The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
Advice and Etiquette Books
Image
Studying etiquette books offers researchers a glimpse of how people interacted and how they adapted to their changing...
Article
Ambler and the Jeannette
Image
On July 8, 1879, the steamer the Jeannette set sail. It's goal: to be the first expedition to reach the North Pole.
Article
Arming the Commonwealth
Image
From providing protection from enemy combatants to finding dinner for a family, weapons have played a significant role...
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
Care Beyond National and Color Lines: Filipino Nurses in Virginia Across the 20th Century
Image
As of Winter 2021, Virginia remains among the top ten states for largest Filipino American populations, and by no...
Article
Christmas Cards
Image
Christmas cards are ephemeral, and this essence is the very reason they can be of interest to researchers. Scholars...
Article
Christmas in the Trenches
Image
Read excerpts from soldiers' letters home about their Christmas meals while stationed away from home.
Article
College Football
Image
Learn more about Virginians' long-standing love affair with football.
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
Diderot's Encyclopédie
Image
Housed within the library collections of the museum is a complete thirty-five volume set of Diderot's Encyclopédie.
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
Founding Frenemies: Hamilton and The Virginians
Image
This exhibition examined how critically important relationships between Alexander Hamilton and three Virginians shaped...
Article
George Washington Portrait by Charles Peale Polk
Image
This depiction of George Washington (1732–1799) as commander of the Continental army was painted in the 1790s by Charles...
Article
Glee Clubs
Image
The VMHC has several glee club items in its collection. The earliest item, an 1848 broadside entitled “Rally Whigs”...
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...