Ellen and I started our museum hop with a lively lecture from a local author who demonstrated how she used the archives of the VMHC to research the Richmond theater fire of 1811. This was the first great disaster of our young country with 72 dead, mostly women. The book, The House is on Fire, by Rachel Beanland is getting lots of national buzz. I’m about a third of the way through, and it has it all — tragedy, heroism, racial tension and little known trivia. If you like your history spun into novel form, this is for you.
