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 Life Rediscovered: The Story of Emily Winfree
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Emily Winfree, an African American woman who lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, never...
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Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
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See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
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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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Following the success of his Birds of America, John James Audubon began to gather material for an equally ambitious...
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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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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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Confederate Love Poems
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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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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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Double Take
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Daguerreotypes are the earliest form of permanent photographic imagery. They are made by capturing an image on a...
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Elizabeth Keckley
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Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
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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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How Did Civilians Suffer?
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White women and children were left to fend for themselves, and many became widows and orphans when one in five...
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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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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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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...