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Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
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Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
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Connecticut sculpture
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Records of the Best Products Company provide interesting insights into the history of this iconic sculpture.
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Convict Leasing
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For much of the twentieth century, convicts worked on Virginia’s roads. This practice grew out of the convict lease...
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Cookbooks (Advertising)
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By the twentieth century, there was a tremendous burst of interest in cooking as a variety of new processed foods became...
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Craddock-Terry Records Walk on Over to the Museum
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The Craddock-Terry Shoe Company, once the largest employer in Lynchburg, produced lines of boots and shoes which were...
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Diderot's Encyclopédie
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Housed within the library collections of the museum is a complete thirty-five volume set of Diderot's Encyclopédie.
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Duke Ellington at the Mosque
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Late in his career, jazz great Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899–1974) composed three "Sacred Concerts," longer...
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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 Keckley
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![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...
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Ella Fitzgerald's False Eyelashes
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![Ella Fitzgerald's Eyelashes](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Ella%20Fitzgeralds%20Eyelashes_1997.82.3_v1.jpg.webp?itok=8WbRCt82)
Legendary singer and Virginia native Ella Fitzgerald, dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” exhilarated audiences with her...
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Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity poster
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The Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity promoted understanding among groups during the tensions of the civil...
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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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Fraud! Controversy! And neat properties in Virginia: Things you never knew about title insurance
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Did you know that title insurance is almost exclusively an American business? In most industrialized countries...
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Freedmen's Schools
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In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
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Freedom Riders
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In 1961, a small group of white and black volunteers rode public buses into the South to demonstrate that interstate...
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From Horse-Driven to Gas-Fueled Transportation
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![From Horse-Driven to Gas-Fueled Photograph of the Progress Manufacturing Company](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/FromHorseDrivenToGasFueled_Gas%20Pump_1996.178_v1.jpeg.webp?itok=DosrvziL)
This gravity-flow pump (c. 1927), used near Petersburg, Virginia, is evidence of the state’s transition from horse...
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George Washington, Land Surveyor
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![Survey for Richard Barnes for a tract of 400 acres in Culpeper County, George Washington, 1749 Survey for Richard Barnes for a tract of 400 acres in Culpeper County, George Washington, 1749](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss1.St824a1.GWPlat.jpg.webp?itok=PRfdFkGi)
George Washington’s surveying work spanned fifty years and enabled him to acquire vast tracts of land.
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Henkel Press
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In 1806, two young men, Ambrose Henkel and his brother Solomon, started one of the first German language presses in the...
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How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
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![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...
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Industrialization in Virginia
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The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans were living in urban areas than rural ones. However...