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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

On February 3, 1865, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens and two other commissioners met with United States President Abraham Lincoln on the steamship River Queen near Fort Monroe in Hampton to discuss a potential treaty to end the Civil…

From the beginning of the Civil War, the Confederate government attempted to requisition needed goods and services from private citizens. In March 1863, the Confederate Congress passed an Impressment Act that allowed them to requisition crops,…

From September 1939 to December 1941, the United States was not officially at war with any of the Axis powers. While the government provided to the Allies through programs such as Lend-Lease, Americans generally held a strong isolationist sentiment…

Emancipation at the end of the Civil War did not bestow citizenship or legal protections on formerly enslaved men and women. Concerned that the newly freed African Americans would not be treated equally in courts of law, Congress passed a Civil…