The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
Image
![VHE_BlackwellFamilyTree_AsheDetail.jpg VHE_BlackwellFamilyTree_AsheDetail.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_BlackwellFamilyTree_AsheDetail.jpg.webp?itok=L_TH1RBs)
See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
Article
Booker T. Washington
Image
![VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=mUm-Rb3Q)
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...
Article
Education in Virginia
Image
![VHE_Education_PossumHollowSchoolhouse.2001.230.308.jpg VHE_Education_PossumHollowSchoolhouse.2001.230.308.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Education_PossumHollowSchoolhouse.2001.230.308.jpg.webp?itok=DO8SpKJr)
The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...
Article
Elizabeth Keckley
Image
![Engraving of Elizabeth Keckley Engraving of Elizabeth Keckley](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ElizabethKeckley_E457.15.K26.frontispiece_cropped_0_medium.jpg.webp?itok=OtJS2wQL)
Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
Article
Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
Image
![VHE_EqualSuffrageLeague_Broadside-1916-2_Teaser.jpg VHE_EqualSuffrageLeague_Broadside-1916-2_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_EqualSuffrageLeague_Broadside-1916-2_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=n8MNY1wY)
Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
![VHE_Freedmen_Harpers Weekley cropped.jpg VHE_Freedmen_Harpers Weekley cropped.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Freedmen_Harpers%20Weekley%20cropped.jpg.webp?itok=TmJCMsl0)
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
Article
How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
Image
![How Did Slaves Support the Confederacy? The Burial of Latane by A.G. Campbell](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/HowDidSlavesSupportTheConfederacy_VHE_ATP_BurialofLatane.2010.1.jpeg.webp?itok=_ImXE1TN)
Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
Article
Jim Crow to Civil Rights in Virginia
Image
![Bury Jim Crow Bury Jim Crow](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_JimCrow_BuryJimCrow.jpg.webp?itok=bLk6kSKS)
Following the Civil War, black Virginians struggled to assert their independence and make freedom meaningful. In the...
Article
Maggie Lena Walker
Image
![VHE_MaggieLWalker_Teaser.jpg VHE_MaggieLWalker_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_MaggieLWalker_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=LGIwISLy)
Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was the daughter of Elizabeth Draper, a former kitchen slave and then cook in the Civil...
Article
Men of Color To Arms?
Image
![Gold Soldier Identification Disc Gold Soldier Identification Disc](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Men%20of%20Color%20To%20Arms_VHE_ATP_TurnerIDdisk.PHP_.verso_silhouette.jpg.webp?itok=-Gmic8kn)
When the war began, many black Americans—North and South—volunteered to serve as soldiers. United by a belief in black...
Article
Nancy Langhorne Shaw Astor
Image
![VHE_NancyLanghorneShawAstor_Teaser.jpg VHE_NancyLanghorneShawAstor_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_NancyLanghorneShawAstor_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=VFAVF_yS)
Viscountess Astor (1879–1964) was the first woman to take a seat in the British House of Commons. Nancy was born in...
Article
Political Sheet Music
Image
![Never Swap Horses When You're Crossing a Stream Never Swap Horses When You're Crossing a Stream](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Political%20music_NeverSwapHorses.jpg.webp?itok=wXxa00If)
Politicians have long appreciated the value of a campaign song during an election year. A popular tune can rally the...
Article
Proud American Day program
Image
![VHE_NegroHistoryWeek_Teaser.jpg VHE_NegroHistoryWeek_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_NegroHistoryWeek_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=AfDcfCor)
Learn about the beginning of Black History Month.
Article
Richmond in the Midst of the Civil War
Image
![Mss1.J8586b225.007_cropped.jpg Mss1.J8586b225.007_cropped.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss1.J8586b225.007_cropped.jpg.webp?itok=WpzUMJso)
As the Confederate capital, Richmond experienced waves of change that saw the city lurch from the untidy influx of...
Article
Speed or Strength?
Image
![Speed or Strength? Jedediah Hotchkiss's Compass](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/SpeedOrStrength_VHE_ATP_map-tools-photo-b-IMG_0297-%282%29-light-%282%29.jpeg.webp?itok=bzOLCTAb)
Early in 1862, Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson decided to “move swiftly and strike vigorously” against...
Article
Urbanization in Virginia
Image
![VHE_Urbanization_BroadSt.Richmond.2002.266.41.jpg VHE_Urbanization_BroadSt.Richmond.2002.266.41.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Urbanization_BroadSt.Richmond.2002.266.41.jpg.webp?itok=kl_JlMML)
Learn about the process of urbanization in Virginia.
Article
Victory Gardens
Image
![SB321.N3.1919.Cover_.jpg SB321.N3.1919.Cover_.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/SB321.N3.1919.Cover_.jpg.webp?itok=14NU7FB-)
First promoted during World War I, war gardening, or victory gardens, provided American citizens an opportunity to...
Article
Who Freed the Enslaved People?
Image
![Who Freed the Enslaved People? Painting of President Lincoln writing the Proclamation of Freedom by David Gilmore Blythe](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhoFreedTheEnslavedPeople_VHE_ATP_LC-DIG-ppmsca-18444.jpeg.webp?itok=zYcrzehk)
Two years of fighting changed what the war was about. Beginning in 1863, the North no longer fought only to save the...
Article
Why is there a West Virginia?
Image
![Why is there a West Virginia? A drawing of Confederates gathering in the Shenandoah Valley.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhyIsThereAWestVirginia_VHE_ATP_IrregularTroops.2000.165.3.jpeg.webp?itok=9uWgE1j1)
Secession from Virginia was the hope of some western Virginians as early as 1829. Many western Virginians felt...
Article
Why Richmond?
Image
![Why Richmond? Alabama Twenty-Five Cent Note](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/WhyRichmond_VHE_ATP_Alabama25CentNote.jpeg.webp?itok=l01ztJgD)
Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate government moved the capital to Richmond, the South’s second largest city. The...