Virginia Historical Society Podcast

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 sta

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 w

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

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

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 conjunctio

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; Profes

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 Virg

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 ou

On October 10, 2019, Karen Abbott will deliver 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 con

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 M. Levin argues, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans’ gains in civil rights and other realms. Kevin M. Levin is an award-winning educator and h

On September 12, 2019, Brian J. Daugherity delivered the Banner Lecture, “Keep on Keeping On: The NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia.” The lecture coincided with the museum’s exhibition, "Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality." Virginia played a central role in the process of school desegregation. The state was home to one of the five cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education—Davis v. Prince Edward County, filed after a student strike against inferior school facilities in Farmville. After the Brown decision was handed down in 1954, Virginia helped to launch and guide the movement against school desegregation, known as massive resistance. Despite this, proponents of change sought the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in the commonwealth, and in the 1960s their efforts led to additional legal victories that sped up the process of school desegregation nationwide. Brian Daugherity’s latest book, "Keep On Keeping On," tells the story of the im

On August 29, 2019, Alexander F. Barnes delivered the Banner Lecture, “Play ball! America's Doughboys and the National Pastime in the Great War.” In 1917, there were two kinds of men in America: professional baseball players, and men who wanted to be professional ball players. With America’s entry into the Great War, these two groups merged as the United States built a mighty force to fight in Europe. "Play Ball!" recounts the story of how baseball played an important role in entertaining the troops while contributing to their physical fitness. It also tells the story of the many major and minor league ballplayers who traded their team uniforms for Army khaki and Navy blue. For some, this trade would cause them to make the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country. Playing wherever they could find enough room to throw a ball, the Doughboys brought the game with them into the front lines and then into the occupation of Germany. Sharing their military service, in combat and on the baseball diamond

On August 22, 2019, Dr. Spencer Crew delivered the banner lecture, "Thurgood Marshall: A Life in American History." Thurgood Marshall is best remembered as the first African American Supreme Court Justice. But to only remember him in that way is to do him an injustice. He had a remarkable and significant career before his appointment to the Supreme Court. He worked as a lawyer for the NAACP for several decades. During that time, he acquired the title of “Mr. Civil Rights” for his efforts combating laws and litigating court cases detrimental to African Americans. Why Marshall decided to take on this task and the impact he had on American society during the course of his career is important for every American to know and appreciate. Dr. Spencer R. Crew is Interim Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He has worked in public history institutions for more than twenty-five years, having served as president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for six years and wo

Enslaved Virginians sought freedom from the time they were first brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619. Acts of self-emancipation were aided by Virginian’s waterways, which became part of the network of the Underground Railroad in the years before the Civil War. Watermen willing to help escaped slaves made eighteenth-century Norfolk a haven for freedom seekers. Famous nineteenth-century escapees like Shadrach Minkins and Henry “Box” Brown were helped by the Underground Railroad. Enslaved men like Henry Lewey, known as “Bluebeard,” aided freedom seekers as conductors, and black and white sympathizers acted as station masters. In this banner lecture on July 25, 2019, historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander narrates the ways that enslaved Virginians used Virginian’s waterways to achieve humanity’s dream of freedom. Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander serves as a professor of history and the director of the Joseph Jenkins Roberts Center for the African Diaspora at Norfolk State University. She has spearheaded the 1619

On July 1, 2019, Ben Wynne delivered the 2019 Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture, "The Life and Times of Henry Stuart Foote, Southern Unionist and 'The Man Who Punched Jefferson Davis.'" This lecture presents the life of antebellum politician Henry Stuart Foote (1804–1880), one of the most vocal, volatile, and well-traveled politicians of the nineteenth century, and “The Man Who Punched Jefferson Davis.” Born in Virginia, Foote moved to Alabama and then Mississippi during the 1830s and made a name for himself as a gifted and zealously aggressive lawyer and political personality. He was an eyewitness to most of the great historical events of his lifetime and he opined on everything. He helped raise money for the Texas Revolution, represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and as governor, played an important role in negotiation over the Compromise of 1850, served as a Confederate congressman from Tennessee and also affected politics in California and Louisiana. He wrote numerous books and until his de

