Browse Items (217 total)

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…

At the turn of the twentieth century, many Black women advocated women's voting rights, but their voices often went unheard and their actions were ignored or unwelcomed by the larger white-dominated woman suffrage movement. This was particularly true…

Antonio Sansone was born in 1856 in Termini Imerese, Sicily. He immigrated to the United States in 1880 at the start of a wave of Italian immigration to America that lasted until about 1920. By 1899, he had established Antonio Sansone & Company,…

Early in the 20th century, thousands of European immigrants worked in the coalfields of southwestern Virginia. After the Civil War, rail companies had expanded westward as entrepreneurs and industrialists opened coal seams in the region. Beginning in…

After the Civil War, Black Virginians faced both opportunities and challenges. State law segregated public schools. As a result, a class of Black educators emerged to become leaders not only of their schools, but also of their communities whose…

The fight for woman suffrage was a decades-long struggle that included many participants who held different opinions on how to achieve the goal of voting rights for women. In 1915, suffragists in Virginia split over this issue. Since its founding in…

World War I brought about great shifts in American society. As the nation was gripped by war, the entire population mobilized to produce weapons and supplies for the troops. One way in which they supported the war effort was through the purchasing of…

World War I brought about great shifts in American society. As the war began, women were not allowed to vote or serve in military combat roles. As the nation was gripped by war, the entire population mobilized to produce weapons and supplies for the…

Early in the twentieth century, some Virginia women embraced the fight for equal voting rights and organized the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia in 1909. Many women, however, opposed such efforts and a group in Richmond established the Virginia…