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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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Fraud! Controversy! And neat properties in Virginia: Things you never knew about title insurance
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Did you know that title insurance is almost exclusively an American business? In most industrialized countries...
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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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From Horse-Driven to Gas-Fueled Transportation
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This gravity-flow pump (c. 1927), used near Petersburg, Virginia, is evidence of the state’s transition from horse...
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George Washington, Land Surveyor
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George Washington’s surveying work spanned fifty years and enabled him to acquire vast tracts of land.
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Henkel Press
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In 1806, two young men, Ambrose Henkel and his brother Solomon, started one of the first German language presses in the...
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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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How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
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Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
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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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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...
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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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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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Lane Cedar Chest
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Few Virginia-manufactured items were as well known as the Lane Cedar Chest. When the Lane Company closed its Altavista...
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Larus & Brother Advertisements
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In 1877 a partnership between Charles D. Larus and Herbert C. Larus formed the Larus & Brother Company. This small...
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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...
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Liberated Books
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During the Civil War, looting by soldiers was a common practice. The hungry soldier usually confiscated food and...
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Love and War
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Though it has torn many asunder, war has also brought people together.
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Maggie Lena Walker
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Maggie Lena Walker (1864–1934) was the daughter of Elizabeth Draper, a former kitchen slave and then cook in the Civil...