The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
A Life Rediscovered: The Story of Emily Winfree
Image
Emily Winfree, an African American woman who lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, never...
Article
Advice and Etiquette Books
Image
Studying etiquette books offers researchers a glimpse of how people interacted and how they adapted to their changing...
Article
Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
Image
See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
Article
Booker T. Washington
Image
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...
Article
Care Beyond National and Color Lines: Filipino Nurses in Virginia Across the 20th Century
Image
As of Winter 2021, Virginia remains among the top ten states for largest Filipino American populations, and by no...
Article
Christmas in the Trenches
Image
Read excerpts from soldiers' letters home about their Christmas meals while stationed away from home.
Article
Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
Image
Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
Article
Confederate Imprints
Image
Before secession, most of the established publishers of booking, broadsides, and sheet music were located in such large...
Article
Convict Leasing
Image
For much of the twentieth century, convicts worked on Virginia’s roads. This practice grew out of the convict lease...
Article
Education in Virginia
Image
The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...
Article
Elizabeth Keckley
Image
Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
Article
Ella Fitzgerald's False Eyelashes
Image
Legendary singer and Virginia native Ella Fitzgerald, dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” exhilarated audiences with her...
Article
Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
Image
Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
Article
Fore-edge Painting
Image
Rarely are books prized as objects of art; often the content of the text, or the plates accompanying the text, are...
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
Article
Glee Clubs
Image
The VMHC has several glee club items in its collection. The earliest item, an 1848 broadside entitled “Rally Whigs”...
Article
How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
Image
Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
Article
James Jones Archive (1870s-1960s)
Image
With a coat of faded red paint and a crude hand-forged hasp to secure its lid, the simple pine chest – once used to...
Article
Jim Crow to Civil Rights in Virginia
Image
Following the Civil War, black Virginians struggled to assert their independence and make freedom meaningful. In the...
Article
Juneteenth
Image
Pop Civ is a series developed by the John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics at the VMHC. By connecting...