Encyclopedia Virginia: Twentieth Century History (1901–2000)

Jackson, Giles B. (1853–1924)

Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST

Giles B. Jackson, although born enslaved, became an attorney, entrepreneur, real estate developer, newspaper publisher, and civil rights activist in the conservative mold of his mentor, Booker T. Washington. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), he served as a body servant to his master, a Confederate cavalry colonel. After the war, Jackson worked for the Stewart family in Richmond, where he learned to read and write. Subsequently, he was employed in the law offices of William H. Beveridge, who tutored Jackson in the law. In 1887, Jackson became the first African American attorney certified to argue before the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The next year, he helped found a bank associated with the United Order of True Reformers, and in 1900 became an aide to Washington, who had just founded the National Negro Business League in Boston. Jackson organized and promoted the Jamestown Negro Exhibit at the Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907 in the face of criticism from some black intellectuals that his attempt to highlight black achievement was itself an accommodation of Jim Crow segregation. He published a newspaper designed to publicize the exhibition and, in 1908, a book detailing its history. His efforts at the end of his life on behalf of a congressional bill aimed at addressing interracial labor problems failed. Jackson died in 1924.
Fri, 04 May 2012 13:44:07 EST

Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers

Thu, 03 May 2012 16:09:02 EST

The Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers was an African American fraternal organization that became the largest and most successful black business enterprise in the United States between 1881 and 1910. William Washington Browne founded and organized the Grand Fountain in Richmond in January 1881. A former slave, veteran of the Union army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), teacher, and Methodist minister, Browne created the Grand Fountain with a renewed purpose and energy out of the languishing Grand United Order of True Reformers, which began in the 1870s in Alabama and Kentucky. Where the original order taught temperance and provided members with sick and death benefits, Browne's vision expanded into an enterprise that cultivated a growing black middle class by offering services that included a savings bank, a real estate company, a retirement home, and a youth and children's division that taught discipline, thrift, and business skills. Although the Grand Fountain operated until 1934, it was never the same after 1910, when an embezzlement scandal and a number of large loan defaults caused the bank to close its doors. Despite the organization's downfall, the order left a powerful legacy because it provided employment and business opportunities to African Americans and helped to establish community leaders and business networks amidst a period of Jim Crow laws and strict racial segregation in Virginia.
Thu, 03 May 2012 16:09:02 EST

Peery, George Campbell (1873–1952)

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:39:27 EST

George Campbell Peery, a Democratic ally of Harry F. Byrd Sr., served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1923–1929) and as governor of Virginia (1934–1938). Peery made his first mark on Virginia's political map and brought a great victory to the Democratic Party when he wrested control of Southwest Virginia's "Fighting Ninth" Congressional District from two decades of Republican occupation. As Byrd's handpicked choice to replace outgoing governor John Garland Pollard, Peery instituted a number of reforms and policies of lasting impact. A Byrd Organization disciple, Peery valued economic thrift and small government, but was not afraid to support more progressive policies when they were politically and economically advantageous. He advocated, for instance, increased funding for public education and recommended that the state adopt an unemployment insurance plan. Peery also created the Department of Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control to regulate alcohol sales and consumption in a post-prohibition Virginia.
Thu, 03 May 2012 14:39:27 EST

Honorary Virginians

Thu, 03 May 2012 09:57:36 EST

At various times the Commonwealth of Virginia has voted to honor persons not resident in the state who have made signal contributions to Virginia's history and culture. It is often erroneously stated that Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), was named an honorary Virginian. By a statute passed in 1785 entitled "An Act for the Naturalization of the Marquis De La Fayette," the French-born general, who served with the Continental army in Virginia in 1780 and 1781 during the American Revolution and who was a prominent participant in the defeat of Charles Cornwallis, second earl Cornwallis, at Yorktown, was naturalized as a full citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, with "the most decisive mark of regard which a Republic can give."
Thu, 03 May 2012 09:57:36 EST

Robertson, A. Willis (1887–1971)

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:33:51 EST

A. Willis Robertson served in the Senate of Virginia (1916–1922), the United States House of Representatives (1933–1946), and the United States Senate (1946–1966). His career closely paralleled that of his friend and mentor, Harry F. Byrd, the leader of the Democratic Party in Virginia. They were born within two weeks of each other and only a few streets apart in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1887. They began their service in the Virginia state senate on the same day in 1916, and arrived at the United States Congress—Byrd to the Senate, Robertson to the House—on the same day in 1933. Though he stood with Byrd on many issues, including civil rights, Robertson asserted his independence from Byrd's political machine, the Byrd Organization, throughout his twenty-year senatorial career. Robertson differed from Byrd in his views on foreign policy and in his support of Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956; in addition, Robertson was not a strong supporter of Byrd's Massive Resistance policy. In 1966 Robertson lost his Senate seat to William B. Spong, a more liberal Democrat from Portsmouth.
Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:33:51 EST

Robinson, Morgan Poitiaux (1876–1943)

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:02:38 EST

Morgan Poitiaux Robinson, Virginia's first state archivist, worked to make the state's records more accessible and to ensure that local records were stored in fireproof buildings. The son of John Enders Robinson and Virginia Morgan, he was born in Richmond on February 11, 1876. After receiving his early education in the city at Mrs. Camm's School for Boys and McGuire's University School, he entered the University of Virginia, where he earned a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a law degree.
Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:02:38 EST

Chaloner, John Armstrong (1862–1935)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:29:48 EST

John Armstrong Chaloner was a celebrity and writer known for coining the catchphrase "Who's looney now?" after his personal trials with psychiatric experimentation and treatment. When his wealthy family learned that he believed he possessed a new sense, which he called the "X-Faculty," they had him committed to a psychiatric hospital in New York in 1897; a court later declared him insane and ruled he be permanently institutionalized. He escaped the institution and was ultimately deemed sane more than twenty years later. In the meantime, he published about two dozen books on his experiments with psychotherapy and his stay in the insane asylum. His books, such as The Lunacy Law of the World (1906), often attacked the rising power of psychiatric medicine, and his case was controversial particularly among the nation's leading psychologists, who disagreed about whether he was rational or paranoid. He married and divorced the novelist Amélie Rives, but lived near her Albemarle County home for much of his life.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:29:48 EST

Loving v. Virginia (1967)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST

In the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down laws banning interracial marriages in the United States. At one time, as many as forty-one states had such prohibitions. Virginia's law had been passed in 1691 and, after being amended several times, reached its final version in the Racial Integrity Act, passed by the Virginia General Assembly on March 20, 1924. Although every state with such a law banned marriage between a white person and an African American, some laws, including Virginia's, went further and prohibited marriage between whites and other non-white ethnic groups such as Asians and Native Americans. Loving v. Virginia was a landmark case, both in the history of race relations in the United States and in the ongoing political and cultural dispute over the proper definition of marriage.
Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:32:57 EST

Spong, William Belser Jr. (1920–1997)

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:15:52 EST

William Belser Spong Jr. was a Virginia lawyer and politician who served in the House of Delegates (1954–1955), the Senate of Virginia (1956–1966), and the United States Senate (1966–1973). He was born in Portsmouth on September 29, 1920, to William Belser Spong and Emily Nichols Spong. He attended public schools in Portsmouth and attended Hampden-Sydney College before receiving a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1947. Spong served in the 93rd Bomber Group of the Eighth Air Force during World War II (1939–1945). He was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1947 and practiced law in Portsmouth. At the same time he lectured in law and government at the College of William and Mary.
Wed, 07 Mar 2012 10:15:52 EST

United Daughters of the Confederacy

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:59:22 EST

The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was formed in 1894 to protect and perpetuate Confederate memory following the American Civil War (1861–1865). According to the group's founding documents, it sought "to fulfill the duties of sacred charity to the survivors of the war and those dependent upon them … to perpetuate the memory of our Confederate heroes and the glorious cause for which they fought." Through chapters in Virginia and other southern states (and even a handful in the North), members directed most of their efforts toward raising funds for Confederate monuments, sponsoring Memorial Day parades, caring for indigent Confederate widows, sponsoring essay contests and fellowships for southern students, and maintaining Confederate museums and relic collections. The context of these efforts was the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War, which emphasized states' rights and secession over slavery as causes of the war and was often used to further the goals of white supremacists in the twentieth century. The organization continues to perform memorial work, its national headquarters located in the former Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:59:22 EST

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:15:46 EST

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of national legislation, not only for the civil rights movement but for the emerging women's movement of the 1960s. It officially outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment and established the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to enforce those provisions. In contrast to earlier civil rights measures, it included a ban on employment discrimination on the basis of gender, as well as race, color, and religion, making it the most comprehensive civil rights bill in American history and giving the revived women's movement new legal—and moral—weight. Yet, in an ironic twist, the legislation banned gender discrimination only because of the efforts of Howard W. Smith, U.S. representative from Virginia, a leader of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, and an opponent of civil rights. His tireless attempts to defeat the bill—including adding "sex" as grounds for illegal discrimination, which he believed would guarantee the bill's failure—resulted in a more expansive bill passing.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:15:46 EST

Anti-Lynching Law of 1928

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:43:13 EST

The Virginia Anti-Lynching Law of 1928, signed by Virginia governor Harry Flood Byrd Sr. on March 14, 1928, was the first measure in the nation that defined lynching specifically as a state crime. The bill's enactment marked the culmination of a campaign waged by Louis Isaac Jaffé, the editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot , who responded more forcefully than any other white Virginian to an increase in mob violence in the mid-1920s. Jaffé's efforts, however, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1929, came to fruition only after the state's political and business leadership recognized that mob violence was a threat to their efforts to attract business and industry. Ironically, no white person was ever convicted of lynching an African American under the law.
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:43:13 EST

Colonial Williamsburg

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:37:02 EST

Colonial Williamsburg is the restored and reconstructed historic area of Williamsburg, Virginia, a small city between the York and James rivers that was founded in 1632, designated capital of the English colony in 1698, and bestowed with a royal charter in 1722. It was a center of political activity before and during the American Revolution (1775–1783)—where George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry debated taxes, slavery, and the inalienable rights of men—and has since become the site of an ambitious restoration project launched in the 1930s and funded largely by the family of John D. Rockefeller Jr. With many of its historic structures rebuilt and with "interpreters" reenacting eighteenth-century life, Colonial Williamsburg has become a landmark in the history of the American preservation movement. More than that, though, the project serves as a self-conscious shrine of American ideals. The history and legacy of slavery, once downplayed at Williamsburg, is now dealt with openly—interpreters are both white and African American—but the focus remains on what the site's originators called "healthful" information about democracy, freedom, and representative government.
Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:37:02 EST

Shenandoah National Park

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:53:16 EST

Shenandoah National Park in the northern Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia was created in 1926 to preserve an area of natural beauty and provide recreational opportunities for the people in the surrounding region. Long populated by Siouan- and Iroquoian-speaking Indians, the area was first opened for settlement by whites early in the eighteenth century. When the National Park Service expressed an interest in a park in the Appalachian Mountains, a group of Virginia businessmen, in league with then-state senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., championed a "skyline" drive through the Blue Ridge. Byrd's fund-raising and administrative skills proved to be crucial to the project, especially in the wake of dwindling federal support during the Great Depression. The 160,000-acre park (which has since grown to almost 200,000 acres) was dedicated in 1936 and the Skyline Drive completed in 1939.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:53:16 EST

