The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
Arthur Ashe Jr.’s Family Tree: Tracing the Blackwell Family to 1735
Image

See a rare family tree, drawn by hand on canvas, tracing Arthur Ashe, Jr.’s family.
Article
Booker T. Washington
Image

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

The use of bookplates is almost as old as printing itself. They were used to record ownership and to reassure the owner...
Article
Clarise Sears Ramsey
Image

Charlotte Clarise Sears Risley Harrold Ramsey (1867–1922), whose parents were Joseph Henry Risley and Mary Elizabeth...
Article
Colored Knights of Pythias Helmet (c. 1890)
Image

Race has been a divisive issue throughout American history, and this impressive helmet tells part of the story.
Article
Convict Leasing
Image

For much of the twentieth century, convicts worked on Virginia’s roads. This practice grew out of the convict lease...
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
Equal Suffrage League of Virginia
Image

Learn about how the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia helped women gain the right to vote.
Article
For the Love of Beauty: The Collections of Lora and Claiborne Robins
Image

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

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950), best known as the creator of the Tarzan books, also wrote a popular science fiction...
Article
Letterhead
Image

Correspondence between individuals plays an important role in our understanding not only of how people communicated in...
Article
Maggie Lena Walker
Image

Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was the daughter of Elizabeth Draper, a former kitchen slave and then cook in the Civil...
Article
Murals Inspired by the Story of Virginia
Image

Richmond is now home to more than 100 outdoor murals, and this popular form of artwork reflects the city’s modernity and...
Article
Proud American Day program
Image

Learn about the beginning of Black History Month.
Article
Separate and Unequal: The Breakdown of Segregation in Virginia Schools
Image

The Virginia Constitution of 1869 established a statewide system of free public schools. The schools evolved in the...
Article
Sinnott papers
Image

A collection of architectural plans and drawings, the Edward F. Sinnott, Jr., papers include the records of a father and...