VMHC Education

Last week our docents were able to take THEIR end of school year field trip to the beautiful Woodlawn & Pope-Leighy homes in Northern Virginia. Woodlawn, completed in 1805, was built on land gifted to Eleanor Parke Custis and Lawrence Lewis by George Washington. Woodlawn operated as a plantation where the family enslaved more than ninety men, women, and children of African descent. After the Lewis family sold the property to Quakers in the 1840’s, Woodlawn became a free labor colony in the years prior to the Civil War. The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Pope-Leighey House was built for Loren and Charlotte Pope in Falls Church, Virginia in the 1940’s. The home was saved from demolition by the second owner, Marjorie Leighey, when it was moved to Woodlawn in the 1960’s. Today, visitors can explore the only Frank Lloyd Wright home open to the public in the D.C. area and be inspired by Wright’s Usonian architecture and a vision for affordable, well-designed housing. You can learn more about both properties here: https://www.woodlawnpopeleighey.org/

Happy ! What's your favorite place to eat outside?

Thanks to the Virginia Boat Club for passing along these pictures next to SailFest's tall ships from this past weekend!

It's timeeee! Join us this weekend for one of these great performances during Richmond SailFest.

Immigration to Virginia is nothing new - and the mid-1800s saw a wave of German immigrants arriving in the United States. Sixteen year old Hulda Lange brought this friendship album with her from Prussia (part of modern day Germany). While her family settled in Virginia in 1865, her friends messages reference her leaving as early as a decade earlier - suggesting the family was perhaps delayed in their immigration to the United States. Some of the messages say things such as "To remain friends in absentia is proof of sincerity" and "Farewell when you are far away." You can see her story on view in our current temporary exhibition, We The People: The World in Our Commonwealth, on view through the summer.

On October 17, 1974, the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Board of Visitors rejected the student organization application for the Gay Alliance of Students (GAS). To deny official recognition to a student group at VCU was unusual—GAS was the first group to be denied in the university’s young life—and to have that decision passed down from the Board rather than the Office of Student Life was even more unusual. Such a decision, the members of GAS believed, infringed upon their constitutional rights stated in the First and Fourteenth Amendments, leading to a lawsuit against the Board of Visitors. Learn more about this historic case here: https://virginiahistory.org/learn/gay-alliance-students-virginia-commonwealth-university

Today marks the 158th running of the Belmont Stakes - the third leg of the Triple Crown. While there will be no Triple Crown winner this year, due to two different horses winning the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, we can always look back to Virginian Champion Secretariat, who won the Triple Crown in 1973. These photos are from a collection taken during Governor Linwood Holton & his family's attendance at that historic race.

In one week you can meet the ships of Richmond SailFest!
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Three tall ships — the Oosterschelde, Pride of Baltimore II, and Virginia — will travel up the James River and anchor at Dock Street Park & Intermediate Terminal in Richmond for this free, family-friendly, weekend-long festival from June 12-14. Take tall ship tours throughout the weekend (free, advance registration is recommended) and see what life is like on the high seas!
The City of Richmond and the VMHC are proud to partner in hosting Richmond SailFest, a Sail Virginia℠ 2026 Affiliate Harbor, featuring live music and performances, historical re-enactors, art & history exhibitions, an epic fireworks show over the James, and much more.⁠
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Details and ship tour registration at https:///VirginiaHistory.org/SailFest