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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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Abolitionist Pitcher
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![VHE_UncleTomsCabin_Pitcher_teaser.jpg VHE_UncleTomsCabin_Pitcher_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_UncleTomsCabin_Pitcher_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=Di90YTDM)
Learn about how this pitcher based on Uncle Tom's Cabin was used as propoganda in the mid-1800s.
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Advice and Etiquette Books
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![BJ1838.O8.Cover_.jpg BJ1838.O8.Cover_.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/BJ1838.O8.Cover_.jpg.webp?itok=z6Xl4K7b)
Studying etiquette books offers researchers a glimpse of how people interacted and how they adapted to their changing...
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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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Booker T. Washington
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![VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_BookerTWashington_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=mUm-Rb3Q)
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...
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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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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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Dolley Madison
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![VHE_DolleyMadison_teaser.jpg VHE_DolleyMadison_teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_DolleyMadison_teaser.jpg.webp?itok=xaCfI-nH)
Dolley (Payne) Todd Madison (1768–1849) lived through three wars, knew eleven presidents, and was a gracious and...
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Dugout Canoe
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![VHE_DugoutCanoe_Teaser.jpg VHE_DugoutCanoe_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_DugoutCanoe_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=yEgfSazE)
The dugout canoe was an Indian concept but one so well suited to the Virginia rivers that Europeans and Africans also...
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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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Freedmen's Schools
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![VHE_Freedmen_Harpers Weekley cropped.jpg VHE_Freedmen_Harpers Weekley cropped.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Freedmen_Harpers%20Weekley%20cropped.jpg.webp?itok=TmJCMsl0)
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
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Glee Clubs
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The VMHC has several glee club items in its collection. The earliest item, an 1848 broadside entitled “Rally Whigs”...
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Industrialization in Virginia
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![TWP_Industrialization_TomsCreek.2000.186.343.jpg TWP_Industrialization_TomsCreek.2000.186.343.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/TWP_Industrialization_TomsCreek.2000.186.343.jpg.webp?itok=DDx6K4cG)
The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans were living in urban areas than rural ones. However...
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John Marshall Speculates on America’s Second Bank
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![John Marshall letters Two sepia toned handwritten letter pages](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/John%20Marshall%20letter%20to%20son%20about%20bank.JPG.webp?itok=mi5rOD9Q)
A question on the minds of politicians and voters in 1832 America was whether the Second Bank of the United States, the...
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John Randolph Dueling Pistols (c. 1820)
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![John Randolph Dueling Pistols John Randolph's Dueling Pistol](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/JohnRandolphDuelingPistols_DuelingPistols_1961.35_v1.jpeg.webp?itok=lHDss51V)
The death of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton — resulting from his famous 1804 duel with Vice President...
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Let Us Commence: Graduating At A Distance
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![Let Us Commence: Graduating At A Distance Samantha Hukeless’s diploma from Van de Vyver Institute.](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/LetUsCommence_Screen%20Shot%202020-05-19%20at%2012.53.58%20PM.jpeg.webp?itok=MbIdG0xM)
Learn about the history of commencement ceremonies and traditions in Virginia.
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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...
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Life Portrait of Pocahontas
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![VHE_PocahontasEngraving_Teaser.jpg VHE_PocahontasEngraving_Teaser.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_PocahontasEngraving_Teaser.jpg.webp?itok=weL_dH2x)
The only life portrait of Pocahontas (1595–1617) and the only credible image of her, was engraved by Simon Van de Passe...