Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

The Museum

History

The broad sweep of Valley prehistory and history is explored in three Shenandoah Valley Gallery rooms. A number of different techniques introduce the Valley story, including audio and video presentations, images, maps, tableaus, interactive elements, and display of objects.

 

Quickfact

Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910-1992) transformed the Glen Burnie Historic House into the home visitors see today. In addition to the collection with which Glass furnished his ancestral home, he also collected for his New York apartment and Oklahoma home. That collection, which is mostly European in origin, includes oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, pencil drawings, furniture, and decorative objects from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley opened April 3, 2005. Its opening fulfilled Julian Wood Glass Jr.’s vision to share his significant collection of fine and decorative arts with the general public and expanded upon that vision to include the Shenandoah Valley Gallery which provides a broad overview of the region’s history.

The museum was aided in this goal by its fortunate acquisition of a significant collection of Valley objects amassed over more than fifty years by Valley collectors Bruce and Mildred Helsley. This core collection helps present a satisfying overview of the Valley’s history that provides context for the many historic houses, sites, and other museums throughout the region.

   
   
 

Detail of a Grecian Sofa, maker unknown, London, England, ca. 1810.