On June 25, 2019, Jennifer Potter delivered the Banner Lecture, “The Jamestown Brides: The Story of the Virginia Company's Trade in Young English Wives.” In 1621, fifty-six English women from good families crossed the Atlantic in response to the Virginia Company of London's call for maids “young and uncorrupt” to make wives for the planters of its new colony in Virginia. One in six of the maids could even claim gentry status. Although promised a free choice of husband, they were in effect being traded into marriage for a bride price of 150 pounds of best leaf tobacco, the profits to flow to individual investors. How did the company justify such a trade, and why did the women submit to such a risky enterprise? Delving into company and court records, ballads, pamphlets, sermons, letters, and original sources on both sides of the Atlantic, Potter turns detective as she tracks the women from their communities in England to their new homes in Virginia, illuminating women's lives in early modern England and in the

On June 5, 2019, Stewart McLaurin delivered the Banner Lecture, "Scottish Stone Masons and Virginia Stone." In the 1790s, the stone harvested from Government Island in Stafford, Virginia, was used to construct the White House and the Capitol. Today, the remaining outcroppings of rock still stand on the island and the Aquia stone walls are all that is left of the original White House, witnesses to White House history. This lecture will consider the stones of the White House and the stonemasons from Scotland who created the finest stone carving in eighteenth-century America. Stewart McLaurin is the president of the White House Historical Association. His career spans the non-profit, education, and public policy fields. Over the past thirty years, he has held senior positions with George Washington's Mount Vernon, The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Motion Picture Association, Georgetown University, American Red Cross, and the Federal Government. This lecture is cosponsored with the White House His

On May 23, 2019, Albert Louis Zambone delivered the Banner Lecture, "Daniel Morgan, Virginian." By the end of his life, Daniel Morgan had variously been brigadier general of the Continental Army, major general of the Virginia Militia, a winner of the Congressional Gold Medal, a congressman, and architect of the "American Cannae,"" the battle of Cowpens. But the status for which he seems to have worked his entire life, from the moment he walked into the Shenandoah Valley as a homeless boy, was to be a Virginian and a member of the Virginia gentry. In this lecture, Albert Louis Zambone will focus on Morgan�s life of striving to get ahead in colonial and revolutionary Virginia. Dr. Albert Louis Zambone earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Oxford and has received a number of scholarships and awards in the field of early American history, including a Mellon Fellowship at the Virginia Historical Society. He hosts and produces the popular audience-format podcast, Historically Thinking. Zambone is the

On May 14, 2019, author Nigel Hamilton delivered the George C. Marshall Foundation Lecture. In honor of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, it is fitting we remember the men who ensured the great invasion took place: the U.S. commander in chief, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his chief of staff of the U.S. Army, General George C. Marshall. Based on his new book, War and Peace, Nigel Hamilton tells how the two leaders overcame bitter British reluctance to bring an end to Europe's long nightmare. Nigel Hamilton is a best-selling and award-winning biographer of President John F. Kennedy, General Bernard "Monty" Montgomery, and President Bill Clinton, among other subjects. He is a senior fellow at the McCormack Graduate School, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Hamilton's most recent book, War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943-1945, is the final volume of his trilogy on how Franklin Roosevelt won World War II as U.S. commander in chief.

On May 9, 2019, Gregory D. Smithers delivered the Banner Lecture, "Native Southerners: The Indigenous People Who Made and Remade the South." Long before the indigenous people of southeastern North America encountered Europeans and Africans, they established communities with clear social and political hierarchies and rich cultural traditions. Historian Gregory D. Smithers brings the world of Native southerners to life in this sweeping narrative of American Indian history in the Southeast from the time before European colonialism to the Trail of Tears and beyond. Spanning territory reaching from modern-day Louisiana and Arkansas to the Atlantic coast, Native Southerners focuses on the stories of the Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws, as well as smaller Native communities like the Nottoways, Occaneechis, Haliwa-Saponis, Catawbas, and Caddos. In Native Southerners, Smithers constructs a vibrant history of the societies, cultures, and people that made and remade the Native South. Dr.