The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Exhibition
Determined
Image
![Two Black students protest school closures in Farmville, Virginia Two Black female students protesting school closures by marching with posters](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Farmville%2BProtest%20%28002%29_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=4gqp-b6Y)
This exhibition examined the long history of black Americans in North America as they have fought for freedom, equal...
Article Set - Intro
Eye of the Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden
Image
![VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Sneden_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=m_EaTwQ0)
Through his 5,000-page personal memoir, Robert Knox Sneden takes us to the front lines of the Civil War.
Exhibition
Founding Frenemies
Image
![Exhibition display from Founding Frenemies Manuscripts and a feather pen on a table with an exhibit label showing a Twitter post](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/768x576-Founding-Frenemies-Preview_013.jpg.webp?itok=y29yaWri)
This exhibition explored Alexander Hamilton’s relationships with the founding generation of Virginians through rare...
Article Set - Intro
Getting the Message Out: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from the Collection of Allen A. Frey
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Campaigns_IL.2012.2.22.2%20%281%29.jpg.webp?itok=1zNZICUe)
Buttons and banners, ribbons and posters, coffee mugs and whiskey flasks, match books and mouse pads. For nearly 200 years, presidential candidates and their supporters have used almost every means available to attract votes.
Exhibition
John Marshall
Image
![Portrait of John Marshall Portrait of John Marshall - Marshall has grey hair, glasses positioned on top of his head and wears a black jacket with white necktie](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/JohnMarshall.1988.8_2_1920x1440.jpg.webp?itok=OLR-MU5t)
Highlighting objects like his Law Commonplace Notebook, spectacles and inkwell, writing desk, and even his hair, this...
Exhibition
Oh, Shenandoah
Image
![Long Branch Plantation, Clarke County Long Branch Plantation, Clarke County](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/3-Long-Branch-Plantation-Clarke-County-Millwood_Web.jpg.webp?itok=U-h11ed6)
Time Period Chapter
Political Decline and Westward Migration
Image
![ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ConestogaWagon.1993.48_side.jpg.webp?itok=9bwRymof)
The political stature of Virginia declined on the national stage when no successors of ability emerged to replace the...
Time Period Chapter
Slavery
Image
![VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VAGazette.PurdieDixon.1769Sept14_TJSlaveAd.jpg.webp?itok=h4pjmUQT)
Virginia’s 550,000 slaves constituted one third of the state’s population in 1860.
Time Period Chapter
The French and Indian War
Image
![Letter from George Washington to Governor Robert Dinwiddie (Front) Letter from George Washington to Governor Robert Dinwiddie (Front)](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss3.V8194.D6194a7.001.jpg.webp?itok=KLtJrDVT)
To shield against Indian attacks and French expansion, and to deter runaway slaves from establishing colonies in the...
Article Set - Intro
The Portent: John Brown's Raid in American Memory
Image
![PIPPIN_John Brown Going to His Hanging.jpg PIPPIN_John Brown Going to His Hanging.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/PIPPIN_John%20Brown%20Going%20to%20His%20Hanging.jpg.webp?itok=ZyxhIwHl)
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
Virginia and the Planter Class
Image
![LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/LucyRandolphBurwell.1951.35.jpg.webp?itok=vtU35bjy)
Governor William Berkeley set out to imitate the society of inequality of wealth and education that he knew in England.
Article Set - Intro
Virginia's Colonial Dynasties
Image
![VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Dynasties_MaryWillingByrd.1996.174.1.jpg.webp?itok=azbFZvpP)
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
Image
![SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/SlaveShackles.1997.89.jpg.webp?itok=VQYbsOGc)
Tobacco proved to be good as gold for Virginians. Wealth from its sale and easy navigation of the colony’s rivers...