News Flash

Who better to give the American Revolutionary era an engaging storyline than a British curator?

Senior curator at the new American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, Dr. Sarah Meschutt will relate how her experiences on both sides of the Atlantic prepared her for this role in her talk “From the Tower of London to Yorktown: A Curator’s Saga, 1978-2016” at the Hampton History Museum as part of the Port Hampton Lecture Series on Monday, July 11, 7:00 p.m. -8:00 p.m.

Meschutt will share how her unique career from the Tower of London in the United Kingdom to the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown has equipped her to shape a storyline for the museum. At the new museum, scheduled to open in late 2016, she is giving the American Revolutionary era’s narrative a vibrancy and immediacy through her in-depth understanding of its material culture.

In her illustrated talk she will share key exhibit artifacts. From the Virginia colonists’ grumblings against the English to the founding of the new nation the impressive American Revolution Museum will bring the Revolutionary era alive for visitors with interactive exhibits and an immersive film experience, “The Siege of Yorktown.” Beyond the museum’s walls staff are putting in place a Revolutionary War soldiers ‘encampment’ and a farm of the Revolutionary period.
Dr. Meschutt is a graduate of St. Andrews University and of Oxford University, where she earned a doctorate concentrating on studies of fourteenth century Italian military effigies and the 14th century royal tombs of Naples and Southern Italy. She began her museum career at the Tower of London, becoming Keeper of Edged Weapons there for 12 years. Upon her marriage to an American art historian, David R. Meschutt, she immigrated to America.

While in New York, where her husband was art curator for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Dr. Meschutt was the full time consulting curator at Kykuit, home of Nelson Rockefeller. She has now embarked on a career advising and curating museum exhibits in Virginia and, as she relates, “has never looked back.” Among her impressive body of scholarly work are articles on English weaponry and recent acquisitions of the Royal Armories.

This program is free to Hampton History Museum members and $5.00 for non-members. The Hampton History Museum is located at 120 Old Hampton Lane in downtown Hampton. There is free parking in the garage across the street. For more information, dial 757/727-1610.