The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Article
A House Built of Virginia Stone
Image
Approximately forty miles south of Washington, D.C., the Aquia sandstone quarry on Government Island sits quietly in the...
Article
A Life Rediscovered: The Story of Emily Winfree
Image
Emily Winfree, an African American woman who lived through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, never...
Article
Affidavit, 1693
Image
This affidavit informs the governor that Frank, a man of African descent enslaved by Henry Gibbs, has been jailed on...
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
Audubon's The Birds of America
Image
In the VMHC collections are several rare editions of his work, including a first edition of Viviparous Quadrupeds and...
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
Broadsides
Image
Broadsides, or broadsheets, are items printed on one side of a sheet of paper and generally posted or distributed as...
Article
Clarise Sears Ramsey
Image
Charlotte Clarise Sears Risley Harrold Ramsey (1867–1922), whose parents were Joseph Henry Risley and Mary Elizabeth...
Article
Clementina Rind
Image
Clementina Rind was Virginia’s first female printer and newspaper publisher, publishing important official documents for...
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
Confederate Love Poems
Image
The most prominent Civil War poetry is poetry of the battlefield.
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
Dugout Canoe
Image
The dugout canoe was an Indian concept but one so well suited to the Virginia rivers that Europeans and Africans also...
Article
Elizabeth Keckley
Image
Born a slave in Dinwiddie County, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley (1818–1907) purchased her freedom in 1855 and supported...
Article
Fore-edge Painting
Image
Rarely are books prized as objects of art; often the content of the text, or the plates accompanying the text, are...
Article
Freedmen's Schools
Image
In the antebellum South, African Americans were generally prevented from receiving education. After Appomattox...
Article
How Did Enslaved People Support the Confederacy?
Image
Enslaved and free black people provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white...
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
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...