VMHC Lectures

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 this predictable, even ritualized, culture of calamity over three centuries, exploring its roots in the revolutions in science, information, and emotion that were part of the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and America.

Beginning with the collapse of the early seventeenth-century Jamestown colony, Cynthia A. Kierner tells horrific stories of culturally significant calamities and their victims and charts efforts to explain, prevent, and relieve disaster-related losses. Although how we interpret and respond to disasters has changed in some ways since the nineteenth century, Kierner demonstrates that, for better or worse, the intellectual, economic, and political environments of earlier eras forged our own twenty-first-century approach to disaster, shaping the stories we tell, the precautions we ponder, and the remedies we prescribe for disaster-ravaged communities.

Dr. Cynthia A. Kierner is professor of history at George Mason University. She is the author of numerous books, including Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson’s America; Martha Jefferson Randolph: Daughter of Monticello; Changing History: Virginia Women Through Four Centuries (with Jennifer R. Loux and Megan Taylor Shockley); and, most recently, Inventing Disaster: The Culture of Calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood.

This lecture is cosponsored by the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Virginia and is free to its members.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 a decade. For all his sternness and rigidity, Jackson was a deeply thoughtful and incredibly intelligent man. But his reputation and mythic status, then and now, was due to more than combat success. In a deeply religious age, he was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm.

How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled? In Searching for Stonewall Jackson, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white southerner in the twenty-first century.

Now, as statues commemorating the Civil War are toppled and Confederate flags come down, Cleary walks the famous battlefields, following in the footsteps of his subject as he questions the legacy of Stonewall Jackson and the South's Lost Cause at a time when the contentions of politics, civil rights, and social justice are at a fever pitch.

Ben Cleary is a writer and teacher who lives in Mechanicsville, Virginia. He is the author of Searching for Stonewall Jackson: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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, delivering inflated intelligence reports that made the Union general even more cautious. Lafayette Baker ran counter-espionage operations in Washington for the War Department, putting hundreds in jail and pocketing cash from graft he uncovered. George Sharpe, a New York lawyer, successfully ran spying for generals Joseph Hooker, George Meade, and Ulysses S. Grant, outpacing anything the Confederates could field. Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress, ran a Union espionage ring in Richmond, providing Grant critical information as his army closed in on the Confederate capital. And behind these secret agents was Abraham Lincoln who became an avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of covert action. The phone tapping, human collection and aerial snooping you see today’s spies doing can be traced back to the Civil War.

Douglas Waller is a former correspondent for Newsweek and TIME, where he covered the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress. He is the author of several bestselling books, including Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage; The Commandos: The Inside Story of America's Secret Soldiers; and Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan. His latest book is Lincoln’s Spies: Their Secret War to Save the Nation.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 Tarter focuses on Virginia’s long history of gerrymandering to uncover its immense influence on the state’s politics and to provide perspective on how the practice impacts politics nationally.

Offering the first in-depth historical study of gerrymanders in Virginia, Tarter exposes practices going back to nineteenth century and colonial times and explains how they protected landowners’ and slaveowners’ interests. The consequences of redistricting and reapportionment in modern Virginia―in effect giving a partisan minority the upper hand in all public policy decisions―become much clearer in light of this history. Where the discussion of gerrymandering has typically emphasized political parties’ control of Congress, Tarter focuses on the state legislatures that determine congressional district lines and, in most states, even those of their own districts.

On the eve of the 2021 session of the General Assembly, which will redraw district lines for Virginia’s state Senate and House of Delegates, as well as for the U.S. House of Representatives, Tarter provides an eye-opening investigation of gerrymandering and its pervasive effect on our local, state, and national politics and government.

Brent Tarter is a founding editor of the Library of Virginia’s Dictionary of Virginia Biography and a cofounder of the annual Virginia Forum. He is the author of numerous books, including The Grandees of Government: The Origins and Persistence of Undemocratic Politics in Virginia; Daydreams and Nightmares: A Virginia Family Faces Secession and War; A Saga of the New South: Race, Law, and Public Debt in Virginia; and a forthcoming history of Virginia, Virginians and Their Histories (June 2020). His latest book is Gerrymanders: How Redistricting Has Protected Slavery, White Supremacy, and Partisan Minorities in Virginia.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 contemporaries, as Washington evolved in public memory during the nineteenth century into a man of the common people, the father of democracy. This memory, we learn in The Property of the Nation, was a deliberately constructed image, shaped and reshaped over time, generally in service of one cause or another. Matthew R. Costello traces this process through the story of Washington’s tomb, whose history and popularity reflect the building of a memory of America’s first president—of, by, and for the American people. Washington’s resting place at his beloved Mount Vernon estate was at times as contested as his iconic image; and in Costello’s telling, the many attempts to move the first president’s bodily remains offer greater insight to the issue of memory and hero worship in early America. Though describing the efforts of politicians, business owners, artists, and storytellers to define, influence, and profit from the memory of Washington at Mount Vernon, this book’s focus is the memory-making process that took place among American citizens.

