Browse Items (21 total)

The legislation authorizing Virginia’s first statewide public school system in 1870 required that schools be racially segregated. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld southern segregation laws as long as facilities…

In the 1930s, the Virginia State Commission on Conservation and Development’s Division of History and Archaeology received funds from the Works Progress Administration’s (later known as the Work Projects Administration) Federal Art Project to…

The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and ends November 30, with the season’s peak occurring between August and October. During the very active hurricane season of 1933, the Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane hit coastal Virginia on…

Skyline Drive is the main road that traverses the length of Shenandoah National Park. Shenandoah National Park was created in 1926 to preserve the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains for recreational use and for future generations. The creation of…

Waterways provided the people of the Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads regions with access to food, supplies, and transport long before English colonists arrived in 1607. As English settlements displaced and removed Indigenous people from the land near…

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election, making him the first Democratic president in twelve years. As President, Roosevelt took quick action through his New Deal initiative to provide relief for struggling Americans through a…

In 1924, the federal government began looking for land in the southern Appalachian Mountains to create a large national park which would be easily accessible to cars and hikers. The park opened in 1936 and was officially completed in 1939. The…

Indigenous peoples, including Virginia Indian tribes, were not considered American citizens even after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Between 1880 and 1920, many tribes established their own schools, as Black citizens did, likely for…

Virginia did not have a statewide system of public schools until after the Civil War. Before this, private academies and common schools were all that existed, but the Virginia General Assembly did authorize a “literary fund” that supplied counties…

The United States produced many posters exhorting people to join the armed forces during World War II, as the need for soldiers, sailors, and pilots was critical. Often, the Office of War Information designed and circulated these posters, which were…