Browse Items (35 total)

Salem, Virginia, is an independent city within the boundaries of Roanoke County. The first known European exploration of the area occurred in 1671. Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam gave the area its first recorded name: Totero Town, after the local…

By the end of the 19th century, the conservative Democratic Party dominated Virginia’s General Assembly. After wresting control from the short-lived bi-racial Readjuster Party early in the 1880s, legislators passed a series of laws designed to weaken…

The Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy v Ferguson that “separate but equal” accommodations did not violate the rights of Black citizens paved the way for states across the South to pass formal segregation laws. In 1902, Louisiana passed the…

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute opened in 1868 near the site of Fort Monroe, which had served as a refugee camp for thousands of enslaved men, women, and children who sought freedom there during the Civil War. The fort and surrounding…

Late in the 19th century, some Virginians became interested in preserving historic buildings and landscapes that documented the state's illustrious past. White women led the effort to establish the Association for the Preservation of Virginia…

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…

Founded in 1909, Virginia's Equal Suffrage League sought support for the vote in many ways. Members lobbied legislators, gave public speeches, and published editorial letters, broadsides, and pamphlets. They advanced many arguments about why women…

For a significant portion of American history, women did not have the right to vote. State legislatures determined who could vote, and Virginia did not extend voting rights to all white men until 1851. The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S.…

This pamphlet was one of many produced by the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) to advocate voting rights for women during the 1910s. About twenty women met in Richmond in 1909 to establish the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. Many of the…

After the Civil War, the temperance movement swept the nation. Starting with Maine in 1851, states and localities around the country held referendums to let its citizens vote on whether or not to ban alcohol. In 1886, Virginia adopted the “Local…