About

Nick Powers, curator of Collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, shares the spirited history of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where alcohol has been infused since the early 18th century.

This Talking History lecture at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 24. Admission to the event is $15 per person and advance registration is required to reserve your seat.

In 1716, colonial governor Alexander Spotswood led an expedition across the Blue Ridge Mountains to claim the valley for the British Empire. Spotswood and his companions toasted King George I with musket volleys, wine, brandy, claret, cider and champagne. From these boisterous beginnings, alcohol impacted Virginians of all social classes. It swayed faith, politics — including George Washington’s first publicly elected office in 1758 — and the objects used to display, consume and store it.

As curator of Collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) in Winchester, Va., Powers researches, exhibits and lectures on the museum’s collection of fine, decorative, folk and self-taught art, as well as the collection of American, European and Asian art assembled by museum benefactor Julian Wood Glass Jr. He is the author of multiple articles on the Shenandoah Valley and Southern decorative arts, material culture and history.

The American Revolution Museum at Yorktown is administered by the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, an agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia accredited by the American Alliance of Museum and a commemorative partner of the Virginia 250 Commission.

Learn more at jyfmuseums.org/spirited-history or 757-253-4838.