Browse Items (195 total)

In May 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act granting the British East India Company a monopoly on importing tea. Intended in part to discourage colonists from buying smuggled tea on which they paid no taxes, the act implicitly acknowledged…

On April 2, 1917, after pledging to keep the country out of the European conflict, President Woodrow Wilson stood before Congress and issued a declaration of war against Germany. "The world must be made safe for democracy," he stated, framing the war…

The broadside image is that of Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) which was founded in 1909 in Richmond. The ESL became one of the most influential suffrage organizations in the country. Among the twenty founding women, co-founder, women’s…

In earlier eras, books were expensive luxury items only owned by those who could afford to purchase them. The advent of the printing press made it easier to produce books; however, it was far easier to mass produce newspapers, pamphlets, and other…

Virginia's economy was based on slavery until the Civil War and emancipation. Farmers and planters relied on enslaved laborers to work their land. Many businesses, including railroads, coal mines, tobacco factories, and saltworks, also exploited…

Trolleys were a very popular way for people to travel across cities or towns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Earlier versions of the trolley, or tram, were drawn by horses. By the late 1800s, however, people began riding in trolleys that…

Washington County is one of the first known localities in the United States to be named for George Washington. He had been commander in chief of the Continental army for little more than a year when Washington was created from Fincastle County in…

After the American Revolution, relations between the United States and Great Britain remained strained. In its long war with France, Britain imposed a blockade on neutral countries, including the United States, that disrupted shipping and trade.…

As Americans prepared to send soldiers overseas during the First World War, the government reorganized the economy to better supply and equip its troops. Peacetime industries shifted towards producing needed military goods (like uniforms and…

In 1919, at the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA) conference, President Carrie Chapman Catt proposed in her address the creation of a “league of women voters to finish the fight and aid in the reconstruction of the nation”. In…