Moving Mountains: Black Craftspeople on the Shenandoah Valley Landscape

Over the last century, Lost Cause histories have minimized the presence of Black narratives, communities, and people in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Many histories of the Valley claim that the region’s enslaved population was insignificant compared to that of the tobacco plantations of eastern Virginia; others don’t mention African Americans at all. In reality, enslavement and resistance to it have been integral parts of the Shenandoah Valley story since its colonization in the early eighteenth century. Like elsewhere in the South, free and enslaved Black craftspeople contributed to the Valley’s cultural landscape as they quested for freedom: they built infrastructure, homes, and the objects that filled such spaces. Complimenting the inclusion of a work by free Black Valley potter Abraham Spencer in Fighting for Freedom, this program further expands the context of Black craft in the Valley by examining the lives, labor, creativity, and resilience of other documented makers across a wide spectrum of trades.

Speaker: Nick Powers, Curator of Collections, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

This event is taking place online only. The speaker will not be present at the DAR Museum.

Photo caption: Iron Pig cast at Liberty Furnace, Shenandoah County, Virginia, 1820–1860. Marked (cast): “LIBERTY / FURNACE”. Cast iron. Collection of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, 2021.14. Photo by Lauren Fleming.