Browse Items (28 total)

From late in the 19th century until the middle of the 1960s, Virginia's white authorities tried to keep Black citizens from full participation in government and society. The Virginia state constitution adopted in 1902 reinstituted a poll tax as a…

During the 19th century, local and state governments provided few social programs and women's benevolent activities provided food, shelter, education, and alms for the poor. Often, wealthy white women established charitable or religious-based…

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…

During World War II booklets were published to assist homemakers provide for their families and meet the requirements of the wartime ration system created after the U.S. entered the war in December 1941. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive…

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…

In 1801, following Gabriel's failed slave rebellion, the Virginia General Assembly decreed that county commissioners of the revenue were to return a complete list of all free Black men and women in their districts on an annual basis. The list was to…

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…

After the Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, 1775, Lord Dunmore and his fleet abandoned the city of Norfolk. Patriot soldiers from North Carolina and Virginia took control of the city. They refused to provide food and supplies to the British…

This portrait of Mary Willing Byrd (1740–1814) was painted early in the 1770s by artist Matthew Pratt. Born in Philadelphia, she was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and a god-daughter of Benjamin Franklin. In 1761 she married William Byrd…

Women served in many capacities during the American Revolution. Thousands of women traveled with their husbands when they served in the Continental Army. Known as "camp followers," they marched with the supply wagons, set up camps nearby. These women…