Special Exhibitions
Special exhibitions offer opportunities for in-depth exploration of subject areas related to museum exhibition themes and to display artifacts on loan from institutions in the United States and abroad.
Pocahontas Imagined
Jamestown Settlement special exhibition
“Pocahontas Imagined,” July 15, 2017-January 28, 2018, illuminates the reasons behind Pocahontas’s enduring legacy 400 years after her death and her impression on popular culture and art. View artwork inspired by Pocahontas, memorabilia and advertisements and take part in interactive experiences. Read More…
AfterWARd: The Revolutionary Veterans Who Built America
American Revolution Museum at Yorktown
“AfterWARd: The Revolutionary Veterans Who Built America,” June 10-November 27, 2017, follows the incredible stories of veterans of the Siege of Yorktown and how they went on after the war to help shape the America we know today. The special exhibition celebrates and connects America’s veterans, past and present. Read More…
Bartering for a Continent
Jamestown Settlement Special Exhibition
“Bartering for a Continent: How Anglo-Indian Trade Shaped America,” June 4-December 10, 2016, explores the importance of trade between American Indians and English colonists, from the founding of Jamestown through the American Revolution, and the role of Virginia in the development of a new world of exchange in goods and commodities in North America.
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The Chesapeake Log Canoe
A Jamestown Settlement Special Exhibition in Partnership With The Mariners’ Museum
“Working and Racing on the Bay: The Chesapeake Log Canoe” was on exhibit at Jamestown Settlement September 19, 2014, through September 8, 2015. Curated by The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., and featuring objects from its collection, the yearlong exhibition traced the evolution of the dugout canoe through the centuries, from the watercraft of the Powhatan people 400 years ago to multi-log trade vessels and work and racing boats. Read More…
Jamestown’s Legacy to the American Revolution
A special exhibition at Jamestown Settlement, March 1, 2013-January 20, 2014. Featuring more than 60 objects destined for exhibit at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown®, “Jamestown’s Legacy to the American Revolution,” examined the lives of Revolutionary War-era descendants of people associated with 17th-century Jamestown, colonial Virginia’s first capital. Read More…
The 17th-Century: Gateway to the Modern World
The transformational impact of scientific advances, economic developments and social change found expression in “The 17th Century: Gateway to the Modern World,” a special exhibition at Jamestown Settlement organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in cooperation with the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. Sixty-five objects from the VMFA collection were selected to illustrate seven themes in the exhibition, which ran November 16, 2011, through August 15, 2012. Read More…
Werowocomoco: Seat of Power
Artifacts spanning 10,000 years from Werowocomoco – Virginia’s original “capital” city and the principal residence of Powhatan, paramount chief of 30-some Indian tribes in Virginia’s coastal region at the time English colonists arrived in 1607 – were shown for the first time in a museum setting in the Jamestown Settlement special exhibition “Werowocomoco: Seat of Power” from May 15, 2010, through June 30, 2011. Read More…
A New World: England’s First View of America
Jamestown Settlement exhibited the 16th-century watercolor drawings of John White from the British Museum’s “A New World: England’s First View of America” July 15 through October 15, 2008. The drawings are the earliest visual record by an Englishman of the flora, fauna and people of the New World. Read More…
Jamestown and Bermuda: Virginia Company Colonies
This special exhibition, March 1- October 15, 2009, explored the shared history and links between England’s first two permanent colonies in the New World, on the occasion of Bermuda’s 400th anniversary. The exhibition featured more than two dozen artifacts from the Sea Venture underwater archaeological site and objects associated with early government and the Church of England in Virginia and Bermuda. Read More…
The World of 1607
“The World of 1607,” a special exhibition at Jamestown Settlement from April 2007 to April 2008, put the founding of Jamestown in a global context and focused on worldwide cultural developments during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Presented in four distinct cycles, the exhibition offered a unique opportunity to view early Jamestown as a crossroads of peoples and empires, trade routes and ways of war, and cosmologies and technologies. Read More…