PAST EXHIBITIONS

Your Humble Petitioner: Legislative Petitions Gave Voice to Virginians
(Online Exhibition)

On view February 7, 2022-November 19, 2022

Imagine having to explain to the House of Delegates why you want to divorce your spouse, or change your name, or take other actions that affect your life. Virginians had to do just that for nearly a century. Their stories can be found in the Library's Legislative Petitions Collection.

During the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War, Virginians submitted petitions to the General Assembly to bring local or personal issues to the attention of their legislators. The Library's collection of nearly 25,000 petitions reveals how Virginians communicated their concerns on a wide range of topics. To obtain legal permission to operate a ferry, maintain a tavern, or carry out many other activities, residents of the commonwealth were required to introduce a petition into the House of Delegates to begin the process of acceptance or rejection. The right to petition was not restricted by class, race, or sex. Your Humble Petitioner highlights petitions that involved deeply personal issues such as divorce and requests by emancipated Black people to remain in the commonwealth, offering a glimpse into the realities of 18th- and 19th-century life.

The right of citizens to petition their government is an ancient one, dating back indirectly to the Great Charter (Magna Carta) from 1215 and in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even today, citizens of Virginia exercise their right to petition their government.

Columbia Pike: Through the Lens of Community
(Online Exhibition)

Exhibition Gallery & Lobby | August 31, 2021 - January 8, 2022

Columbia Pike: Through the Lens of Community

Columbia Pike: Through the Lens of Community, a unique exhibition of photographs at the Library of Virginia, celebrates the extraordinary cultural diversity found within a single community in Northern Virginia. Columbia Pike Documentary Project photographers, whose personal connections to the community allowed them to capture the strength, pride, resilience, elegance, and beauty of so many overlapping cultures, created the works on view. More than 70 of the thousands of photographs transferred to the Library of Virginia's collections this spring will be highlighted in Columbia Pike: Through the Lens of Community. The exhibition will also include information about the neighborhood, the residents, and the photographers themselves. As the nation seems more divided than ever, this collection shows how one community is making diversity work.

For more information on Columbia Pike, visit its web page.

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.

True Sons of Freedom
(Online Exhibition)

Exhibition Gallery & Lobby January 16, 2018 - November 9, 2018

True Sons of Freedom, a photographic exhibition at the Library of Virginia, explores the stories of Virginia's African American soldiers who served during World War I. More than just mementos for families and sweethearts, these portraits challenge the crude and demoralizing cultural products of an era that often reduced African Americans to stereotypes and denied them full participation as citizens of the United States. Reflecting the pride and determination of African American World War I servicemen, the images were submitted with the soldiers' responses to military service questionnaires created by the Virginia War History Commission as part of an effort to capture the scope of Virginians' participation in the Great War. The original photographs, reproduced in the gallery at nearly life-size dimensions, place visitors at eye level in front of the soldiers. The monumental scale allows viewers the opportunity to examine rich details not seen in the original photo postcards

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.

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.

Running for Office
(Online Exhibition)

American political ephemera is older than America itself. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" set the tone for using plain language for persuasion to a political side. Flyers, pamphlets, posters, buttons, television ads, and more use the same plain persuasive language today. "Running for Office" highlights 20th century political ephemera found 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.

Washington
(Online Exhibition)

This online exhibit focuses on the evolution of the District of Columbia, Alexandria and Virginia as told through maps. Maps from several Library of Virginia collections show the District from the eighteenth century through the American Civil War, and when the Town of Alexandria was a part of the District from the 1790s until 1846, when it was retro–ceded to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Here, you will find maps from several collections that tell that story and were exhibited as part of the Library's 13th annual Alan M. and Natalie P. Voorhees Lecture on the History of Cartography on April 16, 2016, titled "Virginia's District of Columbia."

Geographia
(Online Exhibition)

The Alan M. Voorhees Map Collection extends from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle through the U.S. Civil War period with the bulk of the collection consisting of pre–20th century maps. Included are maps made by Schedel, Ptolemy, deBry, Mercator, and Smith among many others. In a variety of map formats, such as nautical charts and views, the collection focuses primarily on the Chesapeake Bay area and the development of Virginia within the larger geographical and historical contexts of Europe and America.