FCMV Home

The Frontier Culture Museum tells the story of the thousands of people who migrated to colonial America, and of the life they created
here for themselves and their descendents. These first pioneers came to America during the 1600s and 1700s from communities in the
hinterlands of England, Germany, Ireland, and West Africa. Many were farmers and rural craftsmen set in motion by changing
conditions in their homelands, and drawn to the American colonies by opportunities for a better life. Others came as unwilling captives
to work on farms and plantations. Regardless of how they arrived, all became Americans, and all contributed to the success of the
colonies, and of the United States.

To tell the story of these early immigrants and their American descendents, the Museum has moved or reproduced examples of
traditional rural buildings from England, Germany, Ireland, West Africa, and America. The Museum engages the public at these exhibits
with a combination of interpretive signage and living history demonstrations. The outdoor exhibits are located in two separate areas: the
Old World and America. The Old World exhibits show rural life and culture in four homelands of early migrants to the American
colonies. The American exhibits show the life these colonists and their descendents created in the colonial backcountry, how this life
changed over more than a century, and how life in the United States today is shaped by its frontier past.

2010 Upcoming EVENTS

February 16, 2010
Ken Koons (Department of History -- Virginia Military Institute)
Grist-Milling and Flour Production in the Shenandoah Valley During the Age of Grain.

February 23, 2010
Marianne Wokeck (Dept. of History -- Indiana University School of Liberal Arts)
Against Extraordinary Odds: Seeking to Settle in the Shenandoah Valley

March 2, 2010
Woody Holton (Department of History -- University of Richmond)
Abigail Adams: Entrepreneur

March 9, 2010
Johnston Akuma-Kalu Njoku
(Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology -- Western Kentucky University)
Sense of Personhood, Peoplehood and Home among Peoples of African Descent in Virginia

Admission is free to all lectures. Lectures begin at 7:00pm in the Lecture Hall of Dairy Barn #1.