History Department Ryland Lecture

Hidden Ties: Washington Intrigue, the Port of Los Angeles, and the Transcontinental Meaning of a Famed Richmond Photograph

In April 1865, Major General Edward Ord posed for photographer Mathew Brady in downtown Richmond, at the former executive mansion of the Confederacy. Yet this image of the Union Army’s triumph over secession and slavery has long kept a secret in plain sight: histories that extend across the continent, from Washington, D.C., through Indian lands and the Hispanic Southwest, to the Pacific Ocean, and back again.

In this year’s lecture, author James Tejani will explore the photograph’s backstory amid territorial expansion, California land schemes, and the complex politics of slavery and western conquest. The lecture will reveal how these antebellum connections gave rise to a defining institution of our time, the Port of Los Angeles (the nation’s busiest container port). Finally, the talk will examine how the Ord image speaks both to the challenge and great promise of interpreting history during moments of drastic social change.

James Tejani is associate professor at California State University and an elected member of the Society of American Historians. His book, A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth, won the 2025 Bancroft Prize.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Charles and Elizabeth Ryland Fund, established by the Ryland family to fund an annual lecture on Virginia or American history, and the Department of History.