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Time Period Chapter
Contact and Conflict
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The first settlers were welcomed by the Indians with ceremony. However, following Capt. John Smith’s return to England...
Time Period Chapter
Exploration of the New World
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Initially, European nations were searching for a water route to the Far East, not a New World.
Article Set - Intro
Eye of the Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden
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Through his 5,000-page personal memoir, Robert Knox Sneden takes us to the front lines of the Civil War.
Article Set - Intro
Getting the Message Out: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from the Collection of Allen A. Frey
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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.
Article Set - Intro
Lee and Grant
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By the end of the Civil War, most Americans considered either Robert E. Lee or Ulysses S. Grant to be a hero. The time has come for a reassessment of these two men, on whom fell the greatest responsibility for the survival or disintegration of the United States.
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
Slavery
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Virginia’s 550,000 slaves constituted one third of the state’s population in 1860.
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
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'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.