Jamestown 350th Anniversary, 1957

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:52:23 EST

In 1957, Virginia hosted an eight-month-long celebration known as the "Jamestown Festival" to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the founding of the colony at Jamestown. Organized through the efforts of the Virginia 350th Anniversary Commission the festival emphasized the key role that Jamestown, as the first permanent English settlement in North America, played in American history. The event drew national and international attention to the state, and brought more than a million visitors to the Jamestown area, including then-U.S. vice president Richard Nixon and Queen Elizabeth II of England. It also suffered from the limitations of its day, namely the failure to take into account more fully the perspectives of Virginia Indians and African Americans.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:52:23 EST

Civilian Conservation Corps

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:35:57 EST

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was the most popular of United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs, even winning the endorsement of Virginia's conservative U.S. senator Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (While Byrd was a fellow Democrat, he advocated a small federal government that did not spend ahead of means or interfere in state affairs.) Designed to alleviate the widespread unemployment caused by the Great Depression, the CCC recruited unmarried, unemployed young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five to spend six months in camps doing conservation work, primarily in the nation's forests. They were paid $1 a day, most of which was sent to their parents in $25 monthly allotments. The War Department ran most of the camps on a military basis, providing supervision and discipline. Although some critics saw a fascist-like militarism in such circumstances, the CCC had the positive, although unintended consequence of preparing men for service in World War II (1939–1945). At its peak, the CCC employed half-a-million men in more than 2,500 camps, and 2.5 million men enlisted during its nine-year existence.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:35:57 EST

Historical Highway Marker Program

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:35:30 EST

Established in 1926, Virginia's Historical Highway Marker Program is one of the oldest in the nation. Originally intended to commemorate such traditional subjects as military events, colonial home sites, and prominent Virginians from early American society, topics today range from authors and musicians to architecture, transportation, and industry, and include significant people, places, and events from all segments of Virginia history and society. Early in the twenty-first century, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, which administers the highway marker program, led a special effort to fund and create new markers honoring African Americans, Virginia Indians, and women, as well as significant places and events related to their accomplishments, in order to represent the scope of Virginia history more completely.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:35:30 EST

Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition of 1907

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST

The Jamestown Ter-Centennial Exposition, marking the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the Virginia colony by settlers from England, was held in Norfolk, Virginia, from April 26 to November 30, 1907. The event was one in a series of large fairs and expositions held across the United States, beginning with the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, which commemorated the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's landing in America. Such events were designed as international showcases for arts and technology and were often linked to important anniversaries in order to highlight the notion of historical "progress." More than its predecessors, the Jamestown exhibition emphasized athletics and military prowess, the latter drawing some protests. Among many dignitaries who visited the exposition were U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, the author Mark Twain, the educator Booker T. Washington, representatives from more than twenty nations abroad, and a number of foreign naval ships. Although the exhibition on African Americans was considered to be particularly successful, the event in general was a financial fiasco, plagued by poor management, overly ambitious plans, insufficient resources, and tight deadlines. The naval display, however, was impressive enough that in 1917 the exposition's site became home to Naval Air Station Hampton Roads (later Naval Station Norfolk).
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:36:42 EST

Poll Tax

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:43:27 EST

A poll tax is a tax levied as a prerequisite for voting. After Reconstruction (1865–1877)—the twelve-year period of rebuilding that followed the American Civil War (1861–1865)—many southern states passed poll taxes in an effort to keep African Americans from voting. As a result, many African Americans (and other impoverished citizens) who could not afford to pay the poll tax were disfranchised and deprived of their rights as citizens. In 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted, stipulating that an individual's right to vote could not be denied by any state on the basis of race or color. Southern state legislators, however, soon looked for other ways to keep the vote from African Americans, which inevitably, and perhaps by design, blocked some white Americans. In response, many state legislatures drew up grandfather clauses to ensure that non–African American constituents were included in the voting process. The U.S. Supreme Court declared grandfather clauses unconstitutional in 1915 and again in 1939, but poll taxes had greater longevity and remained in effect into the era of the civil rights movement. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, outlawed the use of this tax (or any other tax) as a pre-condition in voting in federal elections, and the 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections extended this ruling, stating that the imposition of a poll tax in state elections violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:43:27 EST

Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:22:56 EST

Organized in 1889, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), currently known as APVA/Preservation Virginia, was the nation's first statewide historic preservation organization. Spearheaded by an elite mix of female antiquarians and their "gentlemen advisers," it became a sanctioned instrument of conservatives who strove to counter social and political changes after the American Civil War (1861–1865) by emphasizing southern history and tradition. The APVA enshrined old buildings, graveyards, and historical sites—many of which were forlorn, if not forgotten—and exhibited them as symbols of Virginia's identity. As the national preservation movement evolved, the APVA became less overtly political and now identifies itself as a professional organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the Commonwealth's heritage.
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:22:56 EST

Constitutional Convention, Virginia (1901–1902)

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:33:57 EST

The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902 produced the Virginia Constitution of 1902 and is an important example of post-Reconstruction efforts to restore white supremacy in the American South by disenfranchising large numbers of blacks and working-class whites. Remaining in effect until July 1, 1971, the constitution did much to shape Virginia politics in the twentieth century—a politics dominated by a conservative Democratic Party that fiercely resisted the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the civil rights movement, and, with special fervor, federally mandated public school desegregation. Yet the significance of the 1901–1902 convention extends beyond Virginia in that it demonstrates the irony of how Progressive Era reforms nationwide often resulted in state legislation that was far from progressive.
Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:33:57 EST

Green, Charles C. et al. v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:15:41 EST

Charles C. Green et al. v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia, was a 1968 United States Supreme Court decision that ordered school districts to abolish dual systems of education for black and white students, placing on them an "affirmative duty" to integrate their schools genuinely. The pressure for such a ruling had mounted in the years since the Court's landmark decisions in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954) and Brown II (1955), which had declared separate schools to be "inherently unequal" but did not define the process by which schools would be desegregated. Virginia officials had responded to Brown with the Massive Resistance movement, in some cases shutting down public schools rather than integrating them. Incremental desegregation occurred when federal courts forced those schools to reopen in 1959, although schools in Prince Edward County did not reopen until 1964. But in New Kent County, school board officials instituted bureaucratic delays while also placing the burden of desegregation on black families through a "freedom of choice" plan. Not until the Supreme Court struck down most "freedom of choice" plans in Green did Virginia school districts implement full desegregation.
Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:15:41 EST

Spencer, Anne (1882–1975)

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:42:52 EST

Anne Spencer was a poet, a civil rights activist, a teacher, a librarian, and a gardener. While fewer than thirty of her poems were published in her lifetime, she was an important figure of the black literary movement of the 1920s—the Harlem Renaissance—and only the second African American poet to be included in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (1973). Noted for iambic verse preoccupied with biblical and mythological themes, Spencer found fans in such Harlem heavyweights as James Weldon Johnson, who commented on her "economy of phrase and compression of thought." In addition to her writing, Spencer helped to found the Lynchburg chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She was also an avid gardener and hosted a salon at her Lynchburg garden, which attracted prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Her former residence is now a museum that is open to the public.
Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:42:52 EST

Daniel, Wilbur Clarence "Dan" (1914–1988)

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:27:00 EST

Wilbur Clarence "Dan" Daniel represented Danville in the House of Delegates (1960–1969) and served as representative from Virginia in the United States Congress (1969–1988). Prior to his election to public office, he served as the state and then national commander of the American Legion (1951; 1956), a platform he used to lobby for veterans' rights and benefits. A conservative whose views on integration aligned with those of United States senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., Daniel supported Massive Resistance and voted in favor of keeping the poll tax. During his nineteen years in Congress, he worked to strengthen national defense, supported United States president Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal, and helped write the Omnibus Anti-Drug Act of 1985. On January 19, 1988, Daniel announced that he would not seek reelection to Congress due to his struggle with heart disease. He died four days later of an aortic dissection at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville.
Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:27:00 EST

Plecker, Walter Ashby (1861–1947)

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:07:25 EST

Walter Ashby Plecker was a physician and the first Virginia state registrar of vital statistics, a position he served in from 1912 to 1946. He was a staunch promoter of eugenics, a discredited movement aimed at scientifically proving white racial superiority and thereby justifying the marginalizing of non-white people. Employing Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, Plecker effectively separated Virginia citizens into two simplified racial categories: white and colored. The law, which remained in effect until 1967, when it was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia , required that a racial description of every person be recorded at birth, while criminalizing marriages between whites and non-whites. Plecker's policies used deceptive scientific evidence to deem blacks a lesser class of human beings, but they also targeted poor whites and anyone he or other eugenicists considered "feebleminded." Asserting that Virginia Indians were, in fact, "mixed-blooded negroes," Plecker also pressured state agencies into reclassifying Indians as "colored." The policy's legacy was effectively to erase "Indian" as an identity and has made it difficult for Virginia Indians to gain state and federal recognition.
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:07:25 EST

Massive Resistance

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST

Massive Resistance was a policy adopted in 1956 by Virginia's state government to block the desegregation of public schools mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954 ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Advocated by U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., a conservative Democrat and former governor who coined the term, Massive Resistance reflected the racial views and fears of Byrd's power base in Southside Virginia as well as the senator's reflexive disdain for federal government intrusion into state affairs. When schools were shut down in Front Royal in Warren County , Charlottesville , and Norfolk to prevent desegregation, the courts stepped in and overturned the policy. In the end, Massive Resistance added more bitterness to race relations already strained by the resentments engendered by the caste system and delayed large-scale desegregation of Virginia's public schools for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Virginia's defiance served as an example for the states of the Lower South, and the legal vestiges of Massive Resistance lasted until early in the 1970s.
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:09:35 EST

Harrison, Burton, Mrs., (1843–1920)

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST

Mrs. Burton Harrison, also known as Constance Cary Harrison, was a prolific American novelist late in the nineteenth century who came from a prominent Virginia family. As a young woman, she witnessed the destruction of the American Civil War (1861–1865) and nursed the Confederate wounded in Manassas and Richmond. After the war, Harrison toured Europe, eventually married, and settled down in New York City. She was active in elite New York society and produced a large body of work, much of it popular serialized fiction and sentimental romance, in which she recorded the social mores of her time. The author of more than fifty works, including short stories, articles and essays, children's books, and short plays, she is best known for her 1911 autobiography, Recollections Grave and Gay.
Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:42:40 EST

Clark, Adèle (1882–1983)

Tue, 17 May 2011 16:24:45 EST

Adèle Clark was a founding member of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, nineteen years the chair of Virginia's League of Women Voters, dean of women at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, New Deal–era field worker, and an accomplished artist and arts advocate. Clark called politics and art her "creative spirits," and she exemplified the crucial role women played in the social reform movements of the twentieth century, applying her sharp intellect, artistic skills, and fiery determination to championing both women and the arts.
Tue, 17 May 2011 16:24:45 EST

Lost Cause, The

Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST

The Lost Cause is an interpretation of the American Civil War (1861–1865) that seeks to present the war, from the perspective of Confederates, in the best possible terms. Developed by white Southerners, many of them former Confederate generals, in a postwar climate of economic, racial, and gender uncertainty, the Lost Cause created and romanticized the "Old South" and the Confederate war effort, often distorting history in the process. For this reason, many historians have labeled the Lost Cause a myth or a legend. It is certainly an important example of public memory, one in which nostalgia for the Confederate past is accompanied by a collective forgetting of the horrors of slavery. Providing a sense of relief to white Southerners who feared being dishonored by defeat, the Lost Cause was largely accepted in the years following the war by white Americans who found it to be a useful tool in reconciling North and South. The Lost Cause has lost much of its academic support but continues to be an important part of how the Civil War is commemorated in the South and remembered in American popular culture.
Mon, 09 May 2011 09:35:42 EST

