Virginia Historical Society Podcast

On December 3 at noon, Gregory D. Smithers delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Cherokee Diaspora: A History of Migration, Survival, and Pride." According to the U.S. Census, almost one million Americans self-identify as Cherokees. Wherever one travels in the United States, someone is likely to lay claim to a Cherokee ancestor somewhere in their family tree. In fact, travel as far afield as Scotland, Hawaii, or even Australia, and chances are you will meet someone who insists that they are descended from Cherokee forebears. How can so many people, scattered all over the world, claim to be Cherokee? Historian Gregory D. Smithers addresses this question in his new book, The Cherokee Diaspora. He reveals for the first time the origins of the Cherokee Diaspora. Smithers takes the reader back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to uncover the importance of migration and removal, land and tradition, and culture and language in defining what it meant to be Cherokee while living in diaspora. The story of t

On November 19 at noon, Gerald M. Pops will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Champion of War, Champion of Peace: The Leadership of George C. Marshall." George Catlett Marshall, recognized early on as the U.S. Army’s most capable leader, overcame a number of obstacles to become Army Chief of Staff on the very day World War II began. He served as the de facto leader of America’s military until the end of the war and then went on to serve in China as President Truman’s ambassador and then as secretary of state, president of the American Red Cross, and secretary of defense. As the father of the European Recovery Act (appropriately labeled by Truman as the “Marshall Plan”), Marshall is credited with jump-starting western Europe’s postwar economic and political recovery and laying the foundation for long-term European-American relations. For this he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This lecture will focus primarily on his extraordinary leadership between September 1939 and December 1941 in preparing America fo

On November 14 at 2 p.m., Mary Miley Theobald delivered a lecture entitled "Weird-but-True Things Most People Don't Know about the Roaring Twenties." Mary Miley Theobald thinks the Roaring Twenties is the most fascinating decade in American history. In this lecture, she touches on some of the surprising things she learned about vaudeville, prohibition, silent movies, and fashion while doing background research for her mystery series. Mary Miley Theobald is the author of several works of nonfiction, including Death by Petticoat: American History Myths Debunked and First House: Two Centuries with Virginia's First Families, and an award-winning mystery series set in the Roaring Twenties. Her novels include The Impersonator and Silent Murders.

On October 29 at noon, Larry Denton will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Unionists in Virginia: Politics, Secession, and Their Plan to Prevent Civil War." Whether the Civil War was preventable is a debate that began shortly after Appomattox and continues today. But even earlier, in 1861, a group of Union-loyal Virginians—led by George Summers, John Brown Baldwin, John Janney, and Jubal Early—felt war was avoidable. In the statewide election for delegates to the Secession Convention that same spring, the Unionists defeated the Southern Rights Democrats with a huge majority of the votes across the state. These men unsuccessfully negotiated with Sec. of State William Henry Seward to prevent the national tragedy that would ensue. Author and historian Larry Denton traces this remarkable story of the Virginians who worked against all odds in a failed attempt to save a nation from going to war. Denton is the author of A Southern Star for Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis; William Henry Seward and the

On October 8 at noon, Lynn Rainville delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “God’s Acre: Why African American Cemeteries Matter.” In Hidden History, Lynn Rainville travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to the stories of the black families who lived and worked there for more than two hundred years. The subjects of Rainville’s research are not statesmen or plantation elites; they are hidden residents, people who are typically underrepresented in historical research but whose stories are essential for a complete understanding of our national past. Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in more than 150 historic African American cemeteries in Virginia to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside

On September 9 at noon, A. E. Dick Howard will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Magna Carta: 800 Years since Runnymede." A. E. Dick HowardIn 2015 people on both sides of the Atlantic will mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. On June 15, 1215, at Runnymede, a reluctant King John agreed to the barons' terms in a document which came to be known as Magna Carta. Though the king never meant to keep his promises, Magna Carta survived. Down through the centuries, it has been a symbol of opposition to arbitrary government. Magna Carta came to America with the English colonies' first charters. In the years leading up to the Revolution, Americans framed their arguments against British policies by drawing upon the language of the early charters and upon Magna Carta as their birthright. Having declared independence, Americans turned to writing and implementing state constitutions and, ultimately, a Federal Constitution. Magna Carta left an indelible mark on these developments. At the core of this legacy is the ru

