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The Story of Virginia, an American Experience

This award-winning exhibition interprets 16,000 years of Virginia history from the earliest artifacts of Native Americans to Virginia at the beginning of the 21st century. In a 10,000-square-foot area, visitors can witness the cultural and historical transformations of the commonwealth as they travel from one gallery to another. This online version allows you to explore the galleries through a new virtual tour.

Pocahontas Early Virginia to 1775

Learn more about the earliest human settlements and cultures in the region, the arrival of the English and the Africans, conflicts between the native and European populations, the growth of the English colony, and the arrival of German and Scotch-Irish settlers.
   Go to:   Becoming a Homeplace   |   Contact and Conflict   |   Becoming Virginians

George Washington 1776 to 1860

Learn about Virginia's leading role in the American Revolution, its optimistic outlook for the future after independence, its relative decline in the early nineteenth century, and the growing sectional conflict that would split both nation and commonwealth, resolving once and for all the issues of Union and slavery.
   Go to:   Becoming Americans   |   Becoming Southerners

Booker T. Washington 1861 to 1900

Learn how siding with the Confederacy brought widespread devastation as well as military defeat in the Civil War, how Virginia aspired to the postwar New South vision of economic development, yet embraced a society rigidly segregated by race.
   Go to:   Civil War   |   New Southerners

Patsy Cline 1901 to Present

Learn how World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War accelerated the integration of Virginia back into the national mainstream, how these great events transformed the state from a rural to a primarily urban one, from a poor to a relatively affluent one, and from a state with few non-natives to one with many.
   Go to:   Americans Again   |   Becoming Equal   |   A New Virginia

Take a virtual tour of The Story of Virginia, beginning with "Becoming a Homeplace."

Take a virtual tour of this gallery by clicking on the buttons above to move left, right, up, down, or to zoom in.
Select "Scenes" to see other sections of the Story of Virginia exhibition.

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