Exhibits

In the pre-dawn hours of February 29, 1704, a force of about 300 French and Native allies launched a daring raid on the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, situated in the Pocumtuck homeland. 112 Deerfield men, women, and children were captured and taken on a 300-mile forced march to Canada in harsh winter conditions. Some of the captives were later redeemed and returned to Deerfield, but one-third chose to remain among their French and Native captors.

Was this dramatic pre-dawn assault in contested lands an unprovoked, brutal attack on an innocent village of English settlers? Was it a justified military action against a stockaded settlement in a Native homeland? Or was it something else?

Explore this website and hear all sides of the story—then you decide.

Explore colonial maps from Colonial Williamsburg's collection in an online exhibition that includes maps dated from 1587 to 1782. The online exhibition looks at maps relating to colonial discovery, exploration, boundary disputes, navigation, trade, the French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War. The exhibition features a zooming tool allowing a close look at map details, a glossary of terms, and a timeline of major events in history that occurred near the date a particular map was drawn.

During the opening months of World War II, almost 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of them citizens of the United States, were forced out of their homes and into detention camps established by the U.S. government. Many would spend the next three years living under armed guard, behind barbed wire. This exhibit explores this period when racial prejudice and fear upset the delicate balance between the rights of the citizen and the power of the state. It tells the story of Japanese Americans who suffered a great injustice at the hands of the government, and who have struggled ever since to insure the rights of all citizens guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

It was easy to overlook 97 Orchard Street. The building was but one of the thousands of tenements that sprouted up on the Lower East Side during the 19th Century.

For Lukas Glockner, 97 Orchard Street wasn't just another tenement; it was a ticket to prosperity. When the German immigrant built the tenement in 1863, he was hoping to turn a profit by providing cheap homes to immigrants flooding into Manhattan.

The tenement fulfilled Glockner's dreams: people filled the building and swelled his pocketbook. Between 1863 and 1935, 7000 tenants lived in 97 Orchard Street. Meet some of these on the Virtual Tour of 97 Orchard.

The Soviet Gulag existed neither as a single unified experience, nor as a single unified institution. This massive and lethal machine influenced the lives of millions of people from 1917-1988.

Gulag: Many Days, Many Lives presents an in-depth look at life in the Gulag through exhibits featuring original documentaries and prisoner voices; an archive filled with documents and images; and teaching and bibliographic resources that encourage further study. Visitors also are encouraged to reflect and share their thoughts about the Gulag system.