Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown are proud to host the Talking History Programs, which offers public lectures and first-person performances that link storylines found in the museums’ exhibition galleries and share how these vast moments in America’s past influenced its progression to the present.

On National Commemorations and How We Do History Now: The Bicentennial, the Semiquincentennial, and What We Can Learn About the Future of the Past

March 14 • 3-4 p.m. • Jamestown Settlement

Join us as M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska draws from her book on the 1976 Bicentennial, as well as in-progress research about how Americans are engaging history now, to explore and explain the way that national commemorations help to clarify, crystalize and accelerate emergent trends in historical engagement. During the Bicentennial, Americans became interested in more personal, immersive and interactive forms of history. How will the upcoming Semiquincentennial reflect what history looks like now?

The program, March 14 from 3 to 4 p.m., will be held in the Jamestown Settlement Robins Foundation Theater and is free with museum admission. 

M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska

M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska is an interdisciplinary cultural historian of the 19th- and 20th-century United States and an associate professor of history and public history at American University. Her research interests include public history, museum studies, historiography, visual and material culture, and communications and media history. She is the author of "History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s" (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), which traces the emergence of immersive engagement with the past in postwar American culture.

She has recently been a New America Us@250 fellow and a Visiting Research Fellow with the University of Luxembourg’s Centre for Contemporary and Digital History and is a Smithsonian Research Associate.

M.J. is on the Board of Directors of Humanities DC, the editorial board of Washington History and serves as series editor for the National Park Service and National Council on Public History’s 2021-2025 American Revolution 250th Commemoration Scholars' Forums. Her work has been profiled in the Washington Post, New York Times, Bloomberg and Time magazine, and in 2022, she was a featured commentator on Netflix’s "D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?" documentary.

Videos of past presentations may be made available to view online following recorded programs – based on prior approval from individual guest lecturers. Learn more about past lectures.

Commemorating America's 250th Anniversary

The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an educational agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and commemorative partner of the Virginia American Revolution 250 Commission, is presenting exhibitions and events to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. Learn how you can join in the celebration.

About the Museums

Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown are open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days. Jamestown Settlement is located on State Route 31 near the Colonial Parkway in James City County, just southwest of Williamsburg and adjacent to Historic Jamestowne. The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown is located on Route 1020 in Yorktown, near Yorktown Battlefield and Historic Yorktown.

The museums allow visitors of all ages to enjoy extensive indoor gallery exhibits and outdoor living-history areas to connect with the stories of our shared history. Admission tickets can be purchased online or in person. Plan your visit today or call (757) 253-4838 for more information.