Confederate Battle Flag

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:30:34 EST

The Confederate battle flag, initially authorized for units of the Confederate armed forces during the American Civil War (1861–1865), has become one of the most recognized, misunderstood, and controversial symbols in American history. Originally designed as a Confederate national flag by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina, it was rejected by the Confederate Congress but subsequently adopted by the Confederate army, which needed a banner that was easily distinguishable from the United States flag. The battle flag transformed into a national symbol as the Army of Northern Virginia, with which it was closely associated, also became an important symbol. It even was incorporated into the Confederacy's Second and Third National flags. Following the war, proponents of the Lost Cause used the battle flag to represent Southern valor and honor, although it also was implicitly connected to white supremacy. In the mid-twentieth century, the battle flag simultaneously became ubiquitous in American culture while, partly through the efforts of the Ku Klux Klan, becoming increasingly tied to racial violence and intimidation. African Americans conflated the battle flag to opposition to the civil rights movement, while neo-Confederates argued that its meaning had to do with states' rights and southern identity, not racial hatred. The political and social lines of dispute over the flag remain much the same at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:30:34 EST

Boyle, Sarah Patton (1906–1994)

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:39:01 EST

Sarah Patton Boyle was one of Virginia's most prominent white civil rights activists during the 1950s and 1960s and author of the widely acclaimed autobiography The Desegregated Heart: A Virginian's Stand in Time of Transition (1962). Her desegregation efforts began in 1950 when she wrote to Gregory Swanson welcoming him as the University of Virginia's first black law student. Through her experience with Swanson, her views on desegregation evolved from being a proponent of gradual desegregation to a leading and often controversial white voice for immediate desegregation in public schools and in higher education. Her 1955 article for the Saturday Evening Post, titled "Southerners Will Like Integration," prompted a fierce backlash that included having a cross burned in her Charlottesville yard. Boyle did not moderate her views, however, and worked closely with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), earning praise from Martin Luther King Jr., Lillian Smith, and others, as well as numerous awards and a measure of national fame. The intensity of her political involvement triggered a deep depression, however, and she eventually became disillusioned with the civil rights movement, retiring from activism in 1967. In 1983, she authored a memoir that contemplated her experience dealing with age discrimination.
Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:39:01 EST

Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:49:54 EST

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT) connects the Virginia mainland at the city of Virginia Beach directly with the Delmarva Peninsula. Completed in 1964 and recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1965 as one of the "Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World," the structure is comprised of bridges, tunnels, and land roads that span a total of twenty-three miles. Initially considered to be a risky financial move, the CBBT is now a profitable and expanding enterprise.
Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:49:54 EST

Republican Party of Virginia

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:10:52 EST

The Republican Party is one of two major political parties in Virginia. Although founded in 1854 in opposition to the spread of slavery, the party did not take hold in Virginia until after the American Civil War (1861–1865). Even then, for nearly a century the Republicans were an ineffectual, minority party with only pockets of regional strength. During this period, the conservative Democratic Party dominated politics in Virginia and the rest of the South. After World War II (1939–1945), economic growth, demographic trends, electoral reforms, and policy debates combined to spur a realignment that gradually brought the Virginia parties into line philosophically with their national counterparts. As the center-right party in a conservative-leaning state, the Virginia Republican Party became consistently competitive. Following the mid-1970s, Virginia politics settled into a pattern characterized by active competition between the two major party organizations and their candidates. Partisan fortunes ebbed and flowed, but neither party established durable majority support on a statewide basis. In the twenty-first century Republican candidates in Virginia routinely compete with their Democratic rivals for the support of nonaligned voters (generally called "independents") in addition to mobilizing fellow partisans.
Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:10:52 EST

Danville Civil Rights Demonstrations of 1963

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST

The Danville civil rights demonstrations began peacefully late in May 1963 when local civil rights leaders organized demonstrations, sit-ins, and marches to protest segregation in all spheres, but especially in municipal government, employment, and public facilities. As protests accelerated, however, white authorities responded early in June with tough legal stratagems and violence, attacking demonstrators with clubs and fire hoses. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) all sent state and national leaders to Danville to assist the African American protesters, but to little avail. The legal resistance displayed by authorities—injunctions, ordinances, and court procedures condemned by the U.S. Justice Department—proved so effective and unyielding that protests were stymied, resulting in few immediate gains for African Americans.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:50:05 EST

Pentagon, The

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:40:47 EST

The Pentagon, located in Arlington, Virginia, is home to the Department of Defense and serves as military headquarters for the United States. The enormous, 6.24-million-square-foot concrete structure is the largest office building in the world, covering thirty-four acres. Built to house the burgeoning War Department on the eve of the United States' entry into World War II (1939–1945), the headquarters was constructed in just seventeen months. From the moment Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall moved into the building in November 1942, the Pentagon has served as the focal point of American military planning and operations. Vital decisions regarding the D-Day invasion of Europe and the development of the atomic bomb were made at the Pentagon during World War II. In subsequent years the Pentagon has been the setting for many more critical decisions, from the Cold War and the Vietnam War (1961–1975) to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On September 11, 2001, terrorists flew a hijacked passenger jet into the Pentagon, killing 184 people and seriously damaging the building but not shutting it down. With its iconic, five-sided shape, the Pentagon is one of the world's most recognizable buildings and it has come to serve as a symbol of American military strength.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:40:47 EST

Puller, Lewis Burwell "Chesty" (1898–1970)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:38:55 EST

Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller, whose barrel chest and blunt manner inspired his nickname, was a thirty-seven-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who rose to the rank of lieutenant general. The most-decorated Marine in history, he earned five Navy Crosses, the U.S. Navy's second-highest decoration, for fighting in Nicaragua, at Guadalcanal and in New Guinea during the World War II (1939–1945), and at the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War (1950–1953).
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:38:55 EST

Disfranchisement

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:30:54 EST

Disfranchisement (also called disenfranchisement) is the revocation of the right of suffrage. African American males voted in Virginia for the first time in October 1867, during Reconstruction (1865–1877), when the military governor of the state, John M. Schofield, ordered a referendum on whether to hold a convention to write a new state constitution and to elect delegates to serve in the convention. A majority of white Virginians disapproved of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1870, which prohibited states from denying the vote to any man because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Ensuring that Virginia elections were set up to express the public opinion rather than suppress it was a task that took decades to complete. It was not until the abolition of the poll tax in the 1960s and adoption of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 that black men and women registered and voted in appreciable numbers in Virginia outside a few urban precincts and that white men and women began to register and vote in significantly larger percentages than during the first half of the twentieth century.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:30:54 EST

Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:26:12 EST

Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University (1902–1910), governor of New Jersey (1911–1913), twenty-eighth president of the United States (1913–1921), and creator of the League of Nations. Although he was sometimes caricatured as a northern academic, Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia, and considered himself to be southern. As such, he was the first southerner elected president since Zachary Taylor in 1848, and brought to the office a progressive zeal for reform, both economic and social, as well as the typical mindset of the southern white political class, which considered African Americans second-class citizens, that contributed to his decision strictly to segregate the federal workforce. He is perhaps best known for leading the United States into the World War I (1914–1918), despite an election vow to do otherwise, and for helping to negotiate the resulting Treaty of Versailles. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:26:12 EST

Wilder, Lawrence Douglas (1931– )

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:22:17 EST

L. Douglas Wilder was governor of Virginia from 1990 until 1994. His was a political career of many firsts: the grandson of slaves, he was the first African American elected governor of any state in America. He was the first black member of the Virginia Senate in the twentieth century. And he was the first African American to win statewide office in Virginia when he was elected lieutenant governor in 1985. A Democrat, he ran briefly for United States president in 1991 and in 2004 was elected mayor of Richmond, serving until 2008.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:22:17 EST

Byrd, Harry Flood Jr. (1914– )

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:21:18 EST

Harry F. Byrd Jr. represented Virginia in the United States Senate from 1965 to 1983 after serving seventeen years in the Senate of Virginia. A member of one of Virginia's most powerful political families, Byrd took over the Senate seat from his father in 1965. Byrd, however, was also something of a dissident, quitting the Democratic Party in 1970 to run as an Independent. In addition to his career in politics, Byrd followed his father into journalism as well, serving as editor and publisher of the Winchester Star from 1935 to 1981 and as publisher of the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record from 1939 to 2001.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:21:18 EST

Ashe, Arthur (1943–1993)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:20:09 EST

Arthur Ashe was a professional tennis player, broadcaster, author, and activist. Known for his on-court grace and low-key demeanor, he was the first black men's tennis champion at the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, the first African American to play for and captain the U.S. Davis Cup team, and the first black man inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Yet it was and remains Ashe's accomplishments outside of professional tennis for which he is most noted. He was the first and only African American to have a statue of his likeness erected on Richmond's historic Monument Avenue and one of the most prominent athletes of any race to die from AIDS.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:20:09 EST

Holton, A. Linwood (1923– )

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:18:52 EST

A. Linwood Holton was a governor of Virginia (1970–1974) and the first Republican to hold the office since Reconstruction (1865–1877). Hailing from Big Stone Gap in southwest Virginia, Holton was among the "Mountain and Valley" Republicans who began to gain statewide support in the 1950s in opposition to the Byrd Organization and in support of public school desegregation. Holton won a narrow race for governor in 1969 with a coalition that included a substantial number of African American and white working-class voters. As governor, he declared an end to Massive Resistance, the state's anti–desegregation policy, announcing, "The era of defiance is behind us." In 1970, he was photographed escorting his daughter Tayloe into a nearly all-black high school in Richmond. In addition, Holton reorganized the executive branch, worked to clean Virginia's polluted waters, and helped create a unified Ports Authority in Hampton Roads. He was not able to overcome increasing factionalism among state Republicans, however, and the party lost a series of statewide elections in the 1970s. A bold and decisive progressive on matters of race relations, he did much to break the Democrats' one-party dominance of Virginia's political life. He was less successful at imprinting his own moderate conservative philosophy on the Virginia Republican Party.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:18:52 EST

Woman Suffrage in Virginia

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:01:54 EST

The woman suffrage movement, which sought voting rights for women, began in Virginia as early as 1870. In 1909, its most vocal supporters organized around the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, which joined with national groups in an effort to change state and local laws and pass an amendment to the United States Constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was passed in Congress in 1919 and ratified by the states a year later. Virginia, however, delayed its ratification until 1952. By then, women had been voting and, slowly, winning elected office in the state for more than 30 years.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:01:54 EST

Virginia's State Parks

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:57:00 EST

Virginia's state parks system was launched on June 15, 1936, when the six inaugural parks opened simultaneously. The creation of those parks was made possible through one of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the goal of which was to create jobs to help pull the country out of the Great Depression. The success of those first six parks in providing citizens with recreational opportunities and preserving Virginia's natural areas led to an expansion to thirty-four state parks established in Virginia in 2008.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:57:00 EST

Virginia Writers Project

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:55:55 EST

The Virginia Writers Project was formed in 1935 as part of the Works Progress Administration, a federal program designed to combat the Great Depression. With a staff of approximately forty Virginia teachers, writers, librarians, clerks, and other professionals, the VWP interviewed thousands of Virginians from all walks of life about their lives, work, and memories. In addition, VWP interviewers collected and checked information about the geography and history of Virginia, a process that resulted in two important books: the 700-page Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion (1940) and The Negro in Virginia (1940), which included oral histories from Virginians who had lived through slavery and the American Civil War (1861–1865). The VWP shut down in 1943, but its material was archived—much of it at the Library of Virginia—where it continues to be useful to those interested in primary resources about Virginia's past.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:55:55 EST

