PAST EXHIBITIONS

Indigenous Perspectives
(December 5, 2023—August 17, 2024)

Indigenous Perspectives, a new multimedia exhibition featuring reflections from Virginia’s tribes, highlights the commonwealth’s Indigenous history and how the tribes remain a vital part of Virginia today. Indigenous Perspectives explores the voices and experiences of Virginia's tribal communities.

Visitors can view excerpts from video interviews with citizens of Virginia's tribes, archival records from the Library's collection that were collaboratively selected by the tribes and Library staff members, and objects contributed by the tribes — such as eel pots, regalia and quilts — that reflect their traditions and culture. Citizens of the 11 federally and state-recognized tribes in Virginia shared their perspectives on related items in the Library's collections, which include maps, treaties, land records and other governing documents. Learn more: https://edu.lva.virginia.gov/indigenous-perspectives

200 Years, 200 Stories
(January 24, 2023—October 28, 2023)

The Library of Virginia, one of the oldest state libraries and archives in the nation, marks its bicentennial in 2023 with a free exhibition — 200 Years, 200 Stories, running Jan. 24–Oct. 28, 2023.

The exhibition and multimedia experience celebrate 200 Virginians whose fascinating narratives are housed in the Library's collections and together reflect the stories of Virginia. Find them online here

The exhibition is one of several key events and initiatives planned to celebrate the Library's bicentennial in 2023. Find more information about our 200th anniversary events at lva.virginia.gov/200.

Matters of Scale: Charles F. Gillette in Petersburg
(April 27, 2022—June 30, 2022)

Petersburg Public Library, 201 West Washington Street, Petersburg, 23803

The Petersburg Garden Club, Petersburg Public Library, and the Library of Virginia present the exhibition Matters of Scale: Charles F. Gillette in Petersburg, which celebrates the work of the renowned landscape architect, April 27–June 30, 2022. From the 1920s through the 1960s, Gillette's name was synonymous with the best landscape design in the upper South. Although he is most remembered for his private estate work, Gillette's Petersburg designs serve as a microcosm of his broader career, encompassing residential, corporate, and large-scale educational projects. Drawn extensively from the Charles F. Gillette Papers at the Library of Virginia, the exhibition includes garden designs, photographs, and client correspondence that have never been publicly displayed before, as well as a recently restored Gillette bench. Projects such as Virginia State University, Blandford Cemetery, and the private gardens of Petersburg residents George Cameron, C. L. Morris, and W. R. Seward incorporate many of what would later become recognized as Gillette's signature details, including highly crafted masonry construction, carefully selected garden statuary, and an overall concern for proportion and scale.

Matters of Scale: Charles F. Gillette in Petersburg will on display April 27–June 30, 2022, at the Petersburg Public Library, 201 West Washington Street, Petersburg, Virginia 23803, which is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday 10:00 AM–5:00 PM, and Tuesday and Thursday 1:00–8:00 PM. For more information, visit www.ppls.org or call 804.733.2387.

The exhibition will also be part of the Petersburg Garden Tour on April 26, 2022, the day before it opens to the public. Visit www.vagardenweek.org/tours for information and tickets. The Garden Club of Virginia's Historic Garden Week runs April 23–30, 2022.

We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia
(January 13, 2020—December 5, 2020)

Exhibition Gallery & Lobby | January 13, 2020 - May 28, 2021

We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia

In 1920, Virginia's General Assembly refused to ratify the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution to grant women the right to vote. The suffragists lost. Or did they? We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia reveals for the first time how women created two statewide organizations to win the right to vote. Virginia suffragists were a remarkable group of talented and dedicated women who have almost all been forgotten. They marched in parades, rallied at the state capitol, spoke to crowds on street corners, staffed booths at state and county fairs, lobbied legislators and congressmen, picketed the White House, and even went to jail. At the centenary of woman suffrage, these remarkable women are at last recognized for their important achievements and contributions.

Items on display include suffrage postcards and memorabilia such as pinback buttons and badges, as well as suffrage banners from the Congressional Union Party's Virginia branch. This exhibition is a project of the Task Force to Commemorate the Centennial Anniversary of Women's Right to Vote.

For more information on We Demand, visit its web page.

For more information about the traveling version of this exhibition, please contact Barbara C. Batson, exhibitions coordinator, at barbara.batson@lva.virginia.gov. To view the current itinerary for this exhibit, please click here.

New Virginians: 1619-2019 & Beyond Online Exhibition
(October 18, 2018—October 7, 2019)

Exhibition Gallery & Lobby | Monday, December 10, 2018 – Saturday, December 7, 2019

Recent estimates place the number of foreign-born Virginians at just under one million, or about one in every eight people in the state. The composite portrait of Virginia is becoming more complex, challenging an older, simpler understanding of what it means to be a Virginian. Whether our roots in the state go back ten thousand years, ten generations, or ten weeks, we must create the future of the commonwealth together. New Virginians: 1619–2019 & Beyond explores the historical and continuous journey toward the ideals of America and seeks to foster an honest discussion about the immigrant and refugee experience and Virginia's increasing diversity. Produced jointly by the Library of Virginia and Virginia Humanities, the exhibition highlights the changing demographics of the commonwealth on the eve of the 2020 federal census through a series of interviews with first-generation immigrants and refugees who arrived in Virginia after 1976. The interviews reveal the complexity of the experience for people representing a wide range of personal backgrounds, experience, age, and countries of origin–Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. To complement the videos, the exhibition includes objects that have special meaning for the interviewees. New Virginians is a Legacy Project of the 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution.