On September 3 at noon, Barclay Rives delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "William Cabell Rives: A Country to Serve." Defying the president and Democratic Party leaders in an 1838 Senate speech, William Cabell Rives declared, “I can never forget that I have a country to serve as well as a party to obey.” His career of public service began under the tutelage of his neighbors, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and extended beyond the Civil War he struggled to prevent. Rives was the third president of the Virginia Historical Society (1847–68), biographer of Madison, and editor of a four volume edition of Madison’s papers. Barclay Rives will discuss highlights of the life of this Virginia statesman, historian, and agriculturalist. Barclay Rives has published articles and stories in Virginia Sportsman, In & Around Horse Country, Albemarle Magazine, and other periodicals. He is the author of A History of Grace Church, The 100 Year History of the Keswick Hunt Club, William Cabell Rives: A Country to Serve, and S

On August 20 at noon, Diane Kiesel delivered Banner Lecture entitled "She Can Bring Us Home: Dr. Dorothy Boulding Ferebee, Civil Rights Pioneer." At a time when blacks faced Jim Crow segregation, menial employment opportunities, and lynch mobs, Dorothy Ferebee, a native of Norfolk, was sought after to advise presidents and Congress on civil rights matters and to assist foreign governments on public health issues. She ran one of the nation’s most influential civil rights’ organizations—the National Council of Negro Women—during the nascent racial equality movement and led one of history’s most famous public health efforts—the Mississippi Health Project—in the Deep South during the Great Depression. Dr. Ferebee was a household name in black America for forty years. In her day, she was the media darling of the then thriving African American press. Ironically, her fame faded and her relevance waned as blacks achieved the professional and political power for which she so vigorously fought. This is the first full-

On August 6 at noon, Peter Wallenstein delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Quest for Loving: Race, Sex, and the Freedom to Marry." Mildred Jeter was not a white woman. Richard Loving, all agreed, was a white man. So Virginia state law not only rendered their 1958 marriage illegal but also required a penalty for it of at least a year in prison. Circuit Court Judge Leon F. Bazile chose, though, to suspend their prison sentences if they agreed to leave the state. After a few years of exile, the Lovings sought legal assistance to let them return home, and this they obtained from Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop. The court appeal elicited from the judge a declaration that “Almighty God created the races” and, intending that they never cross racial lines and marry, “placed them on separate continents.” Two young lovers, two young lawyers, and an elderly local judge—this talk explores their tangled biographies on the way toward a breakthrough Supreme Court ruling in 1967, a ruling that resonates down t

On July 23 at noon, Eric Hall delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “A Native Son Comes Home: The Life and Legacy of Arthur Ashe.” Virginia’s own Arthur Ashe was one of the world’s best tennis players in the 1960s and 1970s, winning multiple Davis Cup titles and three Grand Slam events: the U.S. Open, the Australian Open, and Wimbledon. He was also deeply committed to human and civil rights causes, most notably the antiapartheid movement in South Africa. His career as an athlete and activist straddling the civil rights and Black Power movements, Ashe fought against racism and injustice from the political center and welcomed public and private debate. This lecture will explore Ashe’s early life in Richmond and Lynchburg as well as his legacy as a public intellectual. Eric Allen Hall is an assistant professor of history and Africana studies at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro. He is the author of Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era.

