The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
Diary of William Gwathmey, 1859
Image
On October 16, 1859, John Brown led eighteen followers in a raid on the federal arsenal and armory at Harpers Ferry...
Article
Education in Virginia
Image
The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...
Article
Elizabeth Keckley
Image
Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
Article
Ella Fitzgerald's False Eyelashes
Image
Legendary singer and Virginia native Ella Fitzgerald, dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” exhilarated audiences with her...
Article
Ellen Glasgow’s Broken Heart
Image
Valentine’s Day cards and the celebrations around the holiday began to escalate during the early twentieth century.
Article
Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
Image
Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
Article
Fraud! Controversy! And neat properties in Virginia: Things you never knew about title insurance
Image
Did you know that title insurance is almost exclusively an American business? In most industrialized countries...
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
Article
Glee Clubs
Image
The VMHC has several glee club items in its collection. The earliest item, an 1848 broadside entitled “Rally Whigs”...
Article
Industrialization in Virginia
Image
The 1920 census revealed that, for the first time, more Americans were living in urban areas than rural ones. However...
Article
Jacob L. "JL" Morewitz
Image
Jacob L. “JL” Morewitz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1896 but raised in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1916, at the age of...
Article
James Jones Archive (1870s-1960s)
Image
With a coat of faded red paint and a crude hand-forged hasp to secure its lid, the simple pine chest – once used to...
Article
Jefferson’s Desk
Image
There are many reproductions of the desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Some have even...
Article
Jim Crow to Civil Rights in Virginia
Image
Following the Civil War, black Virginians struggled to assert their independence and make freedom meaningful. In the...
Article
John Marshall Speculates on America’s Second Bank
Image
A question on the minds of politicians and voters in 1832 America was whether the Second Bank of the United States, the...
Article
Juneteenth
Image
Pop Civ is a series developed by the John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics at the VMHC. By connecting...
Article
Lane Cedar Chest
Image
Few Virginia-manufactured items were as well known as the Lane Cedar Chest. When the Lane Company closed its Altavista...
Article
Larus & Brother Advertisements
Image
In 1877 a partnership between Charles D. Larus and Herbert C. Larus formed the Larus & Brother Company. This small...
Article
Letterhead
Image
Correspondence between individuals plays an important role in our understanding not only of how people communicated in...
Article
Love and War
Image
Though it has torn many asunder, war has also brought people together.