Changing History

A statue of a horse is a statue of a horse, of course — except when it is moved.

Since 1997, “The War Horse,” British artist Tessa Pullan’s bronze statue, stood by the imposing front steps of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture, facing what is now Arthur Ashe Boulevard. On May 22, the VMHC moved the statue to the museum’s southern entrance. Social media flared as passersby noticed its absence.

The gift of philanthropist, thoroughbred breeder and art collector Paul Mellon, the sculpture commemorates the 1 1/2 million horses and mules that were wounded or died in the Civil War. The animal is depicted as underfed and exhausted, its reins dragging on the ground. When it was first unveiled, visitors left bales of hay, ostensibly for the statue, giving rise to a protective fence.

When Jamie Bosket, VMHC president and CEO, first visited the museum three years ago to interview for his job, he recognized “The War Horse” as a wonderful work of art but was put off by the unwelcoming fence surrounding it. “I mean, we’re not trying to keep prisoners in,” he says.

Earlier this year, Bosket discussed the statue’s relocation with the museum’s board of trustees. “You know, 80% of our visitors come from the parking lot, not from [Arthur Ashe] Boulevard,” he explains. “Moving it to a new location means that it’s not only more visible to arrivals, but meshes with our efforts to be interwoven with the experience of the [neighboring Virginia Museum of Fine Arts].” In a few years, VMHC hopes to add an outdoor cafe and other amenities to connect the two museums. “If ever there were two things that should be joined together, then it’s art and history,” Bosket says.

The statue’s move, a first step toward realizing a greater vision of expansion and improvements, came a month before VMHC welcomed thousands of people to its front lawn for the June 22 dedication of Arthur Ashe Boulevard.

The removal of the statue is not the only change to the face of the museum; its front stairs currently bear the names of 11,000 enslaved people whose histories were recovered by the decade-long “Unknown No Longer” project, along with quotes by renowned black Virginians including Ashe: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Large banners announce “Determined: The 400-Year Struggle for Black Equality,” VMHC’s most ambitious self-generated exhibition to date.

Bosket notes that some people think the graphics mar the building’s majesty, but he notes that this grandeur was “as much a challenge as a benefit. It didn’t look approachable for some people.”

During his speech at the Arthur Ashe Boulevard dedication, David Harris, Ashe’s nephew, remarked that for a long time, he felt that this museum was not a place for people like him.

Not anymore.

“That was everything,” Bosket says.

On the day of the dedication, 7,000 people visited the museum’s campus — its largest number ever for a single day.

‘Determined’

This year marks the 400th anniversary of a series of events occurring in Virginia in 1619 that directed the future of the state and nation: the formation of Virginia’s legislative body, the General Assembly, the oldest deliberative body in North America; and on Aug. 20, 1619, the arrival of the first enslaved Africans at Point Comfort (in present-day Hampton), the beginning of a brutal trade that would see some 388,000 human beings brought to this country in bondage.

“Determined” examines how the arrival of Africans shaped the United States as we know it today and addresses what it describes as “the long history of black Americans as they have fought for freedom, equal justice and access to opportunities.”

Bosket views the exhibition as the museum’s debut as a new institution. Taking its title from a line in Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech — “We are determined to be people” — the exhibit traces 400 years of history through the lives of 30 individuals and more than 100 objects, many of them from the museum’s collection.

“We could’ve just done a whole thing on 1619. Right?” Bosket says. “That would’ve been almost too much and easy to tune it out.”

Bosket knew that the Library of Virginia had planned an exhibition in 2020 examining the evolution of women’s rights and that the Virginia Capitol would commemorate the formation of the General Assembly. Rather than examine all of Virginia’s 400 years, VMHC decided to focus on the black experience. “Determined” opened on the same day as the Ashe dedication, itself a historic occasion.

The museum, in Bosket’s view, is the place where you go not only to understand but to feel — absorb — why these past events, people and their decisions matter today.

During a pre-opening tour of the exhibition, he brings members of U.S. Rep. A. Donald McEachin’s staff to the wall-sized display of the Blackwell family tree, with 5,000 names including that of Arthur Ashe Jr. Bosket tells the group how Al Johnson, a longtime member of the museum’s security department, walked in after its installation and took a moment to reflect before saying, “That’s my family.”

At the entrance of “Determined” is a representation of the “20 and odd Negroes” who arrived at Point Comfort. Near them is the Thalhimers department store clock, on permanent display at the VMHC. The clock required a re-interpretation for “Determined.” Label copy explains how it honors “the Richmond 34,” the Virginia Union University students and supporters who were arrested after sitting at the store’s lunch counter to protest segregation. “In the pictures, that clock is over the shoulders of the arresting officers,” Bosket says.

