Browse Items (34 total)

At the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in 1919, President Carrie Chapman Catt proposed the creation of a “league of women voters to finish the fight and aid in the reconstruction of the nation.” Even before the ratification in…

Maggie Lena Walker was an African American woman who became a banker, business leader, and social reformer. She was the first woman to establish and become the president of a bank in the United States. Walker was born in 1864 in Richmond, Virginia.…

Maggie Lena Walker was an African American woman, a banker, a business leader, and a civic leader. In 1903, she was the first woman to establish a bank in the United States, the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond. She was also the first…

Richmond's former city hall building, known as Old City Hall, is located on Broad Steet with one side facing Capitol Square and another facing the current city hall building. The building stands out as a remnant of the Gothic Revival style popular…

Virgnia has a long history of growing peanuts. In the 1700’s, people from West Africa were brought to be enslaved in the colonies. Peanuts were a common food item in their home countries and, to feed people familiar products from home. For those…

The Federal Reserve System, sponsored by Virginia State Senator Carter Glass, was signed into law on December 23, 1913 by President Woodrow Wilson. In 1914, the city of Richmond was selected to be the home to one of 12 central bank locations and was…

In May 1861, the Union Army held control of Fort Monroe located long the Chesapeake Bay in Hampton, Virginia. Major General Benjamin Butler decreed that escaping enslaved people who reached Union lines would not be returned. Many enslaved people…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the call for the  prohibition of alcohol had become a national issue, advocated by many politicians and pushed by several strong organizations. The American Temperance Society, started in 1826, acted as a support…

"Agitate – Educate – Legislate” was the slogan of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which advocated the prohibition of alcohol. Established in 1874 in Ohio, the union became a national movement and Virginia women established a state chapter in…

For a significant portion of American history, women were not allowed to vote. Although they were considered citizens, voting was considered a privilege and not a right and thus not extended to women. In the the 19th century, a small number of women…