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Yorktown Victory Center Overview

www.historyisfun.org

YORKTOWN, Va. -- America's evolution from colonial status to nationhood is chronicled at the Yorktown Victory Center through a unique blend of timeline, thematic exhibits and outdoor living history that emphasizes the experiences of ordinary men and women during the American Revolution. The state-operated museum is an excellent starting point for a tour of Yorktown, where the climactic military campaign of the War for Independence took place in the fall of 1781.

After being welcomed in the museum's ticket sales and orientation building, visitors embark on the "Road to Revolution," an open-air exhibit walkway that traces events leading to the American colonies' split from Britain. A timeline interspersed with quotes and illustrations borders the walkway, and three open-sided exhibit pavilions interpret significant events, publications, individuals and places of the period, using text and graphics.

Just inside the museum exhibition building, the Declaration of Independence is featured, through dramatic imagery, as a radical document that inspired decisive action. A renovation of this entrance gallery will be complete in October 2006.

Ten people who lived during the Revolutionary era tell their stories in the Witnesses to Revolution Gallery. Characterized by life-size cast figures, graphics and artifacts representative of their lives, the witnesses include two African-American slaves who supported opposite sides, a Mohawk chief who struggled to remain neutral, and a Virginia plantation owner loyal to Britain. Two Continental Army soldiers are featured. The war on the frontier is recounted through the words of a woman taken captive and adopted by the Seneca tribe prior to the Revolution. Three more witnesses describe the impact of the war on the home front.

Photomurals along a ramp connecting the "Witnesses" exhibits to the Converging on Yorktown Gallery trace events leading from the Declaration of Independence to the American victory at Yorktown.

The Converging on Yorktown Gallery illustrates the movement of British troops from the south and American and French forces from the north into Virginia in 1781 and describes the three-week siege at Yorktown that resulted in British capitulation and ensured American independence. Highlighting a display of maps, documents, paintings and weapons relating to the Yorktown campaign is a pair of pistols once owned by the Marquis de Lafayette, the renowned French nobleman who fought for the American cause during the Revolution and was present at Yorktown. The diversity of people and nationalities involved in the conflict at Yorktown is portrayed with artifacts representing American, French, British and German forces. A representative "witness"Â from each group is profiled. Nearby, two document cases with pull-out panels display an extensive collection of 18th-century maps, prints, newspapers, broadsides and military reports.

The witnesses theme continues in an evocative 18-minute film, "A Time of Revolution," shown every half-hour in the museum's Richard S. Reynolds Foundation Theater. Set in an encampment at night during the Siege of Yorktown, the film dramatizes the musings and recollections of an array of individuals.

The fascinating story of ships lost or scuttled in the York River during the siege is told in "Yorktown's Sunken Fleet."Â A re-creation of the bow portion of the excavation site of the British supply ship Betsy, the most extensively studied of the wrecks, is the centerpiece of the exhibit. Artifacts removed from the ship are exhibited along with a detailed scale model, and a video program shows how the Betsy was excavated.

"The Legacy of Yorktown: Virginia Beckons," opening in October 2006, examines how people from many different cultures, those in Virginia before the 1607 founding of Jamestown and those who arrived later, shaped a new society. This long-term exhibition will incorporate the theme of creating a new nation through development of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

"A Children's Kaleidoscope" discovery room offers youngsters the opportunity to learn about the Revolutionary era through such activities as trying on 18th-century-style clothing and investigating the identity of 18th-century reproduction objects. In an adjacent adult resource room equipped with computer monitors and printed materials, visitors can further explore topics and issues presented in the museum's exhibits.

Outdoors at a re-created Continental Army encampment, historical interpreters describe and depict the daily life of a regiment of soldiers during the last year of the war, presenting demonstrations of military drills, musket and cannon firing, 18th-century surgical and medical practices, and the role of the quartermaster in managing troop supplies. Visitors can explore the soldiers' tents and try on a military coat, and are sometimes recruited to participate in drills with wooden muskets or serve on a cannon crew.

The Yorktown Victory Center's outdoor re-created 1780s farm completes a museum visit. Here, in a setting that includes a tobacco barn, dwelling, log kitchen, crop field and vegetable and herb garden, historical interpreters show how the majority of Virginians lived during the nation's formative years. Visitors can learn how herbs were used for cooking and medicinal purposes, and may be invited to weed or water the garden, help make cornbread, comb cotton and "break"Â flax.

Visitors can expect to spend two or more hours at the Yorktown Victory Center. Additional time should be allowed for the Yorktown Visitor Center and Battlefield, administered by the National Park Service. The Yorktown Victory Center is located at the intersection of Route 1020 and the Colonial Parkway (from I-64, take Exit 247), and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily year-round, until 6 p.m. July 15 through August 15. The museum is closed Christmas and New Year's days. 2006 admission is $8.25 for adults, and $4.00 for children ages 6 through 12. A combination ticket and an annual pass are available with Jamestown Settlement, a museum of 17th-century Virginia. Parking is free at both museums. Near the Yorktown Victory Center gift shop, offering a selection of books, prints, artifact reproductions, educational toys and games, jewelry and mementos, is a snack and beverage vending area with patio seating.

The Yorktown Victory Center and Jamestown Settlement are administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia that is accredited by the American Association of Museums. For more information, call (888) 593-4682 toll-free or (757) 253-4838, or visit the Internet site www.historyisfun.org.

Courtesy of HistoryIsFun.org.

This news arrived on: 10/03/2006

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