Browse Items (222 total)
James S. Russell and St. Paul Normal and Industrial Institute, Broadside, 1895
This broadside advertises an excursion by train from Lawrenceville to Norfolk as a fundraiser for St. Paul Normal and Industrial Institute. James Solomon Russell (1857–1935) founded St. Paul Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville to serve the…
William Albright, Runaway Slave Record, Kanawha County, 1834
Virginia's economy was based on slavery until the Civil War and emancipation. In 1860, Virginia was home to 500,000 enslaved people, more than any other state. Although most Virginians were not enslavers, farmers and planters used enslaved laborers…
Phillis, Commonwealth Cause, Accomack County, 1824
Commonwealth causes are criminal cases filed by a county's prosecuting attorney (commonwealth's attorney) against individuals who violate Virginia law. Prior to the abolition of slavery in Virginia in 1865, criminal offenders and victims included…
Two Virginia Newspapers Respond to the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education Decision, May 1954
On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Virginia's school system had been segregated since it was established in 1870, and…
Lesson Plan – School Desegregation and the Voices Not Heard, 1956
In 1896 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation did not violate the "equal protection of the laws" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Virginia and other southern states employed the doctrine of "separate…
Pamunkey Indian Tribe, Counter Petition, 1843
After a public notice appeared in a Richmond newspaper in October 1842 that a petition would be presented to the Virginia General Assembly to sell King William County property known as "Indian town lands," members of the Pamunkey tribe took action.…
Portrait of Black Hawk, 1833
Black Hawk, born in 1767 and known in his native language as Makataimeshekiakiak, was a Sauk warrior and tribal leader. The Sauk lived on the Rock River, a tributary of the Mississippi, in what is now Illinois, and fought against the United States…
Anthony Rosenstock, Naturalization, 1869
As a young man Anthony Rosenstock (1833–1906) left his home in what is now Germany and sailed from Hamburg to New York City, arriving in November 1853. When he landed, he had three cents and a letter of introduction to a distant relation. He…
Luther Porter Jackson—Highlighting Black History
The contributions of African Americans to the politics, life, and culture of the Commonwealth of Virginia have often been ignored in traditional histories and textbooks. Historian Luther Porter Jackson (1892–1950), however, researched and wrote…
Jozsef Estéfan, Immigration Request, 1916
Early in the 20th century, thousands of European immigrants worked in the coalfields of southwestern Virginia. After the Civil War, rail companies had expanded westward as entrepreneurs and industrialists opened coal seams in the region. Beginning in…