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"That part of America, now called Virginia"
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![Map.F221.1590.1.jpg Map.F221.1590.1.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Map.F221.1590.1.jpg.webp?itok=BG-CLSSJ)
In 1590, John White published the first separate map of “Virginia” and the first printed record of Sir Walter Raleigh’s...
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A House Built of Virginia Stone
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![A House Built of Virginia Stone Photograph of the Government Island Quarry](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/AHouseBuiltOfVirginiaStone_Government%20Island%20Quarry.jpeg.webp?itok=aheORpaA)
Approximately forty miles south of Washington, D.C., the Aquia sandstone quarry on Government Island sits quietly in the...
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A Life Rediscovered: The Story of Emily Winfree
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![Emily Winfree An oval portrait in black and white of Emily Winfree](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/2.3.22_Emily-Winfree.jpg.webp?itok=1I7yBJlq)
Emily Winfree, an African American woman who lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, never...
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Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
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![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.
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Audubon's The Birds of America
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In the VMHC collections are several rare editions of his work, including a first edition of Viviparous Quadrupeds and...
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Birthday Songs for George Washington
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Though you might not expect it, 1932 was a big year for George Washington. It marked the 200th anniversary of Washington...
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Bookplates
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![Bookplate.2012.1.5.jpg Bookplate.2012.1.5.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Bookplate.2012.1.5.jpg.webp?itok=W4-zqjnX)
The use of bookplates is almost as old as printing itself. They were used to record ownership and to reassure the owner...
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Broadsides
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![Broadside.1622.1.jpg Broadside.1622.1.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Broadside.1622.1.jpg.webp?itok=S2MVkjWz)
Broadsides, or broadsheets, are items printed on one side of a sheet of paper and generally posted or distributed as...
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Christmas Cards
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![Mss1.W2296b.6645_6647.GoodWishes.jpg Mss1.W2296b.6645_6647.GoodWishes.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss1.W2296b.6645_6647.GoodWishes.jpg.webp?itok=IJRLlSRZ)
Christmas cards are ephemeral, and this essence is the very reason they can be of interest to researchers. Scholars...
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Clarise Sears Ramsey
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Charlotte Clarise Sears Risley Harrold Ramsey (1867–1922), whose parents were Joseph Henry Risley and Mary Elizabeth...
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Clementina Rind
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![Rind letter.jpg Rind letter.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Rind%20letter.jpg.webp?itok=EZH_y0Zb)
Clementina Rind was Virginia’s first female printer and newspaper publisher, publishing important official documents for...
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Colonial Cookbooks
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![TX705.F5.1750.Rare_frontispiece.jpg TX705.F5.1750.Rare_frontispiece.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/TX705.F5.1750.Rare_frontispiece.jpg.webp?itok=I6BVm633)
Food and dining were integral to social life in the eighteenth century, particularly among the upper class. The gentry...
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Confederate Love Poems
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![Mss2-F2462-b-14-(CMLS)-_1 CROP.jpg Mss2-F2462-b-14-(CMLS)-_1 CROP.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Mss2-F2462-b-14-%28CMLS%29-_1%20CROP.jpg.webp?itok=jHqndxP8)
The most prominent Civil War poetry is poetry of the battlefield.
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Elizabeth I
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![VHE_QueenElizabethI_Teaser.jpg VHE_QueenElizabethI_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_QueenElizabethI_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=iRmUMeIb)
Elizabeth I (1533–1603), queen of England, never married and was known as the virgin queen. The first English attempts...
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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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Fore-edge Painting
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![The poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed / with a memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Pages ruffled farther apart show a painted landscape and city](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Foreedge%20Painting_Rare%20Books%20ND%202370%20.P8_v1_DSC3145_0.jpg.webp?itok=ARBwm3xq)
Rarely are books prized as objects of art; often the content of the text, or the plates accompanying the text, are...
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Grace Sherwood: The "Witch of Pungo"
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![sherwoodtrial.jpg sherwoodtrial.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/sherwoodtrial.jpg.webp?itok=Ufkjl5Om)
On July 10, 1706, a forty-six-year-old Princess Anne County woman named Grace Sherwood faced an unusual legal procedure...
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How Did Civilians Suffer?
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![How Did Civilians Suffer? A drawing of the flight of the refugees](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/HowDidCiviliansSuffer_VHE_ATP_FamilyofVirginians.2000.165.3.jpeg.webp?itok=SDtHN186)
White women and children were left to fend for themselves, and many became widows and orphans when one in five...
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Juneteenth
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![Juneteenth Flag Juneteenth Flag](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/PopCiv_Juneteenth_Flag.png.webp?itok=zFWtlf45)
Pop Civ is a series developed by the John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics at the VMHC. By connecting...
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Letterhead
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![Letterhead engraving, c. 1860, of Richmond, Va., by Louis A. Ramm Letterhead engraving, c. 1860, of Richmond, Va., by Louis A. Ramm](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Letterhead_Mss1.R7243a29.jpg.webp?itok=t1eWtOzZ)
Correspondence between individuals plays an important role in our understanding not only of how people communicated in...