For more information about the traveling version of this exhibition, please contact Barbara C. Batson, exhibitions coordinator, at barbara.batson@lva.virginia.gov. To view the current itinerary for this exhibit, please click here.

See video clips from the exhibition interviewees here.

Teetotalers & Moonshiners: Prohibition in Virginia, Distilled
(April 3, 2017—December 5, 2017)

Exhibition Gallery | April 3-December 5, 2017

Virginians imbibed their last legal drink on Halloween night in 1916-more than three years before national Prohibition was enacted. Teetotalers & Moonshiners: Prohibition in Virginia, Distilled tells the story of Virginia Prohibition and its legacy, including the establishment of Virginia's Department of Alcohol Beverage Control and NASCAR. Newsreels of still-busting raids, music from the Jazz Age, and vintage stills complement the archival record of the exploits of Virginia's Prohibition Commission. Supported in part by the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association. Style Weekly is the print media sponsor.

For more information about the traveling version of this exhibition, available in summer 2017, please contact Barbara C. Batson, exhibitions coordinator, at barbara.batson@lva.virginia.gov. To view the current itenerary for this exhibit, please click here.

Check out our blog "UncommonWealth" to read more about Prohibition records at the Library of Virginia.

First Freedom: Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom
(March 4, 2017—March 4, 2017)

No one familiar with today's public and political debates about religious liberty and the relationship of church and state can doubt that Thomas Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom holds lasting significance. The Library of Virginia's exhibition First Freedom: Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom explores the intent and interpretation of the statute, one of the most revolutionary pieces of legislation in American history. First Freedom is on view at the Library of Virginia through March 4, 2017. Register to attend a free panel discussion on Religious Diversity and Immigration in Virginia, Tuesday, June 21, 2016, Time: 5:30 PM–7:30 PM, Library of Virginia. Registration required

For more about religious freedom and Virginia, explore Shaping the Constitution.

Remaking Virginia
(July 6, 2015—March 26, 2016)

Marking the end of the 150th commemoration of the American Civil War, Remaking Virginia: Transformation through Emancipation explores how the end of slavery and emancipation affected every Virginian, forcing people to renegotiate and transform their relationships. Remaking Virginia focuses on how African Americans made the change from property to citizens and explores the societal transformation experienced by all Virginians through labor, church, education, families, political rights, military service, and violence.

Remaking Virginia is on view in the Library of Virginia's lobby and gallery, July 6, 2015-March 26, 2016.

Remaking Virginia online exhibition

To Be Sold
(October 27, 2014—May 30, 2015)

"To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade offers a frank exploration of Virginia's role in the business of the second middle passage—the forced relocation of two-thirds of a million African Americans from the Upper South to the Cotton South in the decades before the Civil War. Anchoring the exhibition is a series of images created by English artist Eyre Crowe (1824–1910), who in March 1853 witnessed the proceedings of Richmond's largest business. Crowe turned his sketches and experience into a series of remarkable paintings and engravings that humanized the enslaved and spoke eloquently of the pathos and upheaval of the trade. The story of the American slave trade is one of numbers, but it is also the story of individuals whose families were torn apart and whose lives were forever altered. Please visit To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade to view the beta version of our online exhibition.

The March 21 symposium video is available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMBxwRsuTIgikBGdpXQX70SiDlObcwJvU.

Learn about two women caught in the domestic slave trade, visit Out of the Box http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/?s=hester+jane and http://www.virginiamemory.com/blogs/out_of_the_box/?s=lizzy

Help transcribe documents from the domestic slave trade at Making History, http://www.virginiamemory.com/transcribe/"

A version of the exhibition is traveling. Please visit http://www.virginiamemory.com/online-exhibitions/exhibits/show/to-be-sold/to-be-sold-traveling-exhibitio for more information.

Flora of Virginia
(March 17, 2014—September 13, 2014)

Flora of Virginia highlights the botanical exploration of from colonial days through 2012's publication of Flora of Virginia, the first statewide flora published since the 1762 Flora Virginica by Johannes Gronovius. The 2012 book identifies nearly 3,200 plant species native to or naturalized in the commonwealth. Since the colonial period, Virginia's flora has been collected, described, and drawn. As a botanist uses language to describe plant, a botanical artist uses pen, ink, pencil, or watercolor to help the reader visualize a plant.

This exhibition explores the important connection between the science and the art of the Flora and the history of botanical description and illustration.

Flora of Virginia is on view from March 27, 2014 through September 13, 2014.