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Exhibition
John Marshall
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![Portrait of John Marshall Portrait of John Marshall - Marshall has grey hair, glasses positioned on top of his head and wears a black jacket with white necktie](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/JohnMarshall.1988.8_2_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=OLR-MU5t)
Highlighting objects like his Law Commonplace Notebook, spectacles and inkwell, writing desk, and even his hair, this...
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.
Exhibition
The Commonwealth and the Great War
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![WWI tanks Black & White photo of a row of tanks in front of a building circa 1912-1914](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/2001.230.1912-1914_1914_v1_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=2JmcFkDT)
This exhibition explored the role Virginians played in World War I and highlighted the stories of individual Virginians...
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...
Exhibition
The League of Wives
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![POW152_Scan.jpg POW152_Scan.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/POW152_Scan.jpg.webp?itok=BW9_Wuds)
Featuring artifacts, photographs, and oral histories, this exhibition illustrated the dramatic story of how the spouses...
Article Set - Intro
The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory
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![PIPPIN_John Brown Going to His Hanging.jpg PIPPIN_John Brown Going to His Hanging.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/PIPPIN_John%20Brown%20Going%20to%20His%20Hanging.jpg.webp?itok=ZyxhIwHl)
John Brown remains one of the most controversial figures in our history. To destroy the institution of slavery, he firmly believed there was only one possible course of action. He saw what he thought was the ultimate wrong and tried in the only way he could imagine to right it. Which John Brown should we remember? The crusader for abolition or the bloodthirsty terrorist? Is it possible to list him among the great pantheon of American heroes, or do we still recoil from the image of his attack on an American military installation, an action that can be described by no term other than treason?
Time Period Chapter
The Revolutionary Era in Virginia
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![DanielMorganSword.1935.9.A.jpg DanielMorganSword.1935.9.A.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/DanielMorganSword.1935.9.A.jpg.webp?itok=oTt9KzVW)
Virginia—the largest and most populous colony—played a major role in winning independence and determining the values and...
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
Virginia & the Vietnam War
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![Marine at Da Nang, 1965 (National Archives) A young solider in military fatigues and helmet carrying a camo backpack](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Marine-landing-at-Danang-Vietnam.jpg.webp?itok=UFad2_WE)
On the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, this display will invite guests to immerse themselves in the choices...
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and the Planter Class
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![LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg.webp?itok=vtU35bjy)
Governor William Berkeley set out to imitate the society of inequality of wealth and education that he knew in England.
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and Women’s Suffrage
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![LetWomenVote.2005.444.15.jpg LetWomenVote.2005.444.15.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/LetWomenVote.2005.444.15.jpg.webp?itok=JCoTTShJ)
Despite the socio-political changes that occurred during Reconstruction, women at the dawn of the twentieth century...
Article Set - Intro
Virginia's Colonial Dynasties
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![VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg.webp?itok=azbFZvpP)
In the colonial period, portraiture proved to be a particularly useful tool in establishing and preserving family status. This exhibit presents twenty-four portraits from the Virginia Historical Society's collection. Early Virginia portraits reveal much about the families that commissioned them, as well as how these Virginians valued how they were perceived by others.
Time Period Chapter
Virginia’s Traffic in the Atlantic World
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![SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg.webp?itok=VQYbsOGc)
Tobacco proved to be good as gold for Virginians. Wealth from its sale and easy navigation of the colony’s rivers...