Browse Items (37 total)

Coal is amongst Virginia’s most valuable natural resources.  The first coal mines in Virginia were developed in the 1790’s as exploration of the land led to the discovery of coal in central Virginia.  Coal was carried from the mines along the…

Richmond native Lila Meade Valentine was born in 1865 and devoted much of her life to advocating education, health-care reform, and woman suffrage. She played an important role in creating organizations which focused on health care and public schools…

What is known as the Progressive Movement in the United States lasted from the late 19th century until the 1940s. While many positive social reforms occurred, there were also laws enacted in which people who were thought to be “inferior” in some way…

World War I brought about great shifts in American society. As the nation was gripped by war, the entire population was mobilized to produce weapons and supplies for the troops. The outbreak of war sent many men off to fight overseas which opened…

The Richmond Planet was first published in 1882, 17 years after the end of the Civil War. The founding members the newspaper met in an upper room of the Swan Tavern located near the corner of Third and Broad streets. The thirteen men (James H. Hayes,…

Marriage licenses such as this one began to appear after Racial Integrity Act was introduced in 1924. The application for marriage shows how an individual had to indicate that he or she was not "a habitual criminal, idiot, imbecile, hereditary…

Circulated in Staunton, Virginia, the broadside dates to sometime between 1900 and 1919. In it, the women of Staunton asked the men in their community to vote in favor of prohibition or the legal elimination of alcohol consumption and sale. The…

Antonio Sansone was born in 1856 in Termini Imerese, Sicily. He immigrated to the United States in 1880.  By 1899, he had established Antonio Sansone & Company, a wholesale dealer of fruit located on East Main Street, near the city market, in…

The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) was founded in 1909 in Richmond when about twenty women met at the home of Anne Clay Crenshaw. The league sought to win women the right to vote. Although the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776…

In 1918, Clinton L. Williams, the leader of the local chapter of the ACCA Shriners fraternal organization, conceived an elaborate new “temple” to house the activities and growing needs of the chapter. The Shriners, as they are known, have had a…