On July 2 at noon, Marc Leepson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life.” Just about every American knows the name Francis Scott Key, but very few know anything more about him other than the fact that he wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But there was much more to Francis Scott Key. One of the most famous, admired, and accomplished men in the early American Republic, Key was a patriotic, pious, hard-working, and well-connected Washington, D.C., lawyer. He had a thriving private legal practice; argued more than a hundred cases before the Supreme Court; and served as U.S. attorney in Washington for eight years. A confidant of President Andrew Jackson, Key was a member of Old Hickory’s kitchen cabinet and handled many sensitive legal matters for the Jackson Administration. Marc Leepson’s new biography, What So Proudly We Hailed, describes in detail how Key found himself in Baltimore Harbor on the night of September 13, 1814. It goes on to recount the other impor

On June 11, Terry Alford delivered the 2015 Hazel and Fulton Chauncey Lecture, entitled "Fortune’s Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth." With a single shot from a pistol small enough to conceal in his hand, John Wilkes Booth catapulted into history on the night of April 14, 1865. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln stunned a nation that was just emerging from the chaos and calamity of the Civil War, and the president's untimely death altered the trajectory of postwar history. But to those who knew Booth, the event was even more shocking-for no one could have imagined that this fantastically gifted actor and well-liked man could commit such an atrocity. In Fortune's Fool, Terry Alford provides the first comprehensive look at the life of an enigmatic figure whose life has been overshadowed by his final, infamous act. Terry Alford is a professor of history at Northern Virginia Community College. He is the author of Prince Among Slaves, which was made into a PBS documentary in 2007, and Fortune's Foo

On June 4 at noon, Barbara Anne Cantalupo delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "The Poe You May Not Know." Although Edgar Allan Poe’s name is most often identified with stories of horror and fear, Barbara Cantalupo's talk will reveal the less familiar Poe—the one who often goes unrecognized or forgotten—the Poe whose early love of beauty was a strong and enduring draw. Poe’s “deep worship of all beauty,” expressed in an 1829 letter to John Neal when Poe was just twenty, never entirely faded, despite the demands of his commercial writing and editorial career. “The Poe You May Not Know” gives us a look at Poe’s connection to such visual beauty, his commitment to “graphicality” (a word he coined), and his knowledge of the visual arts. Barbara Cantalupo, professor of English at Penn State Lehigh Valley, is the editor of The Edgar Allan Poe Review and author of Poe and the Visual Arts.

On May 14, Craig L. Symonds delivered the 2015 Stuart G. Christian Jr. Lecture entitled “Leadership and Decision-Making in the D-Day Invasion.” On June 6, 1944, more than six thousand Allied ships carried more than a million soldiers across the English Channel to a fifty-mile-wide strip of the Normandy coast in German-occupied France. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The code names given to the beaches where the ships landed the soldiers have become immortal: Gold, Juno, Sword, Utah, and especially Omaha, the scene of almost unimaginable human tragedy. The sea of crosses in the cemetery sitting today atop a bluff overlooking the beaches recalls to us its cost. Most accounts of this epic story begin with the landings on the morning of June 6. In fact, however, D-Day was the culmination of months and years of planning and intense debate. Craig L. Symonds now offers the complete story of this Olympian effort. The obstacles to success were many. In addition to divergent strategic views and

On May 12 at noon, Cokie Roberts will deliver a Banner Lecture entitled "Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington By Cokie Roberts." Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868With the outbreak of the Civil War, the small, social southern town of Washington, D.C., found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year struggle to determine the future of the United States. While the nation’s men marched off to war, either on the battlefield or into the halls of Congress, the women of Washington joined the cause as well, serving as nurses, supply organizers, relief workers, and journalists. Cokie Roberts brings the war-torn capital into focus through the lives of formidable ladies like Sara Agnes Pryor and Elizabeth Blair Lee. Compelling social history at its best, Capital Dames concludes that the war not only changed Washington, but it also forever changed the role of women in American society. Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and NPR. She has wo

