VMHC Lectures

On September 8, 2011, A. E. Dick Howard delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Constitution of Virginia: From Jefferson's Day to Our Own Time." Commentators often refer to Professor A. E. Dick Howard as "The Father of Virginia's Constitution" for good reason. He was executive director of the commission that wrote Virginia’s current constitution and directed the successful referendum campaign for ratification of that document. In this lecture, held during the 40th year since ratification, he will weave the story of Virginia's constitution with the great issues of our state's history—founding a republic, nurturing religious liberty, grappling with problems of race, facing the challenges of a changing society, and reflecting the hopes and aspirations of the people of Virginia. It is a story that has its great moments, such as Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom, and its sobering chapters, such as massive resistance. Ultimately, it is the story of how a people, though their constitution, shape their destiny. The author of numerous books, Professor Howard is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.(Introduction by Paul Levengood)

On August 4, 2011, Robert H. Gillette delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Virginia Plan: William B. Thalhimer and a Rescue from Nazi Germany." Among the Jews attempting to flee Nazi Germany in the 1930s were students of the Gross Breesen agricultural institute who hoped to secure visas to America. In a bold plan, Richmond department store owner William B. Thalhimer created a safe haven for the students on a Burkeville farm. This is the remarkable history of Thalhimer's heroic rescue mission and the struggle of the refugees to make a new home in rural America. In his new book, "The Virginia Plan", Robert H. Gillette narrates a saga of sacrifice, survival, and hope on two continents. (Introduction by Nelson Lankford)

On July 14, Brooks Smith and Wayne Dementi delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Facts & Legends of Sports in Richmond." Basing their presentation on their recent book, Brooks Smith and Wayne Dementi will give an illustrated lecture on the history of sports in Virginia's capital city. Smith and Dementi will present the venues, memorable events, and athletes of Richmond sports. The essays in "Facts & Legends of Sports in Richmond" were originally presented in Smith's commentary series, which first aired on WCVE public radio. The many new and vintage photographs featured in the book come from the collections of the Dementi family of photographers. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)

On June 30, 2011, Todd Kliman delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine." Vineyards and wine making have become all-American success stories in recent years, especially in Virginia. In his book, "The Wild Vine", author Todd Kliman engagingly traces the story of the native grape hybrid, and its nineteenth-century Virginia advocate, that led by a circuitous path to the rebirth of wine-making in the twentieth century. The story begins long before California supposedly put America on the viticulture map with Dr. Daniel Norton's experimentations with grapes in Richmond. The Norton hybrid migrated to the Midwest and then, after seemingly disappearing, returned to Virginia soil to great success in more recent times. Todd Kliman is food and wine editor of the "Washingtonian". (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood and Jack Berninger)

On June 9, 2011, Barnet Schecter delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "George Washington's America: A Biography Through His Maps." The maps George Washington drew and purchased, from his teens until his death, were always central to his work. Inspired by these remarkable maps, Barnet Schecter has crafted a unique portrait of our first Founding Father, revealing his early career as a surveyor, his dramatic exploits in the French and Indian War, his struggles throughout the American Revolution as he outmaneuvered the far more powerful British army, his diplomacy as president, and his shaping of the new republic. Schecter, the author of "The Battle for New York", the hinge battle in the American Revolution, and "The Devil's Own Work", a chronicle of the Civil War draft riots in New York, is an independent historian who lives in New York City. This lecture is cosponsored with The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Virginia. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)

On May 12, 2011, John C. Waugh delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Lincoln and McClellan." There was no more remarkable yoking of personalities in the Civil War than Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan. In "Lincoln and McClellan", award-winning author John C. Waugh takes an in-depth look at this fascinating pair, from the early days of the conflict to the 1864 presidential election when McClellan ran against Lincoln on an antiwar platform and lost. Waugh weaves a tale of hubris, paranoia, failure, and triumph, illuminating as never before this unique and complicated relationship. John C. Waugh is an independent historian and former correspondent and bureau chief for "The Christian Science Monitor". (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)

On April 21, 2011, Lorena S. Walsh delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Motives of Honor, Pleasure, and Profit: Plantation Management in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1607–1763." In a new account of early English America, Walsh offers an enlightening history of plantation management in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland. Her scope ranges from the founding of Jamestown to the close of the Seven Years' War and the end of the "Golden Age" of colonial Chesapeake agriculture. Walsh's narrative incorporates stories about the planters themselves, including family dynamics and relationships with enslaved workers. An accomplished author of books on early America, Lorena S. Walsh was for twenty-seven years a historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. This lecture was cosponsored with The Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Virginia. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)

On April 14, 2011, Nelson D. Lankford delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Crooked Road to Civil War." When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated in March 1861, Virginia remained a loyal state within the Union. In the convention that met in Richmond to consider the commonwealth's relationship to the national government, union men held a strong majority. But as events unfolded, their loyalty wavered. Nelson Lankford recounts the dramatic events of that spring, when no one could foretell the future of the country, seemingly poised on the brink of dissolution. Dr. Lankford is vice president for programs at the Virginia Historical Society and author of "Cry Havoc! The Crooked Road to Civil War, 1861." This lecture is cosponsored with the Richmond National Battlefield Park. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)

On March 24, 2011, Douglas R. Egerton delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Year of Meteors: Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Election that Brought on the Civil War." In "Year of Meteors", Douglas R. Egerton recreates the tumultuous presidential election year of 1860, which upset every conventional expectation and split the American political system beyond repair. At the beginning of the year, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democrats, the only party with a large following in both North and South, seemed poised to win. By fall the Democratic Party had disintegrated, enabling the upstart Republicans to put an untried but canny dark horse candidate in the White House. "Year of Meteors" tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's rise to power and the series of events that led to secession and ultimately civil war. Dr. Egerton teaches history at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, N.Y. (Introduction by Nelson D. Lankford)

On March 10, 2011, Gregg Kimball delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "American City, Southern Place: Richmond on the Eve of War." As a city of the upper South intimately connected to northeastern cities, the southern slave trade, and the Virginia countryside, Richmond embodied many of the contradictions of mid-nineteenth-century America. Gregg Kimball depicts the Richmond community as a series of dynamic, overlapping networks, showing how various groups of residents, immigrants and natives, free people and slaves, those high born and low, understood themselves and their society within this web of experience. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and private letters, Dr. Kimball elicits new perspectives on the nature of antebellum society and the coming of the Civil War. Gregg Kimball is director of education and outreach at the Library of Virginia and the author of "American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond." This lecture is cosponsored with the Richmond National Battlefield Park. (Introduction by Paul A. Levengood)