Browse Items (44 total)

In March 1865, before the Civil War had ended, Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (generally known as the Freedmen’s Bureau) to supervise matters related to freed people as well as to distribute land "abandoned" by…

By the 1870s, bicycles and tricycles using wire-spoked wheels were common, particularly in England. Albert A. Pope became the first American bicycle manufacturer under the trade name “Columbia” in Connecticut in 1878.The popularity of bicycles in…

During World War II, the American government asked civilians to participate in the war effort. A common way for the government to communicate with civilians was through posters hung in public places. Inspirational, informative, and instructive, the…

Waterways provided the people of the Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads regions with access to food, supplies, and transport long before English colonists arrived in 1607. As English settlements displaced and removed Indigenous people from the land near…

Historically, coal has been one of Virginia’s most valuable natural resources. The first coal mines were developed after coal deposits were discovered early in the 1700s west of the falls of the James River in the area that is now Midlothian, in…

Tobacco production has dominated Virginia commerce for more than four centuries. From the colonial period, producers created brands that made their products distinguishable from others. Early tobacco art usually took the form of the planters' brand…

In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidential election, making him the first Democratic president in twelve years. As President, Roosevelt took quick action through his New Deal initiative to provide relief for struggling Americans through a…

In the 1930s, the Virginia State Commission on Conservation and Development’s Division of History and Archaeology received funds from the Works Progress Administration’s (later known as the Work Projects Administration) Federal Art Project to…

Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 to protect people with disabilities from discrimination. In 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Olmstead v. L.C. that the ADA prohibits unnecessary segregation of mentally ill or…

Among his many skills, George Washington was a well-respected land surveyor. After the death of his father in 1743, eleven-year-old George Washington did not attend school in England like his older half-brothers, but had private tutors and may have…