Browse Items (217 total)

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…

“At the Mercy of the Deluge” by artist George H, Ben Johnson was published in the Richmond Planet on July 19, 1919. A mail carrier and an artist, he began publishing editorial cartoons in the Richmond Planet in 1918. His cartoons appeared weekly in…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the call for the  prohibition of alcohol had become a national issue, advocated by many politicians and pushed by several strong organizations. The American Temperance Society, started in 1826, acted as a support…

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 necessary military goods like uniforms and…

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…

Like many “race leaders” in the early 20th century, Maggie L. Walker rose to prominence from modest beginnings as a result of her intellect, education, and business acumen. Her mother was a formerly enslaved woman and her father had served in the…

The woman suffrage movement coincided with major national reform movements seeking to improve public education, create public health programs, regulate business and industrial practices, and establish standards to ensure safety in food and public…

Virgnia has a long history of growing peanuts. In the 1700’s, enslaved people from West Africa cultivated peanuts in Virginia. For those unfamiliar with peanuts at the time, they were a curiosity, and farmers used them to feed animals. Peanut plants…

Radio waves were harnessed to send the first transatlantic wireless transmission in 1901, revolutionizing communication throughout the world. Some entrepreneurs saw a future for widely transmitting voice and music over radio, and by the 1910s…

This application for a marriage license was used after Virginia's General Assembly passed the Racial Integrity Act in 1924. On the form, individuals had to indicate that he or she was not "a habitual criminal, idiot, imbecile, hereditary epileptic or…