Browse Items (17 total)

After the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished in 1865, Radical Republicans in Congress became frustrated with the opposition that many white southerners exhibited to extending full rights of citizenship to African Americans. Congress proposed…

On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House. The surrender effectively ended the American Civil War in Virginia, although fighting continued in…

Black men in Virginia voted for the first time in October 1867, when they participated in the election on whether to hold a convention to rewrite the state's constitution as required by Congress after the Civil War. They also voted for delegates to…

In March 1865, before the Civil War had ended, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (generally known as the Freedmen’s Bureau) to supervise matters related to freed people as well as to distribute land "abandoned" by…

Hiring out enslaved men, women, and children was a common business arrangement among Virginians during slavery. This practice, which occurred in rural and urban areas, enabled owners of slaves to profit from their labor when they could not employ all…

As women participated in the movement to abolish slavery during the first half of the 19th century, some of them also began to advocate for women's rights. In July 1848, a group of women and men held a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. They…

Illustrated periodicals like Harper's Weekly were popular with Americans in the middle of the 19th century. After southern states formed the Confederate States of America, residents there could not easily receive newspapers and magazines printed in…