Tag: James Monroe Museum

Students learn firsthand about the life of James Monroe through an innovative history class.

Daniel Preston, editor of the Papers of James Monroe, had an essay entitled “James Monroe, 1758-1783: Student and Soldier of the American Revolution” published as a chapter in “A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe,” edited by Stuart Leibiger by Wiley-Blackwell in their “The American Presidents” series.

Virginia’s Executive Mansion in Richmond has a new addition – an almost 200-year-old painting on loan from the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library. A portrait of James Monroe will reside in the State Dining Room of the Executive Mansion for two years to commemorate the bicentennial of the building’s construction in 2013. On Thursday, June 21, Gov. Bob McDonnell and First Lady Maureen McDonnell will formally unveil the Rembrandt Peale portrait in a private reception.

Members of the James Monroe Museum staff, including Director Scott Harris and Curator Jarod Kearney, were on-hand to help install the portrait in February.

“The process of transporting and installing the painting was carried out flawlessly by personnel from our art handlers, Ely, Inc., and staff at the Executive Mansion,” Harris said. “Peale’s portrait of Monroe is at a near life-size scale, and with its frame is quite heavy. Once it was in place, First Lady Maureen McDonnell texted the Governor, who was at the State Capitol, telling him ‘James is here!’”

The portrait, painted by Rembrandt Peale from 1817 to 1825, is thought to be based on an earlier bust-length portrait of Monroe painted by Peale from life. The James Monroe Museum has housed the portrait since 1985.

“What makes exhibiting James Monroe’s portrait in the Virginia Executive Mansion so special is that, while he signed the legislation to build the home during his last term as governor, he never got to live in it,” Harris said. “It is therefore fitting that he has returned to take up residence in the house he helped build during its bicentennial commemoration.”

A group of UMW students in a spring 2012 digital history course created an online gallery of political cartoons for the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library. Students Andrew Becken, Rachel Icard, Rachel Luehrs and Heather Thompson archived the museum’s collection of 114 political cartoons dating from the 1890s to 1960s.

The students worked with James Monroe Museum staff, the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies and faculty members in the Department of History and American Studies, including Claudine Ferrell, Porter Blakemore and Jeff McClurken. James Monroe Museum Director Scott Harris originally brought the project idea to Professor McClurken and the students worked extensively with James Monroe Museum Curator Jarod Kearney throughout the project.

The archive is available online at http://jmpolitoons.umwhistory.org/.

The digital history course also included projects on James Farmer lectures, UMW buildings and Southeast Virginia historical markers.

Cassandra Good, assistant editor for the Papers of James Monroe, wrote an article that appears in the April 2012 issue of the international journal Gender & History. The article, “Friendly Relations: Situating Friendships Between Men and Women in the Early American Republic, 1780–1830,” features research from her doctoral dissertation in history.