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Article

"That part of America, now called Virginia"

In 1590, John White published the first separate map of “Virginia” and the first printed record of Sir Walter Raleigh’s...

Time Period

1623 to 1763

The colony prospered. Tobacco—grown by indentured servants and enslaved Africans—sustained the economy. The first popularly elected legislative body in the New World was established. Following the failed Indian uprising in 1622 and on orders from London, the native peoples were “removed” and reduced in number to 3,000 by a “War of Extermination.” During the next hundred years, the remainder of Virginia’s population expanded a hundred fold. Social inequalities, however, and frontier conflicts with the French and with Indians made this distant dominion increasingly difficult to govern from London.

Time Period

1877 to 1924

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.

Media

A Fiendish Murder: The Sad Saga of Charles and Susan Watkins

On April 22, 2020, historian John Long gave a virtual Banner Lecture that examined the trial of Charles Watkins for the murder of his wife, which was...

Article

A House Built of Virginia Stone

Photograph of the Government Island Quarry

Approximately forty miles south of Washington, D.C., the Aquia sandstone quarry on Government Island sits quietly in the...

Article

A Landscape Saved: The Garden Club of Virginia at 100

The landscape of the state is enchanting and, when threatened, Garden Club members unite to educate themselves and the...

Media

A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters

On November 8, 2012, Scott Reynolds Nelson delivered a Banner Lecture entitled "A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial...

Media

A New Era in Building: Black Educational Activism in Goochland County, 1911–1932

Join historians Brian Daugherity and Alyce Miller for a lecture about Black educational activism in Goochland County in the early twentieth century.

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Time Period Chapter

A New Virginia

In the early twentieth century, the nation’s economy was becoming more industrialized and its population more urbanized...

Media

A Saga of the New South: Race, Law, and Public Debt in Virginia

On March 16, Brent Tarter delivered a Banner Lecture entitled “A Saga of the New South: Race, Law, and Public Debt in Virginia.”

A Saga of the New...

Article

A Spoon That Got Around...

A silver spoon propped on a plastic block

This silver serving spoon, labeled as “A Spoon That Got Around," was on view in The Story of Virginia exhibition in the...

Media

A. D. Price Funeral Establishment

In this video, Lauranett Lee, former Curator of African American History, discusses the A. D. Price Funeral Establishment, one of the oldest African...

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