VMHC Lectures

On October 25, 2012, David Brown delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Unlocking Menokin’s Secrets: Archaeological and Landscape Research at a Northern Neck Plantation." One of the great houses to survive from colonial Virginia, Menokin was the result of a unique collaboration between John Tayloe II of Mount Airy and Francis Lightfoot Lee, the husband of his daughter Rebecca. Tayloe gave Le...

On June 28, 2012, David Johnson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "John Randolph of Roanoke." One of the most eccentric and accomplished politicians in all of American history, John Randolph of Roanoke led a life marked by controversy. The long-serving Virginia congressman and architect of southern conservatism grabbed headlines with his prescient comments, public brawls, and clashes wit...

On April 14, 2012, Dr. Lauranett delivered a lecture entitled "To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds: An Overview of the Thirteenth Amendment." This talk highlighting the historical significance of the document. Other speakers during the lecture included Edward Ayers and Senator Henry Marsh. (Introduction by Edward Ayers and Senator Henry Marsh) The content and opinions expressed in these present...

On May 3, 2012, Terri Fisher delivered a lecture entitled "Lost Communities of Virginia." Virginia's back roads and rural areas are dotted with traces of once-thriving communities. General stores, train depots, schools, churches, banks, and post offices provide intriguing details of a way of life now gone. "Lost Communities of Virginia" documents thirty small communities from t...

On June 14, 2012, Patrick Mooney delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The U.S. Marines at Belleau Wood, June 1918." In 1917 the German Empire won its war on the Eastern Front by imposing humiliating terms on Russia. It then mounted a giant spring offensive on the Western Front in 1918 to crush the weakened Allied armies. U.S. Marines of the American Expeditionary Force helped blunt the Ger...

On July 11, 2012, Gary W. Gallagher delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "More Important Than Gettysburg: The Seven Days Campaign as a Turning Point." Ever since the Civil War ended, it has been a popular pastime to look for dramatic turning points in that conflict. For many, the battle of Gettysburg represents the great event that tipped the balance toward the North. Key political, diploma...

On July 26, 2012, H. Edward "Chip" Mann delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Queen and the USA: Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee" in America. Although the United States was born out of revolution against Great Britain, Americans have warmly greeted the reigning British monarch on each of her visits to this country. Queen Elizabeth II has made three state visits to the Commonwealth...

On August 2, 2012, Bruce G. Carveth delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Edward Coles: Crusade Against Slavery." Edward Coles was a wealthy heir to a central Virginia plantation who left his family's Virginia tobacco plantation in 1819 and started the long trip west to Edwardsville, Illinois. He paused along the Ohio River on an emotional April morning to free his slaves and offer each...

On November 8, 2012, Scott Reynolds Nelson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters." Pundits will argue that the 2008 financial crisis was the first crash in American history driven by consumer debt. But Scott Nelson demonstrates in his new book, "A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Fin...

On November 14, Daniel Okrent delivered the 2012 Alexander W. Weddell Lecture entitled "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition." The first annual Alexander W. Weddell Lecture took place in 1983 and was named in honor of Alexander Weddell, former president of the VHS. Ambassador Weddell and his wife, Virginia, bequeathed Virginia House and a generous endowment to the VHS. The Weddell L...

On November 29, 2012, Alan Wurtzel discussed his book, Good to Great to Gone: The 60 Year Rise and Fall of Circuit City. Not many years ago, Circuit City stood out as perhaps the premier name in the highly competitive sector of consumer electronics and a prominent corporate presence in Virginia. No longer. The author of Good to Great to Gone is uniquely placed to relate this story. Alan Wurtzel wa...

On March 28, 2013, Eugene P. Trani delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: Harrison Salisbury." During his career at the New York Times, Harrison Salisbury served as the bureau chief in post–World War II Moscow, reported from Hanoi during the Vietnam War, and in retirement he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre firsthand. In a new biography of the two-time...

On April 18, 2013, Elizabeth O'Leary delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Winslow Homer's Virginia." When his paintings were exhibited in 1866, artist Winslow Homer gained critical acclaim for picturing "what he has seen and known." Afterward, this reputation for objectivity helped bolster the celebrated artist's long and prosperous career. Focusing on Homer's repre...

On May 16, 2013, Stephanie Deutsch delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South." Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute, and Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, first met in 1911. By charting the lives of these two men both before and after the meeting, Stephan...

On May 23, 2013 Rick Atkinson delivered the 2013 Stuart G. Christian, Jr., Lecture entitled "The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945." The Stuart G. Christian, Jr., Lecture was named in honor of the former president of the VHS and takes place in the spring. Because "Punky" Christian was a decorated veteran of the Normandy Campaign, we have focused the series on...

On March 7, 2013, Jeff Broadwater delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Why Washington Burned and How the President Survived: James Madison and the War of 1812." In his recent biography of the fourth president, Broadwater focuses on James Madison's role in the battle for religious freedom in Virginia, his contributions to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, his plac...

On February 7, 2013, Henry Wiencek delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves." Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Master of the Mountain, Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book—based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on previously overlo...

On January 17, 2013, Cynthia A. Kierner delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello.” As the oldest and favorite daughter of Thomas Jefferson, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph was extremely well educated, traveled in the circles of presidents and aristocrats, and was known on two continents for her particular grace and sincerity. Yet, as mistress...

On January 31, 2013, Lawrence Jackson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War.” Part history and part detective story, "My Father’s Name" is a moving narrative full of the mixture of anguish and fulfillment that accompanies any search into the history of slavery. In this intimate study of a black Virginia family and neighborhood, L...

On December 6, 2012, Meredith Henne Baker delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “The 1811 Richmond Theater Fire.” On the day after Christmas in 1811, the state of Virginia lost its governor and almost one hundred citizens in a devastating nighttime fire that consumed a Richmond playhouse. The tragic Richmond Theater fire would inspire a national commemoration and become its generation's defining...

On October 4, 2012, John C. Coombs delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Planter Oligarchy on Virginia’s Northern Neck." The rise of a distinct class of affluent families to economic, social, and political dominance in Virginia during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is without doubt one of the most important developments in the Old Dominion's early history. As a group, ho...

On September 13, 2012, Arthur T. Downey delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Civil War Lawyers: Constitutional Questions and Courtroom Dramas." Lawyers dominated public life during the first third of American history, and many who were prominent during the Civil War era had tried cases with and against each other before the conflict. The key members of Lincoln's cabinet were all lawyer...

On September 6, 2012, J. Harvie Wilkinson III delivered a Banner Lecture "entitled Cosmic Constitutional Theory: Why Americans Are Losing Their Inalienable Rights to Self-Governance." American constitutional law has undergone a transformation. Issues once left to the people have increasingly become the province of the courts. Subjects as diverse as abortion rights, firearms regulations, an...