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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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Alexander & Virginia Weddell: A Love Story

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Many years ago, a love story was ignited between the future residents of Virginia House , Alexander and Virginia Weddell...

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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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Booker T. Washington

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Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) was born enslaved on April 5, 1856, in Franklin County, Virginia. After emancipation...

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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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Care Beyond National and Color Lines: Filipino Nurses in Virginia Across the 20th Century

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As of Winter 2021, Virginia remains among the top ten states for largest Filipino American populations, and by no...

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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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Diaries

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Do you remember the first time you swam in the ocean? What about the first movie you watched? Moments like those and...

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Education in Virginia

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The Virginia Constitution of 1869, passed during Reconstruction, established a statewide system of free public schools...

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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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Ella Fitzgerald's False Eyelashes

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Legendary singer and Virginia native Ella Fitzgerald, dubbed “The First Lady of Song,” exhilarated audiences with her...

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Ellen Glasgow’s Broken Heart

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Valentine’s Day cards and the celebrations around the holiday began to escalate during the early twentieth century.

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Equal Suffrage League of Virginia

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Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.

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For the Love of Beauty: The Collections of Lora and Claiborne Robins

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Explore nineteenth-century Hudson River School landscape paintings and colonial furniture collected by philanthropists...

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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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Jacob L. "JL" Morewitz

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Jacob L. “JL” Morewitz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1896 but raised in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1916, at the age of...

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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...