‘Discovery, Collection, Revelation’

At 36 years old, Bosket may be the country’s youngest director of a state-level history museum. He often seems younger. With his enthusiasm and his frequent dimpled smile, one gets the impression he’d enjoy taking you through the galleries object by object.

He quips, “I started early,” and chuckles. “I suppose I’m proof of the value of focus.”

The son of a construction contractor and a doctor’s office assistant, Bosket grew up in Camp Bell, outside Corning, New York.

His journey into history began around age 12, during a school trip to the Corning Painted Post Historical Society, housed in the 1796 Painted Post Tavern. The Revolutionary War period furnishings and interpreters transported him.

“I wasn’t well traveled as a child and had no other museum experience,” he recalls. Family vacations went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, not to historic sites.

Bosket didn’t want to leave the Painted Post Tavern, and, in a sense, he never did.

A kind docent gave him a membership card for $5, and for the young Bosket, this was akin to Charlie Bucket finding a golden ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s factory.

After school, he volunteered at the tavern, sweeping the floors and doing odd jobs. At age 14, he earned his first paycheck as a tour guide. That led to a summer job, and then, at age 16, he became the director of the Painted Post Museum, housed in the renovated 1881 Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Depot.

During this period, he opened a museum in the family’s basement, Bosket’s Historic Tavern, filled with finds from flea markets and yard sales. He loved the “sense of discovery, collection, revelation and self-motivated processing of this information,” he says of his interest in museum work.

He managed the Painted Post Museum until attending the State University of New York at Geneseo, where he worked full time at the Genesee Country Village & Museum. He says, a bit sheepishly, “The one hard thing about working in 18th-century clothes is that it’s very hard to be a freshman in college and leave the dorm while wearing them.”

Keeper of the Experience

Then came a graduate program in museum studies at George Washington University. Half the classes were taught at the various branches of the Smithsonian, and to hear Bosket tell it, the experience was close to paradise.

Through a Smithsonian acquaintance, he applied for a special events position at Mount Vernon, not thinking he’d be accepted. Instead, he got the job, and the position changed his life.

Bosket was mentored by the late James Conway Rees IV, the longtime president and CEO of Mount Vernon. Rees’ vision transformed the way people experience the Washington estate and guided the development of its education center and library, while also growing its finances.

“He was a brilliant man who exuded vision,” Bosket says of Rees, who died in 2014. “There was something there for me to aspire to.”

Bosket was the “keeper of the experience,” with half of Mount Vernon’s 600 staff under his direction, from ticket takers to mansion interpreters.

Joan Flintoft worked alongside Bosket at Mount Vernon. He hired Flintoft in January 2013 as manager of special events, and the next year, for events and protocol. “Jamie Bosket is an authentic leader,” she says. “Everything around us may be turmoil and mayhem, but he’s calm in it.”

She recalls accompanying him on walk-and-talk tours for visitors. “He brought the Washingtons to life. And, yes, he has excellent knowledge, but instead of spewing out dates and actions, he’d talk about their lives here with such insight and reverence. I can’t tell you how often people would say, ‘I just got chills’ at the end of the day.”

Very Important People

In November 2007, Presidents George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy of France met behind the closed doors of Mount Vernon’s New Room. This was Bosket’s first presidential visit.

In August 2009, first lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, and the first lady’s mother, Marian Robinson, arrived. “We teed up some special things for their visit,” Bosket remembers, which included a live demonstration at the then newly reconstructed blacksmith’s shop. The smithy hammered out objects for the Obama daughters to see. “And one of them — I don’t remember which — asks the first lady, ‘Mom, can we take this one back home to Dad?’ And I’m thinking, ‘Aw, that’s precious,’ and then realize, ‘Wait: Dad is president of the United States.’ ”

Bosket met another person while at Mount Vernon who became important to him. He struck up a friendship with Emily Harwood, who worked in the marketing department and later went on to marketing and communications for the National Trust for Historic Preservation before landing at Elevation advertising in Richmond.

Bosket describes Harwood as the most empathetic person he’s ever met. “She cares deeply about people, and she’s passionate about history and preservation,” he says.

They’re getting married this month.

Summons to Richmond

During a decade of working and living 90 minutes north of Richmond, Bosket had never once heard about the Virginia Historical Society.

Then, a week before Thanksgiving 2017, he received a phone call from a member of the VHS board, who opened with the subject of the departing president, Paul A. Levengood, who had been with the institution since 2008.

The chair of the board then was John R. Nelson, a retired executive vice president at Altria. “We as a board felt we weren’t doing enough,” he recalls. “People thought [the museum] was exclusive, and that old white guys — like me — were the only people who thought about it.”