Valentine, Lila Meade (1865–1921)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:54:05 EST

Lila Meade Valentine was a suffragist, education reformer, and public-health advocate. During her abbreviated life, she played a vital role in creating and running organizations that improved the health-care and public school systems of her native city of Richmond. Valentine also became an ardent supporter of woman suffrage early in the 1900s, cofounding the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and serving as an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. A talented organizer and an eloquent speaker, Valentine led efforts on behalf of suffrage that came to fruition in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:54:05 EST

Thompson, Ida Mae (1866–1947)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:52:30 EST

Ida Mae Thompson was an important figure in Virginia's woman suffrage movement, not for her political work but for her recordkeeping. First as a member of the Equal Suffrage League, the organization that led the effort to win women the right to vote, and then as a member of the League of Women Voters, Thompson collected and preserved the movement's history.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:52:30 EST

Swanson, Claude A. (1862–1939)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:50:40 EST

Claude A. Swanson was a powerful Democratic Party leader and one of the most successful Virginia politicians of his era. He served seven terms in the United States House of Representatives (1893–1906), was governor of Virginia from 1906 until 1910, and U.S. senator from 1910 until 1933. In addition, Swanson served as secretary of the United States Navy under U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 until his death in 1939. While in the House, Swanson presided over a raucous time in state politics that culminated in the adoption of the state Constitution of 1902 that was notorious for its disenfranchisement of African Americans and poor whites in spite of the universal suffrage called for by the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1870). As governor, he instituted a number of progressive reforms and continued to advance those reforms, as well as his belief in a strong U.S. Navy while in the U.S. Senate and in Roosevelt's cabinet.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:50:40 EST

Stuart, Henry Carter (1855–1933)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:48:39 EST

Henry C. Stuart served as the governor of Virginia from 1914 until 1918. A wealthy cattleman from Southwest Virginia known for his encyclopedic mind, his extensive knowledge of agriculture, and his moderately progressive impulses against industrialization and "demon rum," Stuart also helped write the landmark Constitution of 1902, which, among other provisions, removed voting rights from African Americans and illiterate whites. He was one of the first commissioners to serve on the State Corporation Commission and, like most other Virginia Democrats of his day, worked to disenfranchise African Americans, regulate railroads and other corporations, reform the state's tax and legal codes, and prohibit the construction of highways financed by state highway bonds.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:48:39 EST

Stanley, Thomas B. (1890-1970)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:46:24 EST

Thomas B. Stanley served as governor of Virginia (1954–1958) during the turbulent first years of Massive Resistance to school desegregation. His initial reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court of the United States decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was moderate, but Stanley, a politician of few gifts, was unable to curb increasing calls for a defiant stance to school desegregation. Stanley eventually followed the lead of more conservative Democrats and backed legislation designed to maintain what supporters called "separate but equal" schools.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:46:24 EST

Smith, Howard Worth (1883–1976)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:43:49 EST

Howard W. Smith, a Virginia Democratic congressman, was one of America's most powerful politicians from the New Deal to the Great Society. A master obstructionist who chaired the House Rules Committee, he used his power to fight the liberal agendas of presidential administrations from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson. He was particularly concerned about the influence of Communists and wrote the Alien Registration Act of 1940, legislation that eventually paved the way for government targeting of radicals during the Cold War. He also saw Communism at the heart of the civil rights movement and attempted to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by introducing an amendment to include women under its provisions. Ironically, this helped the measure pass and stands as an important part of Smith's legacy.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:43:49 EST

Racial Integrity Laws of the 1920s

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:39:12 EST

The Racial Integrity Laws, which included the Racial Integrity Act (RIA) of 1924, were a series of legislative efforts designed to protect "whiteness" against what many Virginians perceived to be the effects of immigration and race-mixing. Passed in the context of a national surge in nativism, racism, and sexism, these laws explicitly defined how people should be classified—for example, as white, black, or Indian—and then, through Virginia's newly created Bureau of Vital Statistics under the direction of Dr. Walter Plecker, aggressively policed the distinctions. Elite white Virginians, often belonging to the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America (ASCOA), worried that their efforts on behalf of white supremacy might be confused with the more violent work of the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, they used the RIA to recast racial bigotry as progressive, scientific social policy. There was some social and political backlash against the laws, but not enough to overturn them until the U.S. Supreme Court's 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which declared Virginia's ban on interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. Most of Virginia's Indians, meanwhile, had been classified by the RIA as racially black, a designation that continues to be an obstacle for federal tribal recognition.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:39:12 EST

Progressive Movement

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:37:18 EST

The Progressive movement in Virginia was a series of efforts by early-twentieth-century residents to correct what they perceived as problems or deficiencies in government, business, and society. Their work was part of a national reform movement that existed from late in the 1890s until the United States entered World War I in 1917. Progressive reform in Virginia had many parallels with its national counterpart, but like the rest of the movement's southern manifestation, it also varied from it in important ways. Nationally, Progressives sought to expand democracy, aid victims of industrialization, bring order and efficiency to government and business, and impose morality. State reformers, by contrast, showed little interest in social uplift or racial justice, or in increasing democracy or furthering workers' rights. Instead, they focused on adjusting government and society in ways that both safeguarded the existing social and racial hierarchy and provided order, stability, and economic progress.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:37:18 EST

Price, James H. (1878-1943)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:36:10 EST

James H. Price was a governor of Virginia (1938–1942) who advocated for a series of progressive policies designed to help those hurt by the Great Depression of the 1930s. His most notable achievement came in 1938 with the enactment of an Old Age Assistance Plan that enabled Virginians to receive federal Social Security benefits. Throughout his term, Price battled with United States Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. and members of his political machine over policy and patronage issues. While Price won some of these battles, by 1940 Byrd and the Byrd Organization had derailed his legislative agenda, leaving a defeated Price to spend most of his last two years in office helping to mobilize Virginia for war.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:36:10 EST

New Deal in Virginia

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:30:48 EST

In March 1933, the newly inaugurated president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, addressed the problems created by the Great Depression by announcing a vast array of federal programs that came to be known as the New Deal. During the first 100 days of his administration, a Democratic Congress created the "alphabet agencies" (so called because of their well-known abbreviations) to deal with unemployment, economic stagnation, low farm prices, and home and farm foreclosures.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 12:30:48 EST

Negro Organization Society

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:51:29 EST

The Negro Organization Society was a grassroots advocacy association that stressed community self-improvement for African Americans in Virginia during the Jim Crow era. Founded in 1912 at the Hampton Institute by Robert Russa Moton, its motto was "Better Schools, Better Health, Better Homes, Better Farms." Pursuit of these four goals was considered essential to the protection and welfare of black citizens, especially in rural areas where the great majority of Virginia's African Americans lived. Over the years, the organization's actions shifted from building schools to improving education by accrediting more institutions and improving teacher pay. By the 1950s, when the Negro Organization Society had begun to dissolve, the fight for African American civil rights had largely shifted from community and regional organizers to the court system.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:51:29 EST

Muse, Benjamin (1898–1986)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:50:04 EST

Benjamin Muse, a journalist based in Manassas, Virginia, emerged as one of the state's most prominent white liberals during the period of the Massive Resistance movement, which opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision outlawing segregation in public schools, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Through a weekly column in the Washington Post, Muse criticized what he perceived to be the undemocratic practices of the Byrd Organization, the Virginia political machine led by U.S. senator and former governor Harry F. Byrd Sr., a Democrat. Muse also charged that Massive Resistance represented a desperate gamble by rural leaders to preserve the state's one-party system. Throughout the five-year crisis, Muse insisted that Virginia must comply with the Supreme Court's ruling, and he championed the efforts of white moderates and liberals from the cities and suburbs who opposed the state's plan, which amounted to abandoning public education rather than accepting any degree of racial integration. In 1959, after federal and state courts invalidated Virginia's school-closing scheme, Muse became the director of the Southern Leadership Project in order to spread the message of compliance with Brown to other states across the region.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:50:04 EST

Munford, Mary-Cooke Branch (1865–1938)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:49:08 EST

Mary-Cooke Branch Munford was an advocate of woman suffrage, interracial cooperation, education, health, and labor reforms. Armed with a pedigree that connected her to some of the wealthiest families of Virginia, she threw herself into such "unfeminine" pursuits as education reform and civil rights. She helped to found the Richmond Education Association, was the first woman to serve on the city's school board, was a member of the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors, and was the first woman to serve on the College of William and Mary's Board of Visitors. Munford also served on the board of the National Urban League, was a founding member of the Virginia Inter-Racial League, and became a trustee at the historically black Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:49:08 EST

Moton, Robert Russa (1867–1940)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:47:50 EST

Robert Russa Moton was one of the most prominent black educators in the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century. After graduating from the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (later Hampton Institute and now Hampton University) in Hampton, Virginia, in 1890, he served as the school's commandant of cadets from 1891 until 1915. He was a close friend of Booker T. Washington, the founding principal of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and the two shared a conservative vision of race relations. They argued, sometimes controversially, that African Americans should not openly defy segregation, but instead cooperate with whites and better themselves through education. After Washington's death in 1915, Moton became the second principal of Tuskegee, where he made significant contributions to the quality of education, especially in teacher training. He served on various national boards and, during World War I (1914–1918), went to Europe on behalf of U.S. president Woodrow Wilson to investigate the conditions of black soldiers. Moton Field at Tuskegee was named for him, as was Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, the site of a student walkout in 1951.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:47:50 EST

Moton School Strike and Prince Edward County School Closings

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:46:39 EST

On April 23, 1951, students at Robert Russa Moton High School in the town of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, walked out of school to protest the conditions of their education, which they claimed were vastly inferior to those enjoyed by white students at nearby Farmville High School. The strike, led by student Barbara Johns, is considered by many historians to signal the start of the desegregation movement in America and resulted in a court case that was later bundled with other, similar cases into Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Brown by mandating public-school desegregation, and Virginia state leaders responded with an official policy of Massive Resistance. When, on January 19, 1959, both a federal and a state court simultaneously ruled the state's actions unconstitutional, the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors closed its public schools rather than integrate them. They stayed shuttered for five years. Another U.S. Supreme Court decision—Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward—finally forced the county's schools to reopen in 1964.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:46:39 EST

Morgan v. Virginia (1946)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST

Morgan v. Virginia is an often-overlooked landmark case of the civil rights movement. Decided on June 3, 1946, nearly a decade before Rosa Parks challenged segregated seating on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in this case struck down Virginia's law requiring racial segregation in interstate public transportation.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:45:42 EST

Mason, Lucy Randolph (1882–1959)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:43:40 EST

Lucy Randolph Mason was a social liberal and prominent labor activist who took advantage of a genteel southern pedigree in order to promote the aggressive Congress of Industrial Organizations throughout the South from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:43:40 EST

Marshall, George C. (1880–1959)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:42:42 EST

George C. Marshall was a soldier-statesman who served the United States in times of war and peace as Chief of Staff of the Army, secretary of state, and the third secretary of defense. (The position had previously been known as secretary of war.) Having served as chief military advisor to U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marshall supervised the U.S. Army during World War II (1939–1945). As secretary of state he gave his name to the Marshall Plan, the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after World War II, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. Educated at the Virginia Military Institute, he was a longtime resident of Virginia.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:42:42 EST

