Browse Items (224 total)

Harry Flood Byrd (1887–1966) served as state senator from 1915 to 1926, governor from 1926 to 1930, and as a United States Senator from 1933 to 1965. Byrd hailed from Winchester, Virginia, and came from a prominent and politically connected family.…

Hopewell, Virginia, was like many small towns in the south that benefited financially from outside industrial development early in the 20th century. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the E.I. DuPont de Nemours Company began producing guncotton…

On June 6, 1944, soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force stormed the beaches of Normandy as part of Operation Overlord, often referred to as D-Day. Approximately 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile…

Based in New York, N.Y., 1942-1946. Artists for Victory, Inc. was a non-profit organization of more than ten thousand artists formed to assist in the war effort. Their activities included a British-American goodwill exhibition, sponsorship of…

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…

Antonio Sansone was born in 1856 in Termini Imerese, Sicily. He immigrated to the United States in 1880 at the start of a wave of Italian immigration to America that lasted until about 1920. By 1899, he had established Antonio Sansone & Company,…

Late in the 19th century, some Virginians became interested in preserving historic buildings and landscapes that documented the state's illustrious past. White women led the effort to establish the Association for the Preservation of Virginia…

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…

Phillip Gowen (whose surname sometimes appears as Cowen or Corven) was the son of a freed African servant. He was bound out as an indentured servant late in the 17th century. He was, like all indentured servants at that time, required to serve a…

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…