Through a national search, the board sought a younger person to connect with a new generation and to direct the museum toward its third century. The consulting firm of another former director, Charles F. Bryan Jr. (1988-2008), considered 25 candidates that an executive search committee narrowed to four contenders.

“I came down thinking, ‘There’s no chance,’ ” Bosket recalls. “I’m too young. I don’t have a Ph.D. I don’t fit into the model that they’ve used in the past with success and without.”

He entered the building for the first time the day before the interviews and experienced an imposing structure filled with interesting materials and objects that didn’t feel accessible. In that moment, too, he felt that the importance of the VHS was such that it shouldn’t be under anybody’s radar.

The candidates were put through a number of hypothetical management challenges, just as Nelson had done for Altria junior executives. “I tried to trip him up,” Nelson says, “but his handling of each situation was superb. He hit every question out of the park.”

Concerns from the board regarding Bosket were, first, his age (about that of some of their adult children or grandchildren) and that he’d not previously led a stand-alone organization. His confidence, eloquence and insight, however, ranked him above the other applicants.

Bosket’s presentation of ideas for improving and growing the institution paralleled what the board was already considering, even if they were uncertain about implementation.

During an initial interview, he suggested changing the name from the Virginia Historical Society to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. “The construction of the phrase was intentional,” he says. As unsexy as the term may be, “museum” is the universally accepted description of a public space where people come to interact and experience art and history.

“And I was asked if I was concerned that we’d be confused with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and I said, ‘We should be so lucky,’ ” he recalls.

The board hired him.

“The decision was unanimous,” Nelson says with some pride. “We’ve been ecstatic about our choice.”

A statewide survey soon concluded that most people thought the VHS was private and membership-based, in part due to its name. In 2018, it became the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.

The Only Bias Is Fact

One question not addressed during Bosket’s interview was that of the Confederate statuary on Monument Avenue. The issue burst forth not long after he started, when Mayor Levar Stoney formed a commission to examine the question of what, if anything, should be done with the monuments. Bosket raised his hand to have the museum facilitate the discussion about the fate of Richmond’s early 20th-century Confederate monuments.

“ ‘Let’s have the first public forum here,’ I said,” Bosket recalls with a wry smile. “Who can forget that, right?”

The forum fell on Aug. 9, 2017, just days before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Speakers from the standing-room-only crowd reached no consensus. Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Michael Paul Williams noted, “After a while, it became difficult to see the event leading anywhere useful, as Paul Benson noted before leaving the event. ‘It’s not a conversation anymore. It’s a theater of the absurd.’ ”

Stoney, out of town at a conference, missed the vehement and raucous assembly.

Bosket did not.

He believes institutions such as the museum should be a safe place for intense discussions. “The only bias we have is fact,” he says. “We have the documents to back it up. We know that these monuments have much more to them in their purpose and design than surface value. We’ve made the determination that we’ll only display Confederate flags and related Lost Cause material if we can properly contextualize them.”

Whatever happens with the monuments must be a community decision, he says.

The Power of the Object

Longtime Valentine Museum Director Bill Martin knows something about taking on a stressed institution, revitalizing its role and shepherding programming toward greater relevance.

“Jamie’s challenge is that he has this remarkable repository, a history of Virginia, and he’s opening up those doors and inviting in all Virginians to see their story there,” Martin muses. “That is a heavy lift, because Virginia has a difficult and complicated and wonderful history. And not everybody is comfortable with that.”

The value of presenting actual objects used by people (or used on people) shouldn’t be underestimated. “What it all comes down to is this,” Martin says. “You can’t learn from a screen. The power of the object is paramount. That’s why we have these amazing collections.”

Consider the transformation of all the city’s major museums and archives that are at this time led by administrations and staffs who are attempting to connect with audiences in every way possible. “Jamie’s an amazing addition,” Martin says. “We’re lucky to have him.”

Alex Nyerges, VMFA’s director, says his institution shares a common thread with the neighboring VMHC: education and the introduction of ideas. Nyerges and Bosket meet often over late-afternoon drinks at Amuse. “We commiserate, and plan, and, frankly, we’re in this together,” Nyerges says.  

“My analogy is that we are brother colleagues and sister institutions.” The two men also share common threads in their biographies: Both grew up in upstate New York (though decades apart) and both attended George Washington University, pursuing degrees in museum studies.

Travels With Jamie

The immensity of VMHC’s holdings becomes obvious when following Bosket during his management-by-walking-around tour. A third of the building serves as storage — four floors of furniture, art and artifacts, books, personal papers, letters and journals, and cabinets of commercial and social history.

