VMHC Lectures

On January 19, 2023, author and journalist Michael Lee Pope traced the history of Harry Byrd’s conservative political organization, which ran Virginia politics for more than half a century.

The story of the Byrd Machine is one that begins after the Civil War when Senator William Mahone created the first political machine with support from Black voters and Black elected officials. That was followed by a second political machine created by Senator Thomas Staples Martin to crush the progressive movement and implement Jim Crow racism. That was the environment when a young state senator named Harry Byrd campaigned for governor and launched his own machine, which would wield power and influence over everything from who got the nod to be governor to how the state maintained racial segregation. The Byrd organization operated with a pathological hatred of debt spending, crushing the power of labor unions, and forcing its will on Black school children protesting separate and unequal facilities. The turning point came during massive resistance, a move to close public schools rather than integrate them.

Michael Lee Pope is an award-winning journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria. He has reported for NPR, the New York Daily News, Northern Virginia magazine, and the Alexandria Gazette Packet. He has a master's degree in American studies from Florida State University, and he is a former adjunct professor at Tallahassee Community College. He is the author of several books, including Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C.; Shotgun Justice: One Prosecutor's Crusade Against Crime & Corruption in Alexandria & Arlington; Wicked Northern Virginia; and, most recently, The Byrd Machine in Virginia: The Rise and Fall of a Conservative Political Organization.

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 8, 2022, historian Jeffry D. Wert delivered a lecture on the bloody attack and defense of the “Mule Shoe” at Spotsylvania Court House on May 12, 1864.

The Union assault on the Confederate Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864, ignited a struggle unlike any other during the four-year conflict. A Massachusetts soldier described the fighting as “the death-grapple of the war” as the foes killed and maimed each other often at the length of a rifle barrel for more than twenty hours. A Mississippi private said of the day, “I don't expect to go to hell, but if I do, I am sure Hell can't beat that terrible scene.” When the combat ended in the early morning darkness of May 13, roughly 17,500 men had been killed, wounded, or captured.

Jeffry D. Wert is the author of many books on the Civil War, including The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac; A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph, 1862–1863; Civil War Barons: The Tycoons, Entrepreneurs, Inventors, and Visionaries Who Forged Victory and Shaped a Nation; and, most recently, The Heart of Hell: The Soldier’s Struggle for Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle.

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 3, 2022, author Jack Shaum lectured on the subject of his newest book, 122 Years on the Old Bay Line.

Old Bay Line is the name by which the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was best known over most of its 122-year history of nightly carrying passengers and freight on the Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore and Norfolk. These steamers are often mistakenly referred to as ferry boats, but they most certainly were not. They were large, sturdy vessels that operated year-round in all kinds of weather. They provided reliable on-time service for the traveling public and shippers alike, and were famed for their cuisine, impeccable service, and fine accommodation. By the 1950s and 1960s they were the last of their kind in the nation. When the company wrapped up operations in 1962, it was the oldest steamship company under the American flag.

Jack Shaum is a retired award-winning print and broadcast journalist who spent nearly fifty years in the business. He is the former editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal of the Steamship Historical Society of America. Jack is the author and co-author of several books, including Lost Chester River Steamboats: From Chestertown to Baltimore; Majesty at Sea; Night Boat on the Potomac; and, most recently, 122 Years on the Old Bay Line.

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 19, 2022, award-winning Civil War historian Gary W. Gallagher delivered the 2022 Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture.

Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early’s 1864 Valley Campaign in the summer and autumn of 1864 reached a decisive climax in the battle of Cedar Creek on October 19. Far less famous than "Stonewall" Jackson’s more limited operations in the Valley during May–June 1862, Early’s featured a series of significant battles against a powerful Union army under Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan. This lecture will examine Early and Sheridan as commanders, explore the military, economic, and political impact of the campaign, and assess why Jackson’s campaign looms much larger in historical memory.

Gary W. Gallagher is John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War Emeritus Director, John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History. He is nationally renowned Civil War historian and the author and editor of numerous books and articles. His most recent book, a collection of essays on all aspects of the Civil War, is The Enduring Civil War: Reflections on the Great American Crisis.

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 13, 2022, historian Robert Pierce Forbes took a fascinating look at Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia.

When Thomas Jefferson used the term “my country,” he almost always meant Virginia. Nowhere is this truer than in his only published book, "Notes on the State of Virginia." Released while the United States was just taking shape, Notes profoundly influenced the perception of the infant republic by foreigners and countrymen alike. Through his subtle but powerful rhetoric, Jefferson made Virginia stand in for America as a whole, while revising the meaning of “all men are created equal,” thereby writing Americans of African descent out of the narrative of American liberty.

Dr. Robert Pierce Forbes taught U.S. history at the University of Connecticut and was the founding associate director of Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. He is the author of "The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America" and the editor of "Notes on the State of Virginia: An Annotated Edition."