On May 7 at noon, S. C. Gwynne delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson." Stonewall Jackson has long been a figure of legend and romance. He is considered, without argument, one of America’s greatest military figures. Jackson’s brilliance at the art of war tied Abraham Lincoln and the Union high command in knots and threatened the ultimate success of the Union armies. In April 1862, Jackson was merely another Confederate general in an army fighting what seemed to be a losing cause. By June he had engineered perhaps the greatest military campaign in American history and was one of the most famous men in the western world. S. C. Gwynne’s Rebel Yell is a vivid narrative that delves deep into Jackson’s private life, including the loss of his beloved first wife and his regimented personal habits. Gwynne traces Jackson’s brilliant twenty-four-month career in the Civil War; his stunning effect on the course of the war itself; and his tragic death, w

On April 30 at noon, David O. Stewart delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “James Madison’s Gift: The Power of Partnership.” To reach his lifelong goal of a self-governing constitutional republic, James Madison blended his talents with those of key partners—the dashing Alexander Hamilton, the heroic George Washington, the magnetic Thomas Jefferson, and the soldierly James Monroe. With those extraordinary partners, Madison led the drive for the Constitutional Convention, pressed for an effective new government, co-wrote the Federalist Papers, secured the Constitution's ratification, drafted and won adoption of the Bill of Rights, founded the nation's first political party and guided the nation through the War of 1812. Then he handed the leadership of a happy nation to his old friend and sometime rival Monroe. But it was his final partnership that allowed Madison to escape his natural shyness and reach the greatest heights. Dolley was the woman he married in middle age and who presided over both him and an enli

On April 22 at 5:30 p.m., William C. Davis delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Lee's Last War Winter." Robert E. Lee faced the coming of 1865’s spring campaign season with decided unease. His army dwindled daily from disease and desertion. Across the South the Confederacy had met with nothing but disaster the previous fall, and meanwhile Union forces steadily grew in numbers and power. His only real hope was that Abraham Lincoln might be defeated in his bid for reelection, a hope that was dashed. In that desperate winter, Lee struggled to bolster his army and persuade Richmond to adopt mass conscription, making it clear that without more men, he would be almost powerless to resist Grant. And as the spring of 1865 approached, he did one more thing that few seem aware of today. He met with a few Confederate leaders to discuss surrender and reunion in return for political concessions, and he contemplated engaging in political and public relations maneuvering to force President Jefferson Davis to go along. Even

On April 1 at noon, John J. Fox III, delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "Confederate Alamo: Bloodbath at Petersburg’s Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865." Confederate Alamo: Bloodbath at Petersburg’s Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865General Robert E. Lee faced the most monumental crisis of his military career on April 2, 1865. By sunrise that morning, the Union 6th Corps had punched a huge hole in Lee's outer line, southwest of Petersburg. He needed time for reinforcements to arrive from Richmond, but how could his depleted army buy that time? Against overwhelming odds, a handful of Confederates made a suicidal desperate last stand at Fort Gregg. Douglas Southall Freeman called this epic fight “one of the most dramatic incidents of an overwhelming day,” and yet it has been overshadowed by all the other historic events of April 1865. Fourteen Union soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their bravery at Fort Gregg. Many battle-scarred veterans from both sides described this clash as the nastiest of their four-year war

On March 19 at noon, Kevin P. Duffus delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "What's Wrong with Black Beard?" The traditional historical interpretation of the notorious Black Beard, and the pop culture-Hollywood incarnations it has begotten, may be among the more enduring historical frauds of colonial American history. Much of what the public knows about the infamous pirate simply isn’t true, nor is there documentary evidence to support it. To find the elusive truth of history, noted North Carolina research historian and author Kevin Duffus has delved deeper into the primary sources than anyone to discover a new, more accurate account that reveals the identity, origins, and motivations of Black Beard and his inner circle of cohorts. Join the award-winning research historian, author, and filmmaker in an all-new multimedia presentation that lays bare the popular myths of Black Beard’s widely believed surname of Teach, his ferocity, his purported birth date, his many houses, his many “wives,” and his long-lost trea