“You ever seen collection and storage on this level?” he asks with undisguised glee.

The name placards read like the floor descriptions of a time-traveling elevator: Jefferson Hotel, Baskervill & Co., Monumental Church, Garden Club of Virginia, Branch & Co. “Those are important papers,” Bosket taps a cabinet, “with a lot of 19th-century stuff and records of enslaved persons.” Maps and more maps. George Washington’s personal diary and some 50 of his letters and more than 100 manuscripts penned by Thomas Jefferson.

Bosket, who recognizes these objects and papers with a level of reverence, also wants them reorganized to make more space for exhibitions. He wants to concentrate the staff in one place, too, freeing more public space.

The museum, however, is still a collecting institution.

That means Ashe’s Davis Cup championship ring and the 2018 graduation mortarboard of Ginai Seabron, the first black nanoscientist, both acquired specifically for “Determined,” are now part of the permanent collection.

A huge step toward redefining the VMHC’s scope came this summer, with an agreement with the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia. That institution’s entire collection will come into the care of the VMHC, similar to how the Museum of the Confederacy’s objects went to the American Civil War Museum, while its library and documents came to the VMHC.

The agreement came after Bosket asked the Black History Museum’s director, Adele Johnson, how the VMHC could help. The response was that the focus for the restored Leigh Street Armory was more toward a center for community and culture. The collection needed to be seen and cared for, but Johnson lacked the resources and staff.

“Their collection always belongs to them,” Bosket says, “but [it’s] going to come here. We’ll store [the objects], take care of them, conserve them and digitize them, and then we’ll mutually use the digital assets. We may use it for our actual exhibits, and they may do the same.”

For Bosket, these items will add further gradations to the complexities of history. These concentrations on the black and female experience are in large part due to defining anniversaries: the 400th of Africans arriving in Virginia and the 100th of women gaining the vote in 1920. And Bosket is already considering 2026, the 250th anniversary of the United States, and the significant and enduring role of Virginia during the American Revolution and afterward.

“And this is crazy to think about,” he says, laughing, “but 2031 will mark the outset of our third century of operation.”

Bosket hopes to be here for a long time.

After the Confetti

Weeks after the Ashe dedication, Bosket sits in his office, under the gaze of portraits of Pocahontas, George Washington and Chief Justice John Marshall. He reflects on the historic event and on the State of Black America town hall that occurred in the museum’s auditorium afterward.

“It was probably the most fulfilling and immediately rewarding moment of my professional career,” he says. “And I don’t say that lightly.”

The moment crystallized for him when he stepped onto the podium to get things started and looked up to see the largest assembly ever brought together on the lawn of the museum — an estimated 4,500 people.

“I was overwhelmed by it,” he says. “A crowd that was most representative of the city, the country, it was everything I hoped for, and more.” What got him, too, was the look of hope on faces, of positive energy.

“Some 14 million historical artifacts are housed within the walls behind me,” he told the crowd that day. “We have much to be proud of, but we still have so very much we must do to be the state history museum we all deserve — the one that represents all and welcomes all.”

HISTORICAL SOCIETY HISTORY

The Virginia Historical Society was founded on Dec. 29, 1831, at the old House of Delegates chamber at the Virginia State Capitol. The 28 men convened in part that day from a moribund sense that Virginia’s grand Revolutionary-era past was sliding into neglect and obscurity and that the commonwealth’s best days might well have already passed. The society declared its mission to “discover, procure and preserve” the “natural, civil and literary history of the state.” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall accepted an honorary position as the society’s first president.

The society from the outset suffered from a lack of funds, the absence of a permanent home and recruitment problems. The VHS persevered through changes of offices and officers, cycles of funding, and its transformation from being a closed membership organization to a privately operated institution for the public benefit.

While the lack of government support allows the museum to decide its own course, this also means that it’s financially reliant on partnerships and donors, grants and an endowment.

In 1946, the VHS moved into its current home, the 1912-21 Battle Abbey at 428 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., which was at the time operated by the Confederate Memorial Association. The Battle Abbey remained a standalone building until 1959, when a four-story west addition was completed. As the VHS collection grew, so did the building, with expansions in 1992, 1998 and 2006. In 2018, to better reflect its mission, the organization’s name was changed to the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. 

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“Founding Frenemies: Hamilton and the Virginians” opened at VMHC on Saturday, Oct. 19, just in time for the Richmond performances of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton: An American Musical” (Nov. 19-Dec. 8 at Altria Theater). The interactive exhibition includes artifacts related to themes from the musical and explores Alexander Hamilton’s relationships with the founding generation of Virginians including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Through Feb. 2, 2020.