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Advice and Etiquette Books
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Studying etiquette books offers researchers a glimpse of how people interacted and how they adapted to their changing...
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Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
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See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
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Booker T. Washington
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Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...
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Captain John Smith
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John Smith (baptized 1580 –1631), an English soldier, author, and adventurer, played a crucial role in establishing the...
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Clementina Rind
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Clementina Rind was Virginia’s first female printer and newspaper publisher, publishing important official documents for...
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Dolley Madison
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Dolley (Payne) Todd Madison (1768–1849) lived through three wars, knew eleven presidents, and was a gracious and...
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Dugout Canoe
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The dugout canoe was an Indian concept but one so well suited to the Virginia rivers that Europeans and Africans also...
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Education in Virginia
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The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...
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Elizabeth I
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Elizabeth I (1533–1603), queen of England, never married and was known as the virgin queen. The first English attempts...
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Elizabeth Keckley
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Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
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Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
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Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
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Jim Crow to Civil Rights in Virginia
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Following the Civil War, black Virginians struggled to assert their independence and make freedom meaningful. In the...
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John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore
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John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, was Virginia's last royal governor.
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Life Portrait of Pocahontas
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The only life portrait of Pocahontas (1595–1617) and the only credible image of her, was engraved by Simon Van de Passe...
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Maggie Lena Walker
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Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was the daughter of Elizabeth Draper, a former kitchen slave and then cook in the Civil...
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Martha (Dandridge) Custis Washington
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This portrait of Martha Washington (1731–1802) is the work of Charles Willson Peale, who also painted the sitter several...
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Mary-Cooke Branch Munford
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Learn how Mary-Cooke Branch Munford helped improve education in Virginia.
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Nancy Langhorne Shaw Astor
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Viscountess Astor (1879–1964) was the first woman to take a seat in the British House of Commons. Nancy was born in...
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Olaudah Equiano
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Snatched from his Ibo village in Nigeria at the age of eleven, Equiano (c. 1745-1797) was transported to Barbados...
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Oysters in Virginia
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Learn about the history of oyster in Virginia's food culture, tourism, and economy.