VMHC Lectures

On April 8, 2021, Ryan K. Smith explored the history and recovery of the burial grounds of Richmond, Virginia, through the lens of race. Virginia's capital holds one of the most dramatic landscapes of death in the nation, with graveyards dating from the city's founding through the Civil War, emancipation, and the long road that followed. Yet too often they are treated in isolation. This le...

On March 18, 2021, Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie delivered the banner lecture, “Rebellious Passage: The Creole Revolt and America's Coastal Slave Trade” In late October 1841, the Creole left Richmond with 137 slaves bound for New Orleans. It arrived five weeks later minus the captain, one passenger, and most of the captives. Nineteen rebels had seized the U.S. slave ship en route and steered it to t...

On February 11, 2021 historian Ric Murphy told fascinating story of the arrival of the first Africans in Virginia in 1619. Based on his book, "Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia," author Ric Murphy will discuss how in 1619, a group of thirty-two African men, women, and children arrived on the shores of Virginia. He will explore how and why they had been kidnapped in the royal city o...

On January 14, 2021 author and historian Scott Dawson delivered the lecture "The Lost Colony was Never Lost!" Scott Dawson has participated in ten years of archaeological digs on Hatteras Island, where it was discovered that the infamous Lost Colony assimilated with the local Croatoan Indians. The true history has been buried under a mountain of mythology and lies. Learn the real story and...

On December 10, 2020, Ralph Hambrick delivered the banner lecture, “Transforming the James River in Richmond” The James River has always been the centerpiece of Richmond, but by the mid-twentieth century it had been abused and neglected. Today, the river draws visitors to its wooded shorelines, restored canal, and feisty rapids. At the local level, this transformation was the result of citizen act...

Nov 10, 2020, Dr. Peter R. Henriques delivered the banner lecture, “What Made George Washington Tick” George Washington very much wanted to be famous. Yet, he did not wish to be known, and there is a remoteness about him that will perhaps always remain. The fact that we cannot fully understand him, however, does not mean we cannot understand him better than we do. While recognizing the dangers inv...

On Nov 4, 2020, Dr. Christian Kelle delivered the banner lecture, “The Great Partnership: Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson” This Banner Lecture on November 4, 2020 by historian Christian Keller tells the story of the unique relationship between Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. Why were Generals Lee and Jackson so successful in their partnership in trying to win the war for the South? In Keller...

On September 16, 2020, delivered the banner lecture, “Restoring America’s Most Significant Gardens” The story of the Garden Club of Virginia is colorful, courageous, and impressive. It is not a coincidence that 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the women’s suffrage movement, heralding a new age of female participation in American civic life. Concern for the environment and efforts to preserve an...

On September 10,2020, Nicole Maurantonio delivered the banner lecture, “Confederate Exceptionalism: Civil War Myth and Memory in the Twenty-First Century” How do so-called neo-Confederates distance themselves from the actions and beliefs of white supremacists while clinging to the very symbols and narratives that tether the Confederacy to the history of racism and oppression in America? In this Ba...

On August 13, 2020, Nicole Myers Turner delivered the banner lecture, “Soul Liberty: The Evolution of Black Religious Politics in Postemancipation Virginia” That churches are one of the most important cornerstones of black political organization is a commonplace. In her new history of African American Protestantism and American politics at the end of the Civil War, "Soul Liberty: The Evolution...

On July 9, 2020, Lindsay M. Chervinsky delivered the banner lecture, “The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution” On November 26, 1791, after waiting two and a half years into his presidency, George Washington convened his department secretaries―Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph―for the first cabinet meeting. In a virtual Banner L...

on June 4, 2020, Dr. Christian Keller delivered the banner lecture, “Freedom and Unfreedom in the Great Dismal Swamp” In his book, City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763–1856," Nevius examines petit marronage, an informal slave’s economy, and the construction of internal improvements in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia and North Carolina. The vast wetland...

On Apr 22, 2020, Historian John Long examined the trial of Charles Watkins for the murder of his wife, which was marked by threats of lynching, a fugitive manhunt, a disappearing witness, mistaken identities, claims of insanity, and a secret letter. A drama played out in the mountains of southwestern Virginia in 1891 that attracted nationwide attention and held the citizens of the Roanoke Valley s...

In grocery store aisles and kitchens across the country, smiling images of “Aunt Jemima” and other historical and fictional black cooks can be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images are sanitized and romanticized in American popular culture, they represent the untold stories of enslaved men and women who had a significant impact on the nation's culinary and ho...

On February 13, 2020, Cynthia A. Kierner delivered the Banner Lecture, "Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood." When hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters strike, we count our losses, search for causes, commiserate with victims, and initiate relief efforts. Inventing Disaster explains the origins and development of th...

On January 30, 2020, Ben Cleary delivered the Banner Lecture, "Searching for Stonewall Jackson: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America." Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson was the embodiment of southern contradictions. He was a slaveowner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost...

On January 23, 2020, Douglas Waller delivered the Banner Lecture, "Lincoln’s Spies: Their Secret War to Save a Nation." Lincoln’s Spies is a story about dangerous espionage and covert operations during the Civil War. It is told through the lives of four Union agents. Allan Pinkerton, whose detective agency had already brought him fame nationwide, was George McClellan’s failed spymaster, de...

On January 9, 2020, Brent Tarter presented a Banner Lecture about his most recent book, Gerrymanders: How Redistricting Has Protected Slavery, White Supremacy, and Partisan Minorities in Virginia. Many are aware that gerrymandering exists and suspect it plays a role in our elections, but its history goes far deeper, and its impacts are far greater, than most realize. In his latest book, Brent Tart...

On December 10, 2019, Matthew Costello delivered the Banner Lecture, “The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President.” George Washington was an affluent slaveowner who believed that republicanism and social hierarchy were vital to the young country’s survival. And yet, he remains largely free of the “elitist” label affixed to his contempor...

On November 20, 2019, the VMHC presented a screening of the award-winning film Reel Injun (2009, 88 minutes) by Cree-Canadian filmmaker Neil Diamond. Reel Injun is an entertaining and provocative look at a century-worth of Hollywood depictions of Native Americans and the misconceptions and stereotypes that a century of filmmaking has fostered. The screening was preceded by a discussion among repre...

In 2009, physician, researcher, and science writer, Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, published his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. In it, he describes the story of cancer as a human story marked by ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also hubris, paternalism, and misperception.  On November 13, 2019, a panel of physicians and researchers from the...

On November 6, 2019, Dale M. Brumfield delivered a Banner Lecture, “The Notorious History of the Virginia State Penitentiary.” In 1796, the Virginia General Assembly finally reformed Virginia’s penal laws and embraced Thomas Jefferson’s theory of “labor in confinement.” The Virginia State Penitentiary cornerstone was laid August 19, 1797, near the intersection of what is today Belvidere and Spring...

On October 23, 2019, Rick Atkinson delivered the J. Harvie Wilkinson, Jr. Lecture, “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775­–1777.” From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army took on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping s...

On October 10, 2019, Karen Abbott delivered a Banner Lecture entitled, “The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America.” In the early days of Prohibition, a German immigrant named George Remus quit practicing law and started trafficking whiskey. Within two years he was a multi-millionaire. The press called him “King of the Bootleg...

On October 1, 2019, Kevin M. Levin delivered a Banner Lecture entitled, “Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth.” More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin...