee.jpg.webp?itok=xTzdH4gk)
By the end of the Civil War, most Americans considered either Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant to be a hero. The time has come for a reassessment of these two men, on whom fell the greatest responsibility for the survival or disintegration of the United States.
Exhibition
Mending Walls RVA
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![Mending Walls RVA logo.jpg Mending Walls RVA logo.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mending%20Walls%20RVA%20logo.jpg.webp?itok=LXP9_lQ1)
This pop-up exhibition and community collaboration featured a diverse group of artists creating public artwork as a tool...
Exhibition
Partners in History
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![A photo of an exhibition with a painting and photographs on the gallery walls, and a marching band uniform in a display case](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Partners-in-History_0010.jpg.webp?itok=M51Ozemx)
In 2019, the VMHC and the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia (BHMVA) began a long-term partnership to...
Time Period Chapter
Political Decline and Westward Migration
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![ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg.webp?itok=9bwRymof)
The political stature of Virginia declined on the national stage when no successors of ability emerged to replace the...
Time Period Chapter
Racial Inequality
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![BookerTWashington.2006.200.jpg BookerTWashington.2006.200.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/BookerTWashington.2006.200.jpg.webp?itok=Kfqz7j1l)
Confederate defeat threatened to change white southern identity. Suddenly African Americans were free to determine the...
Time Period Chapter
Reconstruction
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![Flag.1992.189_sil.jpg Flag.1992.189_sil.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Flag.1992.189_sil.jpg.webp?itok=7-EcTTNs)
During the decade following the Civil War, former Confederate states were required to “reconstruct” their state...
Time Period Chapter
Slavery
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![VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg.webp?itok=h4pjmUQT)
Virginia’s 550,000 slaves constituted one third of the state’s population in 1860.
Time Period Chapter
The Battlefront in Virginia
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![The Battle Between the Monitor and the Merrimac The Battle Between the Monitor and the Merrimac](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/MonitorMerrimac.1998.53_2.jpg.webp?itok=UEoAfDG5)
Home to the Confederate capital, Virginia became a battleground.
Time Period Chapter
The French and Indian War
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![Letter from George Washington to Governor Robert Dinwiddie (Front) Letter from George Washington to Governor Robert Dinwiddie (Front)](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss3.V8194.D6194a7.001.jpg.webp?itok=KLtJrDVT)
To shield against Indian attacks and French expansion, and to deter runaway slaves from establishing colonies in the...
Time Period Chapter
The Struggle for Equality
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![hill_teaser.jpg hill_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/hill_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=NPQ9uZMj)
The American concept that all people are equal and all have unalienable rights was introduced by Virginians George Mason...
Exhibition
Toys of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s
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![Gumby and Pokey Gumby and Pokey figurines](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/229_MHC-TOYS_2014_EDIT_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=G_y_-hVh)
Through this exhibition, visitors experienced the toys and their stories through three imagined living rooms that...