The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
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A Beardless Boy of Seventeen Years
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Even before Aristophanes wrote of Lysistrata’s plan to end the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) by convincing the women...
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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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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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Audubon's Viviparous Quadrapeds
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![QL715.A916.1845.RareFolio.Deer_.jpg QL715.A916.1845.RareFolio.Deer_.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/QL715.A916.1845.RareFolio.Deer_.jpg.webp?itok=TlOTK0Dk)
Following the success of his Birds of America, John James Audubon began to gather material for an equally ambitious...
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Children's Manuscripts
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![VHE_Children_gilkersondiary.jpg VHE_Children_gilkersondiary.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/VHE_Children_gilkersondiary.jpg.webp?itok=3R1VyWG8)
Prominent Virginians are well represented in the many manuscripts housed at the VMHC. However, documents by individuals...
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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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Diary of William Gwathmey, 1859
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On October 16, 1859, John Brown led eighteen followers in a raid on the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry...
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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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The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans were living in urban areas than rural ones. However...
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Jefferson’s Desk
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![Jefferson's Writing Desk A rectangular wooden desk, with writing surface propped at an angle and drawer opened](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Desk.1956.1_Open_SLIDE.jpg.webp?itok=TN1yHIPN)
There are many reproductions of the desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Some have even...
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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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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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Murals Inspired by the Story of Virginia
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![Still Relevant by Ed Trask Ed Trask paints a mural of flowers](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/FreshPaint_StillRelevant_DSC0887_e1%20copy.jpg.webp?itok=vx9S_GnP)
Richmond is now home to more than 100 outdoor murals, and this popular form of artwork reflects the city’s modernity and...
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On Dueling
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In the United States and elsewhere, traditional and patriarchal conceptions of honor prescribed that men could respond...
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Oysters in Virginia
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Learn about the history of oyster in Virginia's food culture, tourism, and economy.
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Shaving Kits
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Before the invention of the disposable double-edged safety razor in 1895, a straight razor was the easiest, most...
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The Brook Hill Collection
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![The Brook Hill Collection Books from the Brook Hill collection](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/BrookHillCollection_New-Book-Images-001_edited.jpeg.webp?itok=dOOK5X9w)
In 2018, the VMHC was gifted an extraordinary collection of books, documents, and art associated with the Stewart and...