The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
"That part of America, now called Virginia"
Image
![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...
Article
A Beardless Boy of Seventeen Years
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/BeardlessBoy_burial-of-latane-blog-copy.jpeg.webp?itok=8TLjolKr)
Even before Aristophanes wrote of Lysistrata’s plan to end the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) by convincing the women...
Article
A House Built of Virginia Stone
Image
![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...
Article
A Ninety Day War?
Image
![A Ninety Day War Forage Cap, Sash, and Spurs of Lt. Col. Noah Farnham](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/ANinetyDayWar_VHE_ATP_farnhamitems.jpeg.webp?itok=PCdovM8J)
The small United States Army could be enlarged quickly only by appealing to the states to activate local militia troops...
Article
A Spoon That Got Around...
Image
![Silver Tablespoon with Custis Crest A silver spoon propped on a plastic block](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Spoon_2005.235.A-B_A_v1.jpg.webp?itok=y49Hm9he)
This silver serving spoon, labeled as “A Spoon That Got Around," was on view in The Story of Virginia exhibition in the...
Article
Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
Image
![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.
Article
Audubon's The Birds of America
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Audubon_2013-9-18-audubon_05e.jpg.webp?itok=S9aL5mJj)
In the VMHC collections are several rare editions of his work, including a first edition of Viviparous Quadrupeds and...
Article
Birthday Songs for George Washington
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Birthday_mss5-5-un3-15_bicentennialparade1932.jpeg.webp?itok=YiBulrrn)
Though you might not expect it, 1932 was a big year for George Washington. It marked the 200th anniversary of Washington...
Article
Camp Greble: A Union encampment near Norfolk, Virginia
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/CampGreble_vhs00398.jpeg.webp?itok=naabTeKn)
This poignant, detailed plan was drafted in February 1862 by Private Frank Maynicke of the 99th New York State...
Article
Christmas Cards
Image
![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...
Article
Clarise Sears Ramsey
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Plantation_clarisesearsramsey-1992-117-10_0.jpeg.webp?itok=939GFhww)
Charlotte Clarise Sears Risley Harrold Ramsey (1867–1922), whose parents were Joseph Henry Risley and Mary Elizabeth...
Article
Clementina Rind
Image
![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...
Article
Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
Image
![Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet.2013.67.A-B.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/Colored%20Knights%20of%20Pythias%20Helmet.2013.67.A-B.jpg.webp?itok=QwseuFor)
Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
Article
Confederate Imprints
Image
![CI.4066.003.jpg CI.4066.003.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/CI.4066.003.jpg.webp?itok=6qzZYucL)
Before secession, most of the established publishers of booking, broadsides, and sheet music were located in such large...
Article
Confederate Love Poems
Image
![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.
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
![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...
Article
How Did Civilians Suffer?
Image
![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...
Article
How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
Image
![How Did Slaves Support the Confederacy? The Burial of Latane by A.G. Campbell](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/HowDidSlavesSupportTheConfederacy_VHE_ATP_BurialofLatane.2010.1.jpeg.webp?itok=_ImXE1TN)
Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
Article
Industrialization in Virginia
Image
![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...
Article
James Jones Archive (1870s-1960s)
Image
![](/sites/default/files/styles/fp_landscape_768x576/public/James%20Jones_2010.0074_v1.jpg.webp?itok=d7JK34dK)
With a coat of faded red paint and a crude hand-forged hasp to secure its lid, the simple pine chest – once used to...