The search results below contain listings from our website. To search our library and museum collections catalogs, please visit the Collections page.
Time Period
16,000 BCE to 1622 CE
Image
At the time of the great northern glaciers, Native Americans followed the game they hunted to Virginia. Ten thousand years later, as the cold of the Ice Age gave way to a warmer, drier climate, they relied also on foraging and farming. After about 900 CE they settled into villages that united into chiefdoms. In 1607, in pursuit of opportunity in a new world, English settlers intruded into an eastern Virginia chiefdom of thirty-two tribes (15,000 to 20,000 people). Its leader then was Wahunsenacawh, whom the new settlers called by his title, Powhatan.
Time Period
1877 to 1924
Image
After the Civil War, Virginia remained largely rural, but Virginians embraced economic development and the new technologies that were revolutionizing everyday life. At the same time, however, they resisted political and social change––especially racial and gender equality. Living standards improved and income rose, but the political system became less democratic and society was rigidly segregated by race. “The New South” brought economic renewal but little reform. The Virginia legislature rejected a woman’s right to vote in 1919, and it passed a regressive Racial Integrity Act in 1924.
Time Period
1925 to Today
Image
A century of foreign wars expanded the presence of both the federal government in Northern Virginia and the military in the Hampton Roads area. Growth in those regions helped transform the state from a rural to a primarily urban one, from a poor to a relatively affluent one, and from a state with few non-natives to one with many. Only painstakingly, however, have minorities gained equality. Since 1960, the population has doubled. The largest employer now is the government, next is agriculture, which adds billions of dollars to the state’s economy.
Time Period Chapter
A Century of Foreign Wars
Image
Virginians were engulfed by the many wars that spanned the twentieth century and touched every generation.
Time Period Chapter
A New Virginia
Image
In the early twentieth century, the nation’s economy was becoming more industrialized and its population more urbanized.
Time Period Chapter
Contact and Conflict
Image
The first settlers were welcomed by the Indians with ceremony. However, following Capt. John Smith’s return to England...
Time Period Chapter
Exploration of the New World
Image
Initially, European nations were searching for a water route to the Far East, not a New World.
Time Period Chapter
Made in Virginia
Image
For more than 400 years, Virginians have been part of a global community—exporting ideas, products, and culture to the...
Time Period Chapter
Racial Inequality
Image
Confederate defeat threatened to change white southern identity. Suddenly African Americans were free to determine the...
Time Period Chapter
The Struggle for Equality
Image
The American concept that all people are equal and all have unalienable rights was introduced by Virginians George Mason...
Time Period Chapter
Virginia and Women’s Suffrage
Image
Despite the socio-political changes that occurred during Reconstruction, women at the dawn of the twentieth century...
Time Period Chapter
Wandering, Foraging, and Farming
Image
Over more than 16,000 years, Indians in Virginia transitioned from nomadic bands of hunter gatherers to sedentary...