Labor in Virginia During the Twentieth Century

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:37:15 EST

The history of labor in Virginia during the twentieth century reflects both the ever-changing nature of the workplace and the endurance of Virginians' long-held ideas about race, culture, and work. These powerful forces profoundly affected the choices and fortunes of workingmen and -women, black and white. They influenced hiring, wages, and seniority. They shaped the organization and evolution of companies and labor unions alike. And, like Virginia, they changed as the twenty-first century approached. One idea proved especially durable. It was the belief that the necessary maintenance of the social, political, and economic status quo depended on a combination of unorganized, low-wage labor and racial segregation, if not outright white supremacy. Employee and employer alike often embraced this antiunion, pro-apartheid approach to the age of industrialization and it shaped the development of the southern workforce. In Virginia, the vestiges of that ideology survived for most of the twentieth century.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:37:15 EST

Kepone (Chlordecone)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:35:53 EST

Kepone, also known as chlordecone, is a toxic, nonbiodegradable insecticide that a chemical plant in Hopewell, Virginia dumped into the James River from 1966 until 1975. The chemical's negative effect on the environment was documented and eventually publicized, leading authorities to shut down the Allied Chemical Corporation plant that produced Kepone and to order fishing bans and advisories. The environmental and medical scandal was one of the first of its kind to play out nationally, and while it eventually led to the destruction of the Virginia fishing industry, it also led to improved environmental awareness.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:35:53 EST

Henderson, Helen Timmons (1877–1925)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:29:55 EST

Helen Timmons Henderson, from the town of Council in Buchanan County, served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1924–1925), one of the first two women elected to that body (the other was Norfolk's Sarah Lee Fain). She die before having the opportunity to run for a second term.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:29:55 EST

Hancock, Gordon Blaine (1884–1970)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST

Gordon Blaine Hancock was a professor at Virginia Union University, pastor of Moore Street Baptist church in Richmond , and a leading spokesman for African American equality in the generation before the civil rights movement. Hancock co-founded the Richmond chapter of the Urban League and wrote newspaper columns for the Associated Negro Press, advising his mostly black audience on how to get by in tough times while still taking principled stands against segregation. His work with the Virginia Interracial Commission and the Southern Regional Council also suggested his willingness to be both outspoken and pragmatic in the midst of the fight against segregation—a fight, he wrote, that must be won "if the Negro is to survive."
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:28:45 EST

Great Migration, The

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:26:24 EST

The Great Migration refers to the relocation of hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural areas of the South to urban areas in the North during the years between 1915 and 1930. Although many of those who left the rural South migrated to southern urban areas, most migrants moved to cities in the North. It was the largest movement northward and into cities that had occurred among African Americans to that point in history. The United States' entrance into World War I in 1917 played an important role in this movement, as the demand for additional labor grew in war-related industries at the same time that white workers were siphoned off to serve in the armed forces. Immigration also slowed dramatically, removing another source of labor for American industry. African American labor was one of the key alternative sources sought by these industries to enable them to respond to the growing demand for war-related goods. Industrial jobs that had not been previously available to African Americans now became accessible in greater quantity and variety.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:26:24 EST

Gibson, Irene Langhorne (1873–1956)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:25:23 EST

Irene Langhorne Gibson, a native of Danville, Virginia, chaired the Child Planning and Adoption Committee of New York's State Charities Association for twenty-five years. She founded the New York branch of the Southern Women's Educational Alliance, was a member of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and helped found and was a director of the Protestant Big Sisters, on whose board she served for many years. Though she was a politically active and influential spokeswoman throughout her life, she may best be known as the incarnation of the Progressive Era's model "New Woman"—the "Gibson Girl," a social and fashion template created and popularized by her famous illustrator husband, Charles Dana Gibson.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:25:23 EST

Fain, Sarah Lee (1888–1962)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:23:37 EST

Sarah Lee Fain was one of the first two women elected to serve in the Virginia General Assembly following ratification in 1920 of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave American women the right to vote. When she took her seat as a delegate from Norfolk in January 1924, Fain and her legislative colleague Helen Timmons Henderson, of Buchanan County, became pioneers whose presence in the Virginia State Capitol signaled the start of women's full participation in the political life of the state. Virginia changed slowly, however, and six more decades would pass before women served in the state's legislature in appreciable numbers.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:23:37 EST

Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (1909–1920)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:21:59 EST

The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia was an organization of white women dedicated to securing for women the right to vote. Aligned with the national woman suffrage movement, the league worked for more than ten years lobbying the public and the General Assembly alike, until its efforts paid off when three-fourths of the United States state legislatures ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. The league failed, however, to persuade the Virginia General Assembly, which did not vote to ratify until 1952.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:21:59 EST

Desegregation in Public Schools

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST

The desegregation of the public schools in Virginia began on February 2, 1959, and continued through early in the 1970s when the state government's attempts to resist desegregation ended. During this period, African Americans in Virginia pushed for desegregation primarily by filing lawsuits in federal courts throughout Virginia. This litigation was aimed at achieving court rulings forcing the state of Virginia and its local school districts to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, mandating the desegregation of public schools. State and local officials, however, generally resisted efforts to bring about desegregation and utilized their political power to avoid and then minimize public school desegregation. Virginia's Indians, meanwhile, went without the benefit of any state-funded public education until 1963, almost a decade after Brown.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:15:19 EST

Desegregation in Higher Education

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST

The desegregation of higher education in Virginia was the result of a long legal and social process that began after the American Civil War (1861–1865) and did not end before the 1970s. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" public accommodations for blacks and whites were constitutional in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the court established a sturdy legal basis for segregation. This ruling encouraged the Jim Crow era of legalized discrimination against blacks in the south. But the terminology of "separate but equal" eventually also created an opening for African Americans to demand educational opportunities and facilities equal to those available to whites. Educational opportunities for blacks were vastly inferior to whites, and segregation in higher education was entrenched in Virginia through World War II (1941–1945). But during the 1950s and 1960s, the first black students entered various graduate programs at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary, then undergraduate engineering programs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Virginia, and finally general undergraduate programs at all historically white colleges and universities. In 1935 Alice Jackson failed to win admission to a graduate program at the University of Virginia, but Gregory Swanson, with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a ruling from a federal court, gained admission to the university's law school in 1950. Admittance into programs did not mean an immediate end to unfair and unequal treatment on campus, but by 1972 black students were able to enroll in Virginia in any curriculum and also live and eat in campus facilities.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:14:13 EST

Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST

The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, a grassroots political organization created in Petersburg in October 1954, was dedicated to preserving strict racial segregation in Virginia's public schools. A group of prominent Southside leaders formed the group following Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the U.S. Supreme Court decision, handed down on May 17, 1954, that mandated the desegregation of public schools. Opening chapters across the state and employing a variety of tactics, the Defenders rigorously confronted the Brown mandate, influencing the state commission that bestowed its blessing on the policy of Massive Resistance and even the temporary closing of public schools in Warren County, Norfolk, and Charlottesville. When Massive Resistance was declared unconstitutional, the Defenders organized a Bill of Rights Crusade and protested in Richmond, but the group's support and influence was on the wane. It dissolved in 1967.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:12:49 EST

Davis, Westmoreland (1859–1942)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:11:50 EST

Westmoreland Davis was a Democratic governor of Virginia from 1918 to 1922. During his term as governor, Davis streamlined the state's fiscal operations and reformed its penal system. An agricultural reformer, he also cofounded the Virginia State Dairymen's Association in 1907 and represented the Progressive farm lobby through his monthly journal the Southern Planter.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:11:50 EST

Davis, Henry Jackson (1882–1947)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:10:12 EST

Jackson Davis was an educator, educational advisor, and foundation director who served as an important intermediary between African American schools in the South and philanthropic foundations in the North. Throughout his career, he specialized in education in the South, interracial issues, and educational development in the Belgian Congo and Liberia. As a field agent for the General Education Board, Davis worked on behalf of better relations and understanding between whites and African Americans and pioneered the development and promotion of regional centers of education in the South. Davis's relatively moderate position on race relations, however, did not extend to desegregation of public schools.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:10:12 EST

Dabney, Virginius (1901–1995)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:07:37 EST

Virginius Dabney was a journalist, writer, historian, and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. As the longtime editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch (1936–1969), he earned a name, at least at first, as a liberal reformer who targeted religious fundamentalists, prohibitionists, and machine politicians. His 1929 biography of James Cannon, the Methodist bishop and prohibitionist, was so scathing it did not find a publisher until 1949, after Cannon's death. His inclinations, however, often put him in disagreement with his publisher and with U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd and his Democratic Party machine, the Byrd Organization. In the 1930s, Dabney advocated a federal antilynching law and opposed the poll tax, but following World War II (1939–1945) he generally supported segregation, a position that increasingly put him at odds with the liberal mainstream and the burgeoning civil rights movement. In 1956, Byrd called for massive resistance against the U.S. Supreme Court-mandated desegregation of public schools, and Dabney reluctantly went along. His reputation among liberals plummeted. After retiring from the Times-Dispatch, he concentrated on writing history, completing a large one-volume history of Virginia in 1971 and a defense of Thomas Jefferson against accusations that he had children with the enslaved Sally Hemings.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:07:37 EST

Cox, Earnest Sevier (1880–1966)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:04:37 EST

Earnest Sevier Cox was a committed white supremacist who advocated on behalf of anti-miscegenation laws and in 1922 cofounded with the composer John Powell the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, a Richmond-based, nationwide organization devoted to maintaining a strict separation of the races. In 1923, Cox published White America, a book that described his travels in Africa and argues that race-mixing would result in the collapse of "white civilization." He also wrote extensively on eugenics, a now discredited scientific movement aimed at proving the superiority of the white race. Together with composer Powell and Virginia state registrar Walter Plecker, Cox played an influential role in lobbying the Virginia General Assembly to pass the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, a strict anti-miscegenation law, and later the Massenburg Bill, which banned racial mixing in all public places. In 1924, Cox formed an unlikely alliance with the black nationalist Marcus Garvey based on their shared belief that the only way to save the races was for African Americans to relocate to Africa. Cox retired from the real estate business in 1958 and died in Richmond in 1966.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:04:37 EST

Cooperative Education Association

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:03:39 EST

The Cooperative Education Association was organized in 1904 to advocate for public education reform in Virginia. The group was part of the larger, national Progressive movement, which generally pushed for workers' rights, women's rights, and more efficient government. The cooperative saw itself representing all citizens of Virginia, "whether living in the city or the country, whether white or black," and was an outgrowth of the Richmond Education Association, founded in 1900 by Lila Meade Valentine and dedicated to education reform. The idea behind the cooperative was to extend the group's successes in Richmond to the rest of the state.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:03:39 EST

Confessions of Nat Turner, The (1967)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:55 EST

The Confessions of Nat Turner, a novel by William Styron, was published in 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1968. The title character is based on the historical Nat Turner, a slave preacher and self-styled prophet who, in August 1831, led the only successful slave revolt in Virginia's history, which in just twelve hours left fifty-five white people in Southampton County dead. (A slave named Gabriel conspired to revolt in 1800, but his plans were discovered before he could carry them out.) The historical Nat Turner, in turn, is largely the product of "The Confessions of Nat Turner, as fully and voluntarily made to Thomas R. Gray," a pamphlet published shortly after Turner's trial and execution in November 1831. Although it played a crucial role in shaping perceptions of the event around the central figure of Turner, the pamphlet itself only reached a small portion of the reading public. The story awaited the Virginia-born Styron, who translated the historical record into a popular medium that commanded the full attention of the reading public and the national media. Despite its awards, however, that attention was not always positive. Published at the height of the Black Power movement and after a long summer of race riots in the United States, Styron's novel was labeled by some civil rights activists as racist, especially because of the author's depiction of Turner lusting after white women, one of whom he eventually kills.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:00:55 EST

