Browse Items (215 total)

The end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in 1865 led to important changes in American politics, especially in the former slave states. The most dramatic were changes to state constitutions and the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment…

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…

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or the Klan, is an extremist organization that promotes white supremacy and “100 percent Americanism.” The Klan experienced three distinct periods of power in the United States: during Reconstruction (1865–1870s), between the…

James I (1566–1625) was the king of Great Britain from 1603 until his death in 1625. The first English ruler from the House of Stuart, he succeeded Queen Elizabeth I after her death. He was the first British monarch to rule both England and…

The Fry-Jefferson map was first published in 1753. It was, at the time, the most comprehensive map of 18th century Virginia. Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson were two of the most successful surveyors in the Virginia colony. They collaborated and…

In 1906, Robert Baden-Powell presented this bust of John Smith to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although best known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement, Baden-Powell was also an artist of considerable skill. The family of Baden-Powell's mother…

On June 6, 1944, soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force stormed the beaches of Normandy as part of Operation Overlord, often referred to as D-Day. Approximately 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile…

In October 1859, abolitionist John Brown and a small group of white and Black men slipped across the border between Maryland and Virginia (now West Virginia) with a plan to occupy the federal arsenal, armory, and rifle factory at Harper's Ferry.…

After the American Revolution, some Virginians, inspired by the language of liberty, freed their enslaved laborers. By 1800 the population of free Black men and women had increased to nearly 20,000, primarily in urban areas like Richmond and…

Prior to the Civil War, Virginia did not have a comprehensive public school system. Some localities provided some "free schools" or "charity schools" for the children of indigent white families. African Americans, free and enslaved, were excluded…