A Digital Museum

Perhaps there is something to that Friday the 13th superstition, after all. It was on Friday, March 13, 2020 that the American Civil War Museum staff and board began to realize the full impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, prompting the Museum’s closure beginning on March 16.

The first months of 2020 were good ones for the Museum. Our visitation numbers were up, our financial picture was improving, our public programs had been very successful, and our search for a new CEO was ramping up (including initial meetings with the search firm scheduled for Monday, March 16). As it did for all of you, everything changed that weekend.

Meeting remotely, the Museum’s senior staff began immediately to craft a strategy for continuing our educational work as much as possible without meeting face-to-face with students or the general public. Like public schools and other museums, we shifted to online programming and took advantage of the same technology that made it possible for our employees to work from home and meet with each other.

Many of you are familiar with the results. Instead of canceling our scheduled public programs – History Happy Hours, Foundry Series, and Book Talks – we have been holding them using the Zoom platform. This has made it possible for members and visitors from around the nation and around the globe to sit down with a beer and enjoy a talk and a Q&A session on such topics as the Richmond “Bread Riot,” Civil War amputations, the backstory of Richmond’s Jefferson Davis monument, “The False Cause,” the “Great Partnership” between Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson, and Black Churches in the Post-Emancipation Struggle, the looting of Fredericksburg, and, in commemoration of the 19th Amendment centennial, Women’s suffrage and the Civil War.

Beyond just continuing our programs, we decided to increase the number and variety of our offerings. We extended our popular History Happy Hour series through the summer instead of suspending it in June, July, and August, as we have in previous years. We also have produced special videos of staff members displaying and discussing specific items from the collection storage vaults and sponsored a “Let’s Talk” forum about the Monument Avenue statues. The staff has offered numerous virtual programs for residents of assisted living facilities.

These programs join the dozens of earlier programs available on the Museum’s own YouTube channel and on C-Span’s website.

For those who would rather read than watch and listen, the Museum has also extended its blog to cover topics that put the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects in historical perspective. Postings address topics within the general themes of Not Alone in History, Annual Legacies, and Ask ACWM.

Recognizing that schoolteachers – and parents – around the nation (many of whom had just a day or two to convert their lesson plans into a digital format) would benefit from relevant online content, we devised methods to provide that content. Working with Creative Services Manager Penelope Carrington and Digital Engagement Manager Rachel Harper, our Education Department members, Stephanie Arduini, Joseph Rogers, Kelly Hancock, and Rod Stanley, swung into action.

The results are several ongoing series of programs that employ the Museum’s exhibits, collections, and educational programs to offer material that supplements standard school curricula. Walk Through the War addresses specific themes covered in the flagship exhibit, A People’s Contest. HomefrontEd consists of segments from popular field trip programs and readings from popular books on the Civil War and Emancipation for early elementary school students. Education Programs Manager Joseph Rogers hosts the school program offerings, assisted by colleagues, including Visitor Engagement Supervisor Chuck Young.

“We’re working hard to bring our museum and its stories straight to you,” Rogers declares to the camera with his usual infectious enthusiasm. His words capture perfectly what the museum staff has been doing since that fateful Friday the 13th.