Chambers, Lenoir (1891–1970)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:53:36 EST

Lenoir Chambers, newspaper editor and author, is best known for his opposition to the South's Massive Resistance to racial integration of the public schools, a position he maintained from early in 1954 to 1959. During his life and his career, he sought to educate readers about perceived injustices toward African Americans and workers throughout the South, and urged fairer treatment of them. When Virginia's political leaders closed the state's public schools in 1958 to avoid federally mandated school integration, Chambers wrote a series of articles in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot that opposed the closings. His essays earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Editorial Writing in 1960.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:53:36 EST

Cannon, James (1864–1944)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:52:19 EST

James Cannon Jr. was an educator, a bishop of the southern Methodist Church, a leader of Prohibitionists in Virginia and the nation, and a political activist of such skill and combativeness that he became one of the most famous, and deeply controversial, American figures of the early twentieth century. Best known as a relentless advocate of Prohibition, Cannon drove the Virginia Anti-Saloon League's campaign for statewide Prohibition, adopted in 1914. He then served as the national Anti-Saloon League's principal Democratic lobbyist through the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1919 and the subsequent enforcement of national Prohibition during the 1920s. Cannon was a partisan Democrat, yet in 1928 he led a rebellion of southern Democrats against the presidential campaign of Alfred E. Smith, a wet, Catholic representative of the urban wing of the Democratic Party. Also an innovator and divisive figure within his church, Cannon, who became a bishop in 1918, directed worldwide missionary efforts and unsuccessfully pushed for the unification of the northern and southern branches of American Methodism. Charges of embezzlement, stock-market gambling, and adultery, fanned by Cannon's numerous enemies, dogged the bishop from 1929 until 1934 and diminished his influence thereafter.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:52:19 EST

Campbell, Preston White (1874–1954)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:50:59 EST

Preston White Campbell was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902, commonwealth's attorney for Washington County (1911–1914), a judge of the Twenty-third Circuit (1914–1924), and a judge on the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals (1924–1946), serving as the court's chief justice from 1931 until his retirement. Born in Abingdon, Campbell studied law there and practiced in the town for fourteen years. At the Convention of 1901–1902, called in large part to disenfranchise Virginia's blacks and poor whites, he supported the depoliticizing of county school superintendents but spoke little during the proceedings. As a Supreme Court justice he penned 528 opinions, the most memorable of which was his solo dissent in Staples v. Gilmer (1945). Campbell argued that in calling a constitutional convention, the General Assembly could not place limits on what the delegates considered. Campbell retired from the bench in 1946 and died in 1954.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:50:59 EST

Byrd, Harry Flood (1887–1966)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:47:14 EST

Harry F. Byrd served as a Virginia state senator (1915–1925), governor (1926–1930), and United States senator (1933–1965), was the father of a U.S. senator, and for forty years led the Democratic political machine known as the Byrd Organization. By virtue of both his service and power, he was one of the most prominent Virginians of the twentieth century. But much of that power was wielded in mostly vain opposition to the New Deal's big-government programs and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. As governor he instituted a popular downsizing of state government that increased efficiency, but the end of his career was marked by his now-infamous "massive resistance" to federally mandated school desegregation.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:47:14 EST

Byrd Organization

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:46:00 EST

The Byrd Organization was a state political machine headed by Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966), a Democratic state senator, governor, and United States senator who, for more than forty years, used his power and influence to dominate the political life of Virginia. Inheriting an already tight party organization that for decades had emphasized small government and a limited franchise, Byrd prioritized fiscal conservatism—a policy he pithily dubbed "pay as you go"—and, on those grounds, opposed many of fellow Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Byrd and his organization are perhaps best known, however, for their fierce opposition to a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that mandated the desegregation of public schools. The resulting Massive Resistance movement led to the shutdown of schools in Charlottesville, Front Royal, and Norfolk before the federal and state courts overturned state antidesegregation policies. It also effectively ended the organization's decades-long hold on power in the state.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:46:00 EST

Buck v. Bell (1927)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:41:20 EST

Buck v. Bell was a 1927 ruling handed down by the United States Supreme Court that affirmed the constitutionality of a 1924 Virginia law empowering the commonwealth to sterilize individuals deemed genetically "unfit." Ruling that "the principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. authorized the sterilization of Carrie Buck. Some thirty states then enforced sterilization laws. At least 60,000 Americans were sterilized between 1927 and the 1970s. In 1933, Nazi Germany modeled its eugenics laws after Virginia's.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:41:20 EST

Bristol Sessions (1927), The

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:40:01 EST

The Bristol Sessions occurred in 1927 when the Victor Talking Machine Company brought a field unit to Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, to record musicians from the region. Victor held the sessions on the second and third floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company building at 408 State Street on the Tennessee side of Bristol's main thoroughfare, which also serves as the Tennessee-Virginia border. Director Ralph Peer and the Victor engineers recorded fiddle tunes, sacred songs, string bands, harmonica solos, and others from July 25 to August 5. Celebrated as the session that produced the first recordings of country music legends Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, the session also featured artists who had made previous recordings for other record labels. The session captured on 78-rpm commercial recordings an excellent cross section of the styles of music present in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian regions.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:40:01 EST

Braxton, A. Caperton (1862–1914)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:38:52 EST

A. Caperton Braxton was a lawyer, president of the Virginia State Bar Association, and a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902, representing Staunton and Augusta County. Braxton supported the convention's aggressive and largely successful efforts at rolling back the reforms of Reconstruction (1865–1877) and eliminating the African American franchise in Virginia, as well as the votes of poor and uneducated whites. As the chair of the convention's Committee on Corporations, he drafted Article XII of the Constitution of 1902, creating the State Corporation Commission, a progressive reform designed to regulate corporations in the public interest. A conservative Democrat, Braxton was named as a possible U.S. vice presidential candidate in 1904, but never ran for public office in Virginia. He died of Bright's disease in Staunton in 1914.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:38:52 EST

Battle, John Stewart (1890–1972)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:34:41 EST

John Stewart Battle was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1930–1934) and the Senate of Virginia (1934–1950), and served as governor of Virginia (1950–1954). A loyal Democrat in line with the Byrd Organization, the state machine run by U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd Sr., Battle overcame a spirited challenge by three fellow Democrats to win the 1949 gubernatorial primary. His greatest achievement as governor was a massive school construction program to accommodate the first wave of the baby boom. Battle gained national recognition when he addressed the 1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, in an effort to prevent the Virginia delegation from losing its vote due to a disagreement over a loyalty oath. Although the U.S. Supreme Court did not announce its 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas—which mandated the desegregation of public schools—until after Battle left office, civil rights issues were emerging during his term. In a somewhat ironic end to his public service, Battle, a segregationist, was appointed by U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1957.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:34:41 EST

Barter Theatre

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:32:57 EST

The Barter Theatre, located in the Blue Ridge highlands of Abingdon, Virginia, was founded by Robert Porterfield in 1933 and designated the State Theater of Virginia in 1946. It is the longest-running professional Equity theater in the nation. (The Actors' Equity Association is a live-theater labor union.) Opening its doors in the midst of the Great Depression, Barter earned its name by allowing patrons to pay the admission price with produce, dairy products, or livestock. The shows were sometimes forced to compete with the noise that accompanied bartered livestock. On occasion, the theater also paid playwrights, such as Tennessee Williams and Thornton Wilder, Virginia hams for their works rather than standard royalties. George Bernard Shaw, a vegetarian, demanded to be paid in spinach. The theater expanded in 1961, opening a second stage across the street, and has earned a national reputation through touring companies and its association with many prominent and influential actors, including Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, and Kevin Spacey. The Barter Theatre won a Tony Award in 1948 for Best Regional Theater.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:32:57 EST

Barrett, Kate Waller (1858–1925)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:30:33 EST

Kate Waller Barrett was a prominent physician, social reformer, humanitarian, and leader of the National Florence Crittenton Mission, a progressive organization established in 1883 to assist unmarried women and teenage girls who either had children or were trying to leave prostitution.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:30:33 EST

Anti-Saloon League of Virginia

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:25:48 EST

The Anti-Saloon League of Virginia, established in 1901, led the movement that brought Prohibition to the state in 1916. While the state had established the Virginia Society for the Promotion of Temperance as early as October 1826, the league became a major force in Virginia politics, especially within the Democratic Party, in the first two decades of the twentieth century. An affiliate of the Anti-Saloon League of America, a national dry pressure group based in Ohio, the Virginia League gave political direction to the temperance beliefs of Protestant evangelicals, chiefly Baptists and Methodists.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:25:48 EST

Almond, James Lindsay Jr. (1898–1986)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:20:45 EST

J. Lindsay Almond Jr. was a governor of Virginia (1958–1962) whose name became synonymous with Massive Resistance, the legislative effort used to prevent school desegregation in light of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, Supreme Court of the United States ruling in 1954. A Democrat and member of the Byrd Organization, Almond is famous for closing public schools in Charlottesville, Norfolk, and Front Royal in 1958 rather than integrating them. When the state and federal courts declared his actions illegal, Almond submitted, thus effectively ending the era of Massive Resistance to desegregation in Virginia.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:20:45 EST

Alderman, Edwin Anderson (1861–1931)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:19:41 EST

Edwin Anderson Alderman was a noted educator, progressive reformer, and president of the University of North Carolina, Tulane University, and the University of Virginia, where he served as the school's first president from 1904 until his death in 1931. He brought to the University of Virginia a zeal for progressive reform, having campaigned in North Carolina and Louisiana for increased spending on public education and the creation of teacher-training schools, especially for women. In Charlottesville, Alderman established the Curry Memorial School of Education in 1905 and reorganized the university to emphasize efficiency and promote professional and technical instruction. The number of faculty doubled by 1907 and the university became more integrated with the educational life of the rest of the state. Alderman supported creating a coordinate college for women at the university, and even though the General Assembly opposed the idea, the university began admitting women to its graduate and professional programs in 1918. Alderman was a prolific fund-raiser, a well-known orator, and a close advisor to U.S. president Woodrow Wilson. In 1938, the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia was dedicated in Alderman's honor.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:19:41 EST

Agnew, Ella G. (1871–1958)

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:18:43 EST

Ella G. Agnew was a prominent educator and social worker who advanced employment opportunities for women early in the 1900s long before there was a woman's liberation movement. She served as the first president of the Virginia Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs and worked in the national office of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). During the Great Depression, Agnew directed women's relief activities in Virginia.
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:18:43 EST

Pickett, LaSalle Corbell (1843–1931)

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:44:50 EST

LaSalle Corbell Pickett was a prolific author and lecturer, and the third wife of George E. Pickett, the Confederate general best known for his participation in the doomed frontal assault known as Pickett's Charge during the American Civil War (1861–1865). After her husband's death in 1875, she traveled the country to promote a highly romanticized version of his life and military career that was generally at odds with the historical record. George Pickett emerged from the war with a strained relationship with Robert E. Lee—whom he partly blamed for the destruction of his division at Gettysburg (1863)—and accused of war crimes. But in his wife's history, Pickett and His Men (1899), this not-always-competent soldier was transformed into the ideal Lost Cause hero, "gallant and graceful as a knight of chivalry riding to a tournament." This image largely stuck in the American consciousness, leaving historians to spend much of the next century attempting to separate Pickett from his myth.
Tue, 05 Apr 2011 10:44:50 EST

Jackson, Luther Porter (1892–1950)

