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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A Connected Legacy: John Marshall and George Washington
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Both the first object acquired by the Virginia Historical Society and arguably one of the best objects in the VMHC...
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Advice and Etiquette Books
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Studying etiquette books offers researchers a glimpse of how people interacted and how they adapted to their changing...
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Children's Manuscripts
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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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Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
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Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
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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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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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Dolley Madison
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Dolley (Payne) Todd Madison (1768–1849) lived through three wars, knew eleven presidents, and was a gracious and...
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Freedmen's Schools
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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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Indian Tribes of North America
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In the museum's rare book collection, a remarkable compilation of images exists in History of the Indian Tribes of North...
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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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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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Jefferson’s Desk
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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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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 Marshall's Robe
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The only surviving judicial robe from John Marshall’s 34 years of service as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court...
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John Randolph Dueling Pistols (c. 1820)
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The death of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton — resulting from his famous 1804 duel with Vice President...
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Juneteenth
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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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Correspondence between individuals plays an important role in our understanding not only of how people communicated in...