"Working Out Her Destiny: Women's History in Virginia, 1600-2004" is a major exhibition at the Library of Virginia that takes a fresh look at the history of Virginia's women and the history of Virginia in the light of twenty years of innovative scholarship since the 1984-1985 Virginia Women's Cultural History Project presented the first ever exhibition and book on Virginia women's history, "'A Share of Honour,' Virginia Women 1600-1945."

"A Share of Honour" came along at just the right moment and asked just the right questions: Where were the women, and what were they doing? As the exhibition catalog text, by historian Suzanne Lebsock, explained, knowledge of the history of Virginia's women was then comparatively rudimentary. The exhibition and Lebsock's narrative opened up the subject, and during the next twenty years many innovative scholars have advanced our understandings of the history of Virginia's women and how that history changes our perceptions of the history of all of Virginia.

The exhibition will be on view in the main exhibition gallery and in the lobby of the Library of Virginia at 800 East Broad Street in downtown Richmond. The exhibition is open to the public from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Monday through Saturday, holidays excepted, from 2 August 2004 through 26 March 2005.