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:33:43 EST

Luther Porter Jackson was an African American historian and one of Virginia's most important civil rights activists of the 1930s and 1940s. He was a professor of history at Virginia State College in Petersburg for nearly thirty years and authored Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860 (1942), research that challenged stereotypes of antebellum blacks. Jackson was perhaps most important, however, as a political and social activist. He helped found the Petersburg League of Negro Voters in 1935, wrote a weekly newspaper column titled "Rights and Duties in a Democracy," and worked to challenge segregation in Richmond's public transit system.
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:33:43 EST

Walker, Wyatt Tee (1929– )

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:37 EST

Wyatt Tee Walker is a civil rights activist, author, and religious leader. After earning his master of divinity degree from Virginia Union University in 1953, Walker became the pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg. During the 1950s, he served as the president of the Petersburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was the state director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Virginia, and founded the Petersburg Improvement Association. In 1960 he was appointed chief of staff to Martin Luther King Jr. and served as the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Walker was instrumental in the fund-raising campaigns of the SCLC early in the 1960s and he helped formulate and analyze various protest strategies. He left the SCLC in 1964 and went on to serve as the pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, New York, for thirty-seven years. Following his retirement in 2004, he returned to Virginia.
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:37 EST

Walker, Maggie Lena (1864–1934)

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:12 EST

Maggie Lena Walker was an African American entrepreneur and civic leader who broke traditional gender and discriminatory laws by becoming the first woman—white or black—to establish and become president of a bank in the United States—the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond. As of 2010, when it was known as Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, it was the oldest continually African American–operated bank in the United States. In her role as grand secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke, Walker also was indispensable in organizing a variety of enterprises that advanced the African American community while expanding the public role of women. Although as an African American woman in the post–Civil War South she faced social, economic, and political barriers in her life and business ventures, Walker, by encouraging investment and collective action, achieved tangible improvements for African Americans.
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:04:12 EST

Great Depression in Virginia

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:56:23 EST

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most serious economic crisis in American history. A combination of economic maladies—including overproduction, inequitable distribution of wealth, excessive borrowing and speculation, inappropriate tax and tariff policies, and a shaky banking structure—produced an economic collapse that was announced by the stock market crash of October 1929.
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:56:23 EST

Bryan, Joseph III (1904–1993)

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:03:07 EST

Joseph Bryan was a journalist and writer who was born into the influential Bryan family of newspaper publishers and industrialists. He edited and wrote for many national publications, including the family-owned Richmond News Leader and Chicago Daily Journal, as well as Parade, Time, Fortune, Town and Country, Reader's Digest, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New Yorker. He wrote numerous articles on travel, humor, and celebrities, some of which evolved into books or reappeared as portions of his books. He served in all three branches of the U.S. military: first as a lieutenant in the field artillery of the army following his graduation from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, then in the navy during World War II (1939–1945) as a lieutenant commander assigned to naval air combat intelligence in the Pacific, and later as a lieutenant colonel in the air force. He also worked for the Central Intelligence Agency from the late 1940s until 1953. He lived in Washington, D.C., and at Brook Hill, an ancestral home in Henrico County.
Tue, 22 Feb 2011 12:03:07 EST

Bryan, John Stewart (1871–1944)

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:47:10 EST

John Stewart Bryan was a Richmond newspaper publisher and president of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. The son of a wealthy and influential newspaper publisher, Bryan went into the family business after briefly practicing law. In 1900, he began work as a reporter at the Richmond Dispatch, owned by his father, Joseph Bryan, and within a year was vice president of the holding company. Upon his father's death in 1908, he became president of the company and owner and publisher of the Richmond News Leader. There he hired as editor Douglas Southall Freeman, who went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes for his historical writing. In 1934, Bryan became president of the College of William and Mary and worked to broaden the school's curriculum and strengthening its reputation as a liberal arts college. Problems at one of the school's affiliates, in Norfolk, however, caused a suspension of the college's national accreditation in 1941. Citing poor health and the need for new leadership, Bryan resigned in 1942 and died in Richmond two years later.
Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:47:10 EST

Secretariat (1970–1989)

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:56:01 EST

Secretariat was an American thoroughbred considered one of the greatest of all American racehorses. Best known for winning in 1973 horse racing's Triple Crown—the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes—Secretariat was the first horse to accomplish that feat in twenty-five years and one of only eleven horses ever to do so. Twenty years after his death, Secretariat still holds the Kentucky Derby track record.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:56:01 EST

Naval Station Norfolk

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:03:46 EST

Naval Station Norfolk (NSN) is a United States Navy facility located near the mouth of the Elizabeth River and Hampton Roads at Sewells Point in Norfolk. Covering more than 4,300 acres of land, NSN is one of the largest military facilities in the world. The base serves as the deepwater home port for seventy-five warships and submarines, including five of the U.S. Navy's twelve aircraft carriers. It supports numerous naval air squadrons that operate E-2C Hawkeye early warning aircraft, C-2 Greyhound cargo planes, and CH-46 helicopters. The base is also home to many shore-based Naval and joint forces commands with particular emphasis on advance training activities.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:03:46 EST

National D-Day Memorial

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:01:14 EST

The National D-Day Memorial is a congressionally approved national war memorial in Bedford, Virginia, honoring the American GIs who participated in the invasion of France at Normandy on June 6, 1944, during World War II (1939–1945). Dedicated on June 6, 2001, by United States president George W. Bush and receiving as many as 100,000 visitors per year, the memorial is remarkable for its stone arch that rises nearly forty-five feet in the air. The structure's six components correspond, often in directly representational ways, to the planning and execution of Operation Overlord, the largest invasion in history. Conceived by Roanoke native and D-Day veteran J. Robert "Bob" Slaughter, the memorial is located in Bedford partly for symbolic reasons: the Virginia town lost nineteen of its men engaged that day, all members of Company A, 29th Infantry Division, possibly the largest per capita loss of any town in America on that day. (Four more Bedford soldiers died later in the campaign.) Although Slaughter had originally envisioned something modest, the project turned into a $25 million colossus that resulted in the memorial foundation's bankruptcy in 2002 and two federal fraud indictments against its executive director, Richard B. Burrow. Two trials ended in hung juries, and charges against Burrow were dismissed in October 2004.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:01:14 EST

Highway Bond Referendum, 1923

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:58:45 EST

The 1923 Highway Bond Referendum was defeated by voters after a long and bruising battle in the General Assembly where state senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. emerged as a real political force. At issue was how to pay for much-needed road improvement. While bonds were popular at first, Byrd had managed to muster a fierce and stubborn opposition, arguing that a gas tax, instead of bonds, would allow the state to adopt a "pay-as-you-go" policy that was more fiscally responsible. Byrd's behind-the-scenes machinations foreshadowed the political powerhouse he was about to become—as Virginia's governor, as a U.S. senator, and as head of the Byrd Organization, a statewide Democratic Party machine.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:58:45 EST

Fort Lee

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:37:44 EST

Fort Lee, located near Petersburg, Virginia, serves as the headquarters of the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Support Command and Quartermaster Corps. Since 1917, it has trained and educated thousands of soldiers for service in every major conflict and continues to develop future combat systems and doctrine for the all of the Army's logistics branches.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 10:37:44 EST

Eggleston, Joseph Dupuy, Jr. (1867–1953)

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:41:12 EST

Joseph D. Eggleston was a pioneering educator who served as Virginia's first elected superintendant of public schools and made significant advances in Virginia education. He successfully increased funding for both public secondary schools and public universities (Virginia high schools grew under his tenure from 75 to 448), increased teachers' salaries, and lengthened school terms. Eggleston also served as the seventh president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech), where his most ambitious fiscal projects were stalled by U.S. involvement in World War I (1914–1918) and a more wary state legislature. In 1919 he was named president of his alma mater, Hampden-Sydney College, where he remained for twenty years, helping the institution to liberalize its curriculum and to weather the effects of the Great Depression.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:41:12 EST

Carson, William Edward (1870–1942)

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:51:35 EST

William E. Carson, chairman of the Commission on Conservation and Development, was a Virginia businessman whose friendship with Harry F. Byrd elevated him to political prominence in Virginia in the 1920s. Disagreements with the more-powerful Byrd over commission matters and his own political ambitions, however, led to a falling out. Though Byrd declined to renew Carson's commission appointment in 1934, Carson remained chairman of the Democratic committee in the Seventh District until 1940.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:51:35 EST

Byrd, Richard E. (1888–1957)

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:40:59 EST

Richard E. Byrd was a naval aviator and explorer of both the Arctic and Antarctica who became famous in 1926 as the first man credited with flying to the North Pole. During World War I (1914–1918), he conducted antisubmarine patrols in the North Atlantic and became a pioneer in navigating long distances, both on water and in the air. Byrd's desire to test navigational equipment in extreme climates took him to Greenland in 1925, and from there he pushed north using a sun compass and shortwave aerial radio transmissions. His roundtrip, aerial expedition to the North Pole, funded by wealthy American industrialists, was completed in about sixteen hours on May 9, 1926, and earned Byrd international fame. His pioneering feat has long been questioned, at times persuasively, by skeptical scientists who claimed that he could not have made the trip in such a short amount of time. Later in his career, Byrd established the United States presence in Antarctica and flew to the South Pole.
Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:40:59 EST

Jenkins, Will F. (1896–1975)

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:43:30 EST

Will F. Jenkins was one of the most prolific fiction writers of the twentieth century. He published in several genres, but was best known for his pioneering science fiction writing under the penname of Murray Leinster. He published approximately 1,800 stories in more than 150 periodicals and 74 novels and collections in a career that began in 1913 and ended in 1974. An avid inventor whose gadgets sometimes appeared in his stories, Jenkins wrote about mad scientists, criminal masterminds, alien invasions, and time travel. A 1946 story imagined personal computers and a network that closely resembles today's Internet. "First Contact" (1945) depicts a tense standoff between two spaceship crews, each fearing the other's intent. Jenkins was born in Gloucester County, and some of his stories were set in Virginia. In "Sidewise in Time" (1934), a Fredericksburg professor encounters time shifts and a parallel universe in which the Confederacy won the American Civil War (1861–1865). During the Cold War, Ivan Efremov, a science fiction writer from the Soviet Union, attacked Jenkins's writing in his story "The Heart of the Serpent" (1959), in which aliens read "First Contact" and judge it to be warmongering. Jenkins, who suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died in Gloucester in 1975.
Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:43:30 EST

Falwell, Jerry (1933–2007)

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:07:13 EST

Jerry Falwell was a fundamentalist Christian pastor and the founder of the Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Best known for his key role in mobilizing the Christian Right into a formidable power in United States politics, Falwell founded the Moral Majority in 1979, a national political organization that emphasized a commitment to a "pro-family" agenda. The Moral Majority achieved prominence very quickly when in 1980 there was a significant surge in evangelical conservative support for the Republican Party nominee for U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, and for Republican, or GOP (Grand Old Party) candidates for the U.S. Congress. Many observers credited Falwell with having played the leading role in energizing these voters to support Reagan and the GOP. After Reagan's landslide win and the Republican successes in the congressional races as well, Falwell and the Moral Majority became prominent, though controversial, fixtures on the U.S. political scene.
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:07:13 EST

Freeman, Douglas Southall (1886–1953)

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:17:11 EST

Douglas Southall Freeman was a biographer, a newspaper editor, a nationally renowned military analyst, and a pioneering radio broadcaster. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice: the first, in 1935, for his four-volume biography of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee; and the second, posthumously in 1958, for his six-volume biography of George Washington, with a seventh volume written by John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth after Freeman's death in 1953. The son of a Confederate veteran, Freeman is best known as a historian of the American Civil War (1861–1865) and, in particular, of the high command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. His description of Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and their compatriots as "men of principles unimpeachable, of valour indescribable" for some has suggested that his work was influenced by the Lost Cause view of the war that was in part founded by his former neighbor, Jubal A. Early. In reality, Freeman's admiration for the Confederates never influenced his historical conclusions.
Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:17:11 EST

