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Time Period Chapter
Made in Virginia
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For more than 400 years, Virginians have been part of a global community—exporting ideas, products, and culture to the...
Time Period Chapter
Political Decline and Westward Migration
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The political stature of Virginia declined on the national stage when no successors of ability emerged to replace the...
Time Period Chapter
Racial Inequality
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Confederate defeat threatened to change white southern identity. Suddenly African Americans were free to determine the...
Time Period Chapter
Reconstruction
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During the decade following the Civil War, former Confederate states were required to “reconstruct” their state...
Time Period Chapter
Slavery
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Virginia’s 550,000 slaves constituted one third of the state’s population in 1860.
Time Period Chapter
The Battlefront in Virginia
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Home to the Confederate capital, Virginia became a battleground.
Article Set - Intro
The Commonwealth and the Great War
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The Virginia Museum of History & Culture’s exhibition, The Commonwealth and the Great War, presented the dramatic role of
Time Period Chapter
The French and Indian War
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To shield against Indian attacks and French expansion, and to deter runaway slaves from establishing colonies in the...
Time Period Chapter
The Growth of Industry
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New industries were emerging in Virginia’s cities. Richmond, Norfolk, Petersburg, Fredericksburg, Lynchburg, and...
Article Set - Intro
The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory
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John Brown remains one of the most controversial figures in our history. To destroy the institution of slavery, he firmly believed there was only one possible course of action. He saw what he thought was the ultimate wrong and tried in the only way he could imagine to right it. Which John Brown should we remember? The crusader for abolition or the bloodthirsty terrorist? Is it possible to list him among the great pantheon of American heroes, or do we still recoil from the image of his attack on an American military installation, an action that can be described by no term other than treason?
Time Period Chapter
The Revolutionary Era in Virginia
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Virginia—the largest and most populous colony—played a major role in winning independence and determining the values and...
Time Period Chapter
The Struggle for Equality
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The American concept that all people are equal and all have unalienable rights was introduced by Virginians George Mason...
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and the Planter Class
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Governor William Berkeley set out to imitate the society of inequality of wealth and education that he knew in England.
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and Women’s Suffrage
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Despite the socio-political changes that occurred during Reconstruction, women at the dawn of the twentieth century...
Article Set - Intro
Virginia House
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Formerly an English manor house, Virginia House was relocated to Richmond in 1925.
Article Set - Intro
Virginia's Colonial Dynasties
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In the colonial period, portraiture proved to be a particularly useful tool in establishing and preserving family status. This exhibit presents twenty-four portraits from the Virginia Historical Society's collection. Early Virginia portraits reveal much about the families that commissioned them, as well as how these Virginians valued how they were perceived by others.
Time Period Chapter
Virginia’s Traffic in the Atlantic World
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Tobacco proved to be good as gold for Virginians. Wealth from its sale and easy navigation of the colony’s rivers...
Time Period Chapter
Wandering, Foraging, and Farming
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Over more than 16,000 years, Indians in Virginia transitioned from nomadic bands of hunter gatherers to sedentary...
Time Period Chapter
War on the Home Front
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For some, the war brought deprivation, horror, and loss right to their very doorsteps.