Dr. Matthew R. Costello is the Acting Director of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History at the White House Historical Association. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in American history at Marquette University, and his B.A. in history and political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He previously worked on the George Washington Bibliography Project for the George Washington Papers at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President.

This lecture is cosponsored by The White House Historical Association.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 representatives of several Virginia Indian tribes, including Chief Lynette Allston (Nottoway Indian Tribe), Chief Anne Richardson (Rappahannock Tribe), First Assistant Chief Wayne Adkins (Chickahominy Tribe), and Dr. Ashley Atkins-Spivey (Director at Pamunkey Indian Tribal Resource Center). The panel explored how, as groups and individuals, Virginia Indians have been able to maintain their identity into the 21st century—despite numerous efforts to eradicate it—and the successes and challenges encountered by each generation of Virginia Indians to continue their cultural heritage.

This program was presented in conjunction with the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival. The program was cosponsored by the Virginia Museum of History & Culture and the 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 VCU Massey Cancer Center discussed the impact of Mukherjee’s book and the groundbreaking advances in cancer research, treatment, and prevention that has emerged during the past decade. A reception will follow the lecture.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:

Ross Mackenzie — Retired Syndicated Columnist and Editor of the Editorial Pages of The Richmond News Leader and the Richmond Times-Dispatch

MODERATOR:

Peter F. Buckley, M.D. — Dean, VCU School of Medicine 

PANEL: 

Walter Lawrence, M.D. — Founding Director, VCU Massey Cancer Center 

Steven Grant, M.D. — Shirley Carter and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Cancer Research; Professor and Eminent Scholar, Internal Medicine, School of Medicine; Associate Director for Translational Research, VCU Massey Cancer Center; Program Co-Leader, Developmental Therapeutics 

John M McCarty, M.D. — Professor of Medicine, G. Watson James Endowed Professor of Hematology; Interim Chief, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology; Medical Director, Cellular Immunotherapies and Transplant Program; Medical Director, Cellular Therapeutics Laboratory; VCU Massey Cancer Center

This was the third program in our Health in History Series, a partnership between the MCV Foundation and the Virginia Museum of History & Culture and sponsored by the Virginia Sargeant Reynolds Foundation.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 Streets, and the first prisoner, a man named Thomas Merryman, was admitted April 1, 1800. For the next 190 years, the penitentiary endured four fires, an earthquake, and numerous riots and escapes. In 1908, the electric chair was introduced, and 246 condemned men and one woman were executed there before the facility was demolished in 1991. Author, journalist, and cultural archaeologist Dale Brumfield will trace the sometimes cruel, sometimes uplifting history of the personalities within this former notorious Richmond landmark.

As well as working as a local journalist, Dale Brumfield is the Field Director for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the author of ten books, including Virginia State Penitentiary: A Notorious History and Richmond Independent Press and Independent Press in DC and Virginia: An Underground History. His stories have appeared in Richmond Magazine, Style Weekly, the Staunton News Leader, Austin Chronicle, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and USA Today, among others.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who became a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proved to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learned the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.

Rick Atkinson is the bestselling author of the Liberation Trilogy―An Army at Dawn (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history), The Day of Battle, and The Guns at Last Light―as well as The Long Gray Line and, most recently, The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777. His many additional awards include a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, the George Polk Award, and the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award.

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

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 Bootleggers,” writing breathless stories about the Gatsby-esque events he and his glamorous second wife, Imogene, host at their Cincinnati mansion. By the summer of 1921, Remus owns 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States. Pioneering prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt was determined to bring him down. Willebrandt’s bosses at the U.S. Attorney’s office hired her right out of law school, assuming she’d pose no real threat to the cozy relationship they maintain with Remus. Eager to prove them wrong, she dispatched her best investigator, Franklin Dodge, to look into Remus’s empire. It’s a decision with deadly consequences. Combining deep historical research with novelistic flair, "The Ghosts of Eden Park" is the unforgettable, stranger-than-fiction story of a rags-to-riches entrepreneur and a long-forgotten heroine, of the excesses and absurdities of the Jazz Age, and of the infinite human capacity to deceive.

Karen Abbott is the New York Times bestselling author of "Sin in the Second City"; "American Rose"; "Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy," named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and the Christian Science Monitor; and, most recently, "The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz- Age America."

The content and opinions expressed in these presentations are solely those of the speaker and not necessarily of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.