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 13, 2022, Dr. Philip Levy gave a fascinating lecture on the principal archaeological sites associated with George Washington and what they say individually and collectively about his life and career.

No figure in American history has generated more public interest or sustained more scholarly research around his various homes and habitations than has George Washington. The Permanent Resident is the first book to bring the principal archaeological sites of Washington’s life together under one cover, revealing what they say individually and collectively about Washington’s life and career and how Americans have continued to invest these places with meaning. Two hundred years after his death, at the sites of his many abodes, Washington remains an inescapable presence. The Permanent Resident guides readers through the places where Washington lived and in which Americans have memorialized him, speaking to issues that have defined and challenged America from his time to our own.

Philip Levy is Professor of History at the University of South Florida and the author of "George Washington Written on the Land: Nature, Memory, Myth, and Landscape" and "The Permanent Resident: Excavations and Explorations of George Washington’s Life."

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 September 22, 2022, historian James Scott discussed his book about the controversial firebombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945.

Seven minutes past midnight on March 9, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a more than 1,800-degree firestorm that liquefied asphalt and vaporized thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: “If we lose, we’ll be tried as war criminals.” James M. Scott reconstructs in granular detail that horrific night, and describes the development of the B-29, the capture of the Marianas for use as airfields, and the change in strategy from high-altitude daylight “precision” bombing to low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing. Most importantly, the raid represented a significant moral shift for America, marking the first-time commanders deliberately targeted civilians―which helped pave the way for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later.

James M. Scott is the author of several books on World War II, including Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita; and, most recently, Black Snow: Curtis LeMay, the Firebombing of Tokyo, and the Road to the Atomic Bomb.

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 September 15, 2022, best-selling author and journalist Kristen Green joined Dr. Carolivia Herron to discuss the subject of Green’s book and Herron’s ancestor, Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation’s first HBCUs.

"The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail" draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary story of Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the “Devil’s Half Acre.” When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into “God’s Half Acre,” a school where Black men could fulfill their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America’s first Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Presenter Biographies:

Kristen Green is a reporter and the author of The Devil’s Half Acre and the New York Times bestseller Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County. She has worked as a journalist for two decades for newspapers including the Boston Globe, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She holds a master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School and lives in Richmond with her husband and two daughters.

Carolivia Herron is an African American Jewish author, educator and publisher living in Washington, DC. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and has held multiple professorial appointments, including at Harvard University and the College of William and Mary. Currently she teaches Classics in the English Department of Howard University and has recently been commissioned to write a play about her ancestry. Two of her children's books, Nappy Hair and Always An Olivia, highlight her Virginia heritage. Carolivia Herron is a descendant of Mary Lumpkin.

On September 8, 2022, historian Terry Alford delivered a fascinating lecture about his book, "In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits."

Two families, one at the nation’s political summit and one at its theatrical, were bound together in the Civil War period by their fascination with spiritualism. Abraham and Mary Lincoln turned to the seance table when their son Willie Lincoln died in 1862. Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes were similarly attracted to the otherworld by the death of Edwin’s wife Mary Devlin in 1863. Although there were many mediums in the country, the number of distinguished intermediaries to the other side was limited, and the two families shared several of the most gifted ones. No medium was more controversial than Charles J. Colchester, who astounded the Lincolns with his powers while being an intimate friend of John Wilkes Booth at the same time. Colchester repeatedly warned Lincoln to be careful. Would the president, who received many such warnings over the years, finally listen to the one that mattered?

Terry L. Alford is Professor of History Emeritus at Northern Virginia Community College. He is the author of several books, including Prince among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold into Slavery in the American South, which was made into a PBS documentary in 2007; Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist; and In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits.

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 August 25, 2022, writer Derek Baxter delivered a lecture about his book, "In Pursuit of Jefferson: Traveling through Europe with the Most Perplexing Founding Father."

In 1788, when two young countrymen asked Thomas Jefferson for advice on where to go on their own journey, he wrote them a 5,000-word letter he entitled Hints to Americans Travelling in Europe, instructing them where to go, what to do, and how to bring knowledge from their travels back to newborn America. More than two hundred years later, Baxter used the miniguide to embark on a grand tour of his own, following Jefferson’s advice through six countries and absorbing countless lessons while recovering from his own personal crisis. Yet along the way, what Baxter learns isn’t always what Jefferson had in mind—including how Jefferson could never escape the fact that the work of enslaved people lay behind all his travels and projects. In Pursuit of Jefferson is at once a personal story of a life-changing trip across Europe and a profound personal journey as well as an unflinching look at one of America’s most controversial founding fathers. Written with immersive historical detail, a sense of humor, and a boundless heart, Baxter explores how we can be better at moving forward only by first looking back.

Derek Baxter graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in history and is an attorney. After years of research, he made nine separate trips abroad on Jefferson’s trail. In Pursuit of Jefferson is his first book. You can follow his adventures with Thomas Jefferson at www.jeffersontravels.com.

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