Chloe McCormick, Richmond Public Library’s first community memory fellow, scans slides. (Photo courtesy Virginia Museum of History & Culture)
In December 2021, Joseph Rogers sat for a job interview with Jamie Bosket, president and CEO of the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Rogers suggested a small but significant way for the institution to support historical interpretation throughout the state: funding more highway markers.
Between fabrication and installation, the roadside historic footnotes can cost several thousand dollars.
“Those signs are paid out of pocket by those people trying to get them put up,” Rogers says. “Jamie just looked at me and smiled. ‘I think we’ve got something in mind.’”
Rogers, VMHC’s manager of partnerships and community engagement since 2022, says the museum’s Commonwealth History Fund, now in its fourth year, has allocated more than $1.7 million to about 50 historic preservation and interpretation projects, and it is expected to award a total of $2 million over its first five years.
‘A Hail Mary’
This year alone, $500,000 went to 11 Virginia-based historical societies, community centers, educational institutions and state-recognized Native American tribes. These grants are given in partnership with the preservation experts at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and with the financial support of Dominion Energy and other groups. Each year, eight to 15 awards are distributed.
This aid is even more valuable amid declines in — and the outright suspension of — federal funds, with the cascading result that state support is also dwindling. Rogers observes that, for some of the applicants, their application to the Commonwealth Fund is “a Hail Mary pass.”
“It’s not the norm for institutions like ours to give out grants like this,” Rogers explains about the privately supported VMHC. While humanities councils and other entities often provide financial assistance, the state-supported Virginia Humanities announced in April that federal slashing of $2 million from the National Endowment for the Humanities meant a $200,000 reduction at the state level.
“Obviously, we can’t pick up the slack,” Rogers acknowledges, “but I think we are working on creative ways to meet the need.”
Addressing Need
At its outset, the Commonwealth History Fund received 53 applications from around the state. In 2024, the number exceeded 80. Recent fund recipients include the Richmond Public Library and the Pamunkey Indian Museum and Cultural Center in King William County.
RPL, in its effort to become a “go-to” public institution focused on the social history of Richmond, sought to hire a public-facing community memory fellow. Hired with the help of VMHC’s 2022 award and a five-year Mellon Foundation grant, Chloe McCormick made order from the chaos of the library’s archives and organized the Richmond Room, and the library added a memory lab to record family and community histories.
The Pamunkey Tribe, meanwhile, tapped into a unique aspect of the fund, which allows money to go toward capital improvement. At the Pamunkey Indian Museum, this meant roof repairs and other structural maintenance needs.
“This was a priority for us,” emphasizes Andrew M. Foster, the museum’s director. “We needed to secure the building for the purposes of preservation and interpretation.”
An award of $50,000 covered the most expensive aspects of the repairs and began long-awaited maintenance work on the Pamunkey Indian Schoolhouse and the Pamunkey Pottery School and Guild. The VMHC grant complemented another $400,000 DHR grant delivered through the Virginia 250 Preservation Fund. Now, a larger fundraising effort begins to complete all the renovations.
“These were issues that needed addressing for a long time,” says Richard Matens, the Pamunkey Tribe’s executive director. “Only because of this contribution were we able to achieve what was desperately needed and really take the bull by the horns.”
The original Skipwith-Roper Cottage in the neighborhood that would become Jackson Ward (Photo courtesy The JXN Project)
For this year’s Richmond-area recipients, The JXN Project and Historic Richmond, the grants came at a crucial time.
Co-founder Sesha Joi Moon created The JXN Project to reframe the stories of Richmond’s Jackson Ward, known as the “Harlem of the South,” and to commemorate the life and legacy of Adam Peyton Skipwith, a free Black man who in 1793 built the first house in the district. Skipwith was also one of the first Black Virginians with a fully executed will.
His residence, the Skipwith-Roper Cottage, was displaced when the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike leg of Interstate 95 sliced through the community in the 1950s, forcing out longtime residents while making way for public housing. The cottage was moved to Goochland County and underwent extensive modifications. An exhibit, “House to Highway,” at the Library of Virginia through February 2026, highlights the cottage’s journey and the Skipwith-Roper Homecoming Project, The JXN Project’s effort to re-create and interpret the house and its residents. The recent rescinding of grants from the NEH jeopardized both the exhibit and the Homecoming Project.
Moon reflects that assistance from VMHC, Dominion and numerous other groups kept these efforts on track.
For Monumental Church, designed by Robert Mills as a perpetual memorial for the more than 70 victims of the 1811 Richmond Theatre Fire and cared for by Historic Richmond, the funding means interpretive signage can be installed inside and outside the East Broad Street site. A further DHR grant will be used to improve interior lighting.
Noelle Stith, Historic Richmond’s director of development, says preservation grants are getting increasingly competitive, especially with the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations at hand.
“We understand this is going to be a lifeline for many people and organizations,” Rogers reflects. “We’re keeping the Commonwealth [History] Fund running, and we’ll also address how in other ways we can help and collaborate with state museum partners — for our mutually assured survival.”
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