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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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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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Bookplates
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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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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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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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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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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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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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James Jones Archive (1870s-1960s)
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With a coat of faded red paint and a crude hand-forged hasp to secure its lid, the simple pine chest – once used to...
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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...
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Life Portrait of Pocahontas
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The only life portrait of Pocahontas (1595–1617) and the only credible image of her, was engraved by Simon Van de Passe...
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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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Pocahontas Remembered… An Ocean Away
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![Pocahontas A statue of Pocahontas next to a tall brick tower](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/PocahontasAnOceanAway_P2_PocahontasChurch_CMYK.jpg.webp?itok=OnPW4Vc7)
Though it was certainly the longest journey of her life, and she was already exposed to English ways, nothing could have...
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Political Sheet Music
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Politicians have long appreciated the value of a campaign song during an election year. A popular tune can rally the...
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Separate and Unequal: The Breakdown of Segregation in Virginia Schools
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![Teenagers protesting school closings Historic photograph of two black teenage girls protesting school closings](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Farmville%2BProtest%20%28002%29%20v2.jpg.webp?itok=vR6ip63v)
The Virginia Constitution of 1869 established a statewide system of free public schools. The schools evolved in the...
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Speed or Strength?
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![Speed or Strength? Jedediah Hotchkiss's Compass](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/SpeedOrStrength_VHE_ATP_map-tools-photo-b-IMG_0297-%282%29-light-%282%29.jpeg.webp?itok=bzOLCTAb)
Early in 1862, Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson decided to “move swiftly and strike vigorously” against...