Browse Items (217 total)

The Federal Reserve System, sponsored by Virginia Senator Carter Glass, was signed into law on December 23, 1913, by President Woodrow Wilson. In 1914, the city of Richmond was selected to be the home to one of 12 central bank locations and was to…

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…

Prior to the Civil War, enslaved men and women were not legally allowed to marry. However, many enslaved couples considered themselves married, despite the lack of legal protection and recognition. Often, families were split apart by enslavers who…

A bookplate is a small-sized, decorative label that is adhered to the inside front cover of a book. They are used to identify the owner of a book for personal use or for use in a library. Bookplates are designed to reflect a person’s interests or to…

On May 17, 1954, after nearly two decades of legal challenges against racial segregation in public schools and higher education, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that school segregation was…

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…

The Seaboard Air Line (SAL) Railway was chartered from April 14, 1900 and ran until July 1, 1967, when it merged with another railroad line, Atlantic Coast Railroad to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. The SAL Railway originated from several…

Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and scholar. In 1544, he published Cosmographia, the earliest description of the world written in German, although editions were also published in English, French, Italian, and…

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 1896 US Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson that established the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine gave rise to segregation laws throughout the southern United States. Often called Jim Crow laws, these laws mandated the separation…