This article is part of our Museums special section about how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times.
What’s all that yelling?
It’s hard to make out the words, but at the entrance to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture’s new “Give Me Liberty” exhibition, a man’s voice was registering anger — loudly enough that it threatened to drown out the director of curatorial affairs, Andy Talkov, who was giving a tour.
Just four days before the exhibition’s opening last month, Talkov was explaining the significance of one of the objects viewers will see when they enter the first of two second-floor galleries holding the exhibit. It is a Charles Willson Peale portrait of George Washington. But this one is different from the other six Peale portraits of the first president. Painted in 1772, it shows a younger man, dressed in the blue and red uniform of a provincial officer — which he had been, loyally serving the king of England, during the French and Indian War.
Like many others, Washington’s views would, of course, change over the next few years — as the exhibition shows.
But wait: That angry voice seems to grow louder, if still unintelligible — and is now joined by the murmuring of others. A meeting gone wrong? Someone on the museum staff having a bad day?
“Oh,” Talkov said matter-of-factly when the din threatening to drown him out momentarily subsided. “That’s Patrick Henry.”
Indeed it is — or at least an impression of the fiery 18th-century Virginia legislator, performed by the history re-enactor John Tucker, and shown on a six-minute, 30-second video loop as part of the exhibit. Standing in 18th-century finery, and with his glasses shoved up to his forehead (as was Henry’s habit), Tucker was videotaped standing in the very spot Henry did — the nearby St. John’s Church in Richmond, four miles east — 250 years ago. On March 23, 1775, he delivered the impassioned address that would provide a rallying cry of the Revolution — and the inspiration for this exhibit, illuminated by a collection of rare objects that include a pair of spectacles that Henry actually wore.
The Virginia Museum of History & Culture is not the only institution that has plans to recognize the semiquincentennial — the 250th anniversary — of the Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Often working with state commissions that have been created to help support educational initiatives for the anniversary, history museums around the country are developing programming and exhibitions that tell the rousing story of how the country achieved independence, while also including the voices and experiences of women, enslaved and free African Americans, and Indigenous people.
“The flag waving and the bell ringing and references to inspiring patriotic comments, that all needs to be there,” said John R. Dichtl, president and chief executive of the American Association for State and Local History. “But it also needs to be a more inclusive, fully rounded history.”
And perhaps a unifying one, as well. “For me, telling these stories can be bridge-building,” said R. Scott Stephenson, president and chief executive of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, whose own 250th-anniversary exhibitions kicked off this month with “Banners of Liberty,” a collection of rare battle flags. “We can see what we have in common, through the Revolution,” Stephenson said.
Jamie Bosket, the Virginia museum’s president and chief executive, believes that the exhibition can tell Virginia’s part of this history in a balanced way. “We’re going to be respectful, thoughtful, reflective, comprehensive and celebratory,” he said.
The fact that “Give Me Liberty” opened more than 15 months before the actual 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is telling. “We want to meet the moment,” Bosket said. “This is a major, multiyear, multimillion-dollar investment.”
With its collection of more than nine million objects, the Virginia museum — itself nearly 200 years old — seems well positioned to tackle the American Revolution, with all its repercussions, achievements and contradictions.
By contrast, the New Castle Court House Museum in quaint New Castle, Del., is a bit of a hidden gem. In a restored Georgian-style building from 1732, it has no plans for an exhibit. “The museum is an exhibit,” said its site supervisor, Juliette Wurm, with a chuckle. For the 250th, “we are mostly looking at programming. We have the period rooms already set up.” They include the second-floor Assembly Room where representatives from what were then the lower three counties of Pennsylvania—New Castle, Kent and Sussex — met on June 15, 1776, to vote on separating from that larger colony.
Separation Day — as it’s now remembered in Delaware — was soon followed by independence (with one of Delaware’s delegates, Caesar Rodney, riding overnight to Philadelphia to cast the deciding vote). As the 250th anniversary of both events approaches next year, the museum will hold a mock vote on separating from Pennsylvania, as well as lectures from historians about Delaware and the Revolution; educational programming for children on how colonial government worked; and a re-enactment of the reading of the Declaration of Independence from the second-floor balcony of the courthouse.
In New York on July 9, 1776, pro-independence enthusiasts pulled down the two-ton equestrian statue of George III on Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan. The shattered sovereign was then melted into bullets. Some pieces, however, were saved from the furnace. One such fragment of the original George III statue, found in a swamp in Connecticut, will be part of the Museum of the City of New York’s 250th-anniversary exhibition, spotlighting the grim period between that celebratory moment and the departure of British forces in 1783.
“Occupied City: New York During the American Revolution,” opening May 2026 and presented with the Gotham Center for New York City History, will relate — in about 200 maps, documents, art and archaeological artifacts — what the museum’s director and president, Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, calls “an incredible story of resilience.”
Barely three months after celebrating independence, Washington’s army was in full retreat and the city was under British occupation until his triumphant return in 1783. Said Peter-Christian Aigner, director of the Gotham Center, “I think people will be surprised to learn that in many ways, New York was the city at the heart of the Revolution.”
Noelle N. Trent might respectfully disagree. “As far as Massachusetts and Boston is concerned, we helped start this thing so it’s appropriate for our museums to lead in this moment,” said Trent, director of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, Mass.
For Trent and her staff, the challenge was how to interpret the views of people, already marginalized, in a society that was shifting beneath their feet. “For us, the question was, ‘What was the Black community, particularly in Boston, thinking at this time?’” she said.
Her museum’s exhibition — “Black Voices of the Revolution” — will feature A.I.-driven holographic images of Black Americans from that period, both Loyalist and Patriot. And, she said, the exhibit is likely to remain up well after its scheduled opening on Juneteenth. “Remember that the Revolutionary War wasn’t just a 1776 moment,” Trent said. “The war goes from 1775 to 1783. We see people’s stances evolve over time, and that’s an opportunity for us to present some different perspectives.”
For some museums, it’s a distant perspective — not just chronologically, but geographically. In 1776, what is now the western United States was far from the fighting. So what can a museum in, say, Colorado, present to its audiences that would be relevant?
Plenty. Because 2026 will also be the sesquicentennial of Colorado’s entrance into the Union in 1876, state history museums are planning exhibitions that look at both events — what was happening there during the American Revolution, and how the memory of 1776 was invoked during its rise to statehood a century later.
“Obviously, Colorado was not a part of the American Revolution, but I find that immaterial,” said Nathan Richie, director of the Golden History Museum and a member of the state commission planning the commemorations. “This is more about the spirit of our nation and the ideals of our democracy than it is about the minute details of any specific battles.”
Perhaps no one exemplified that spirit and articulated those ideals as memorably as Patrick Henry. Even though his words, in the re-creation projected at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, are loud (“We have to get that volume adjusted,” said Talkov, the curator, making a note), it’s hard to hear its famous climax and not be moved.
“Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Henry thundered. “Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
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