Browse Items (222 total)
Remember Dec. 7th!, World War II Poster, 1942
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…
Proclamation in recognition and honor of our beloved president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1945
On April 14, 1945, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was buried in Hyde Park, New York, following funeral services at the White House. Roosevelt had been elected four times to the office of president, a feat never matched, and one that is now…
Pitch in and help! Join the Women's Land Army of the U.S. Crop Corps, WWII Poster, 1944
During the First World War, the United States government created the Women's Land Army of America (WLAA) to provide essential labor to American farms and farmers while young men who had worked in agriculture left to serve in the military or find…
Hurricane Recovery in Tidewater Virginia: A Partial Report on Red Cross Relief and Rehabilitation in the Area Damaged by Wind and Tidal Wave, 1933
The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and ends November 30, with the season’s peak occurring between August and October. During the very active hurricane season of 1933, the Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane hit coastal Virginia on…
Can all you can. It's a real war job! WWII Poster, 1943
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…
Painting of Pocahontas, copy by W. L. Sheppard
Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful paramount chief of the Algonquin Indians in eastern Virginia, which the Indigenous Virginians called Tsenacomoco. She was about eleven years old when the English colonists arrived in 1607.…
Telegram from Major General Kenneth Wickham to Mrs. Carol A. Sowder, 1970
The Vietnam War was a 40-year conflict between the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, and South Vietnam whose principal ally was the United States. This war stemmed from a war of independence from…
Ku Klux Klan, Broadsides, 1966 and 1967
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or the Klan, is an extremist organization that promotes white supremacy and “100 percent Americanism.” The Klan experienced three distinct periods of power in the United States: during Reconstruction (1865–1870s), between the…
Evelyn Butts Challenged the Poll Tax, Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk), 1966
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…
Governor Douglas Wilder Taking the Oath of Office, Photograph, 1990
Lawrence Douglas Wilder (1931– ) made history more than once in Virginia, ultimately becoming the first African American to win election as governor in the United States.
The grandson of enslaved people, Doug Wilder attended racially segregated…