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This article is part of our Museums special section<\/a> about how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times.<\/p>\n What\u2019s all that yelling?<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to make out the words, but <\/span>at the entrance to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture\u2019s new \u201cGive Me Liberty\u201d exhibition, a man\u2019s voice was registering anger \u2014 loudly enough that it threatened to drown out the director of curatorial affairs, Andy Talkov, who was giving a tour.<\/p>\n Just four days before the exhibition\u2019s 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 \u2014 which he had been, loyally serving the king of England, during the French and Indian War.<\/p>\n Like many others, Washington\u2019s views would, of course, change over the next few years \u2014 as the exhibition shows.<\/p>\n But wait: That angry voice seems to grow louder, if still unintelligible \u2014 and is now joined by the murmuring of others. A meeting gone wrong? Someone on the museum staff having a bad day?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOh,\u201d Talkov said matter-of-factly when the din threatening to drown him out momentarily subsided. \u201cThat\u2019s Patrick Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed it is \u2014 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\u2019s habit), Tucker was videotaped standing in the very spot Henry did \u2014 the nearby St. John\u2019s Church in Richmond, four miles east \u2014 250 years ago. On March 23, 1775, he delivered the impassioned address that would provide a rallying cry of the Revolution \u2014 and the inspiration for this exhibit, illuminated by a collection of rare objects that include a pair of spectacles that Henry actually wore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Virginia Museum of History & Culture is not the only institution that has plans to recognize the semiquincentennial \u2014 the 250th anniversary \u2014 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThe flag waving and the bell ringing and references to inspiring patriotic comments, that all needs to be there,\u201d said John R. Dichtl, president and chief executive of the American Association for State and Local History. \u201cBut it also needs to be a more inclusive, fully rounded history.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And perhaps a unifying one, as well. \u201cFor me, telling these stories can be bridge-building,\u201d 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 \u201cBanners of Liberty,\u201d a collection of rare battle flags. \u201cWe can see what we have in common, through the Revolution,\u201d Stephenson said.<\/p>\n Jamie Bosket, the Virginia museum\u2019s president and chief executive, believes that the exhibition can tell Virginia\u2019s part of this history in a balanced way. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be respectful, thoughtful, reflective, comprehensive and celebratory,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The fact that \u201cGive Me Liberty\u201d opened more than 15 months before the actual 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is telling. \u201cWe want to meet the moment,\u201d Bosket said. \u201cThis is a major, multiyear, multimillion-dollar investment.\u201d<\/p>\n With its collection of more than nine million objects, the Virginia museum \u2014 itself nearly 200 years old \u2014 seems well positioned to tackle the American Revolution, with all its repercussions, achievements and contradictions.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cThe museum is<\/em> an exhibit,\u201d said its site supervisor, Juliette Wurm, with a chuckle. For the 250th, \u201cwe are mostly looking at programming. We have the period rooms already set up.\u201d They include the second-floor Assembly Room where representatives from what were then the lower three counties of Pennsylvania\u2014New Castle, Kent and Sussex \u2014 met on June 15, 1776, to vote on separating from that larger colony.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Separation Day \u2014 as it\u2019s now remembered in Delaware \u2014 was soon followed by independence (with one of Delaware\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s 250th-anniversary exhibition, spotlighting the grim period between that celebratory moment and the departure of British forces in 1783.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Occupied City: New York and the American Revolution,\u201d opening May 2026 and presented with the Gotham Center for New York City History, will relate \u2014 in about 200 maps, documents, art and archaeological artifacts \u2014 what the museum\u2019s director and president, Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, calls \u201can incredible story of resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Barely three months after celebrating independence, Washington\u2019s 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, \u201cI think people will be surprised to learn that in many ways, New York was the city at the heart of the Revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n Noelle N. Trent might respectfully disagree. \u201cAs far as Massachusetts and Boston is concerned, we helped start this thing so it\u2019s appropriate for our museums to lead in this moment,\u201d said Trent, president and chief executive officer of the Museum of African American History in Boston and Nantucket, Mass.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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. \u201cFor us, the question was, \u2018What was the Black community, particularly in Boston, thinking at this time?\u2019\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Her museum\u2019s exhibition \u2014 \u201cBlack Voices of the Revolution<\/a>\u201d \u2014 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<\/a>. \u201cRemember that the Revolutionary War wasn\u2019t just a 1776 moment,\u201d Trent said. \u201cThe war goes from 1775 to 1783. We see people\u2019s stances evolve over time, and that\u2019s an opportunity for us to present some different perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n For some museums, it\u2019s a distant perspective \u2014 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?<\/p>\n Plenty. Because 2026 will also be the sesquicentennial of Colorado\u2019s entrance into the Union in 1876, state history museums are planning exhibitions that look at both events \u2014 what was happening there during the American Revolution, and how the memory of 1776 was invoked during its rise to statehood a century later.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, Colorado was not a part of the American Revolution, but I find that immaterial,\u201d said Nathan Richie, director of the Golden History Museum and a member of the state commission planning the commemorations. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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 (\u201cWe have to get that volume adjusted,\u201d said Talkov, the curator, making a note), it\u2019s hard to hear its famous climax and not be moved. <\/p>\n \u201cIs life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?\u201d Henry thundered. \u201cForbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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