Benga, Ota (ca. 1883–1916)

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:08:05 EST

Ota Benga was a Pygmy from the Congo who traveled to the United States several times as an adult before finally settling in Lynchburg, Virginia. After his wife and two children were killed and he was sold into slavery, Benga's freedom was purchased by the Presbyterian missionary Samuel P. Verner. The two became friends, and Benga is believed to be the first African Pygmy to reside permanently in the United States. After appearing at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Benga spent three weeks exhibited in a cage with apes at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, upsetting Benga and causing a public outcry. He spent three years in a Brooklyn, New York, orphanage before relocating to Lynchburg to attend the Virginia Theological Seminary and College. In Lynchburg, he befriended the seminary's president, his wife, and their kids, as well as the poet Anne Spencer. Benga's attempts at assimilation ultimately failed, however, and he committed suicide on March 20, 1916. He was nearly forgotten until 1992, when the publication of a definitive biography brought him international attention and renewed popularity. For many, Benga personifies the shameful exploitation of African people by European colonial powers, as well as the historical use of science and anthropology to support racism and ethnocentrism.
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:08:05 EST

Allen, Floyd (1856–1913)

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:56:23 EST

Floyd Allen was the central figure in one of the most sensational and bizarre incidents in Virginia criminal and legal history, the so-called "Hillsville Massacre." In the great Carroll County shootout in Hillsville on March 14, 1912, a judge, a sheriff, a commonwealth's attorney, a juror, and a spectator were all killed by shots fired by Allen and others after Allen was convicted of assault. Allen and several members of his family immediately fled the courtroom but were later captured and convicted of murder. Allen and his youngest son, Claude Swanson Allen, were both executed for their crimes.
Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:56:23 EST

Dan River Mills

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:58:57 EST

Dan River Mills in Danville, Virginia, is a historic manufacturer of apparel fabrics and home fashion products such as bedding. Opened in 1882 as the Riverside Cotton Mills, the company grew to become the largest textile firm in the South. The mills were a prime target for union leaders, who reasoned that they could organize textile plants across the region if they could crack the strategically located Dan River Mills. In 1930 and 1951, major strikes occurred at the mills; both ended in defeat for the workers. From the 1970s, employment levels at the Virginia firm fell dramatically as it struggled to compete with cheap imported textiles, competition that eventually brought the historic firm to final dissolution in 2006.
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:58:57 EST

Burch, Thomas Granville (1869–1951)

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:45 EST

Thomas Granville Burch was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1931–1946) and briefly served in the U.S. Senate (1946). As a congressman he represented an eight-county district in southern Virginia along the North Carolina border. Reapportionment added a ninth county beginning with the 74th Congress. A colleague of the conservative Democratic U.S. senator Harry F. Byrd, Burch was briefly considered by Byrd and his advisers as a gubernatorial candidate for the 1937 election; however, Burch's unorthodox plan for teacher pay upset the Byrd Organization, which removed him from the inner circle of Virginia politics.
Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:50:45 EST

Hurricane Camille (August 1969)

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:00:10 EST

Hurricane Camille arrived in Virginia on the night of August 19, 1969, one of only three category five storms ever to make landfall in the United States since record-keeping began. One of the worst natural disasters in Virginia's history, the storm produced what meteorologists at the time guessed might be the most rainfall "theoretically possible." As it swept through Virginia overnight, it seemed to catch authorities by surprise. Communication networks were not in place or were knocked out, leaving floods and landslides to trap residents as they slept. Hurricane Camille cost Virginia 113 lives lost and $116 million in damages. It also served as a lesson that inland flooding could be as great a danger as coastal flooding during a hurricane.
Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:00:10 EST

Wreck of the Old 97

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:54:12 EST

The wreck of the Old 97 occurred on September 27, 1903, when the Southern Railway freight train called the Fast Mail (or "Old 97") left the tracks and crashed at the Stillhouse Trestle outside Danville, Virginia, killing eleven people. The accident became a sensation, with thousands of spectators at the scene, newspaper stories, and even a series of musical ballads, the most popular of which became a hit on the country music charts in 1924.
Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:54:12 EST

Robb, Charles S. (1939– )

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:12:29 EST

Charles S. "Chuck" Robb served as lieutenant governor (1978–1982) and governor of Virginia (1982–1986) and for two terms as U.S. senator (1989–2001). The son-in-law of U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, Robb entered Virginia politics as a "celebrity" without the customary résumé of serving in lower office. A Democrat, Robb was instrumental in reviving his party's fortunes in the state after a period of Republican dominance. His election in 1981 ushered in the first of three consecutive Democratic governorships. A moderate, Robb also played a role in national politics, moving his party to the center but never seeking national office himself. His promising career was tarnished by a series of scandals and he was ultimately defeated for reelection in 2000.
Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:12:29 EST

Scott, Robert Cortez "Bobby" (1947– )

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:08:41 EST

Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott has represented Virginia's Third District for eight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected to his first term in 1992, Scott was the first American of Filipino descent and only the second African American to represent Virginia in the U.S. Congress since John M. Langston left office in 1891. Before being elected to the House, he had served in both the Virginia House of Delegates (1978–1982) and the Virginia Senate (1982–1992). A moderate Democrat, Scott has chaired the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee since 2006.
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:08:41 EST

Pollard, John Garland (1871–1937)

Fri, 28 May 2010 15:13:26 EST

John Garland Pollard was a progressive Democrat who served as delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901–1902, attorney general of Virginia (1914–1918), and governor (1930–1934). Handpicked by Harry F. Byrd Sr. to be his gubernatorial successor, Pollard left a legacy as governor that was clouded by the fact that he took office on the eve of the Great Depression. While independent-minded, Pollard was never able to get fully out from under the thumb of Byrd (supposedly he would remark while patting his belly that he had become so rotund by "swallowing the Byrd machine"). Byrd's control over Pollard and Virginia's political environment was particularly evident in the initiative to legalize alcohol when Byrd went around Pollard to senator William M. Tuck to gather the General Assembly together in order to push through a state referendum to repeal Prohibition and establish the state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Outside of politics, Pollard was an educator and member of several public and philanthropic commissions and organizations. As a practicing attorney, he wrote Pollard's Code of Virginia, which became an often-consulted reference work on the laws of Virginia. He also served briefly as a professor of constitutional law and history at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. In 1936 Pollard helped to found the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the first state art museum in the United States, and served as president of the museum's board of directors.
Fri, 28 May 2010 15:13:26 EST

Dalton, John N. (1931–1986)

Thu, 20 May 2010 15:26:36 EST

John N. Dalton, a successful lawyer, businessman, and farmer, was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1966–1972) and the Senate of Virginia (1972–1973), and served as lieutenant governor (1974–1978) and as governor (1978–1982). He was the first Republican lieutenant governor of the twentieth century. His term as governor came during a period of dramatic realignment in which the Republican Party, long overshadowed by the Democratic Byrd Organization, became competitive in state elections for the first time in nearly a century. In fact, Dalton's rapid climb from state legislator to governor paralleled Virginia's transition from a one-party, Democratic state, typical of the "Solid South," to a competitive, two-party system. The third in a trio of Republican governors of Virginia during the 1970s, Dalton stressed economic development, conservative fiscal management, and Republican party-building.
Thu, 20 May 2010 15:26:36 EST

Martin, Thomas Staples (1847–1919)

Thu, 20 May 2010 15:12:58 EST

Thomas Staples Martin was a railroad attorney, a longtime U.S. senator from Virginia (serving from 1895 until 1919), and an architect of the state Democratic Party machine that during his time was known as the Martin Organization. A quiet, behind-the-scenes political player, Martin rose through the party ranks largely due to his influence with powerful railroad interests. Under the leadership of Martin's mentor, John S. Barbour Jr., Democrats reestablished control of state politics that, since Reconstruction (1865–1877), had been in the hands of Republicans and Readjusters. Then, in 1893, in a huge and unexpected upset, Martin defeated former Confederate general and Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee for election to Barbour's U.S. Senate seat, allowing him to take control of the party and, to a large extent, the state. Accused by his critics of bribery and corruption, Martin stayed in power and managed to rise to the position of Senate Majority Leader at least in part because of his pragmatic willingness to forge coalitions between the competing conservative and progressive wings of the Democratic Party. As a result, Martin's political machine and its successor, the Byrd Organization, dominated Virginia politics until the 1960s.
Thu, 20 May 2010 15:12:58 EST

Reston, Virginia

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:22:54 EST

Reston is a community in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area located in western Fairfax County, Virginia. Conceived as an alternative to ailing cities and sprawling suburbs, Reston, along with Columbia, Maryland, was among the first post–World War II "new towns" in the United States. Founded in 1964 by Robert E. Simon Jr., Reston took its name from Simon's initials and represented a kind of urban utopia—a place with swimming pools, community centers, and tennis courts in every neighborhood and no restrictions based on race. Control of the project was taken over first by Gulf Oil—Simon's major lender—and then Mobil, but the community grew steadily. Its 2007 population was approximately 60,000; the town, meanwhile, enjoys a strong economy based on high technology and information.
Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:22:54 EST

Chrysler Museum of Art

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:01:52 EST

The Chrysler Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located along the banks of the Hague in the Ghent district of Norfolk. The museum is modeled in Italian Renaissance style and boasts more than 30,000 pieces of art by a vast array of renowned artists covering many regions and time periods. Greatly expanded by a gift from the art collector Walter P. Chrysler (1909–1988) in 1971, the museum contains one of the world's largest collections of Tiffany glass.
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:01:52 EST

Sandy, T. O. (1857–1919)

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:54:00 EST

T. O. Sandy was Virginia's earliest agricultural extension agent. A farmer, scientist, and teacher, he opened the state's first extension office in Burkeville in 1907, serving the residents in surrounding counties with practical agricultural advice. In 1914, Virginia Polytechnic Institute (now Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg assumed the administration of the statewide program. Sandy, who had briefly attended Virginia Tech, coordinated Virginia's extension efforts until his retirement in 1917. During Sandy's tenure as extension agent, farming practices and attitudes toward scientific agriculture in Virginia significantly improved.
Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:54:00 EST

Woodson, Carter G. (1875–1950)

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:44:06 EST

Carter G. Woodson was a historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, the Journal of Negro History, and "Negro History Week." Now known as the "Father of Black History" because of his efforts to promote African American history, Woodson wrote pioneering social histories chronicling the lives of black people at a time when mainstream white scholars denied that African Americans were worthy of historical study. Much of his work was based on public records, letters, speeches, folklore, and autobiographies, materials that were previously ignored. Woodson also used an interdisciplinary approach that combined anthropology, sociology, and history. From 1915 until 1947, he published four monographs, five textbooks, five edited collections of documents, five sociological studies, and thirteen articles. He pioneered in interpretations of slavery and Africa, which were adopted by mainstream historical scholars late in the 1950s. Among the works for which he is best known is The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), which is still in print seventy-five years later.
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:44:06 EST

Washington, Booker T. (1856–1915)

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:39:00 EST

Booker T. Washington was an author, educator, orator, philanthropist, and, from 1895 until his death in 1915, the United States' most famous African American. The tiny school he founded in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881 is now Tuskegee University, an institution that currently enrolls more than 3,000 students. The most famous of the several books he authored, coauthored, or edited during his lifetime, Up from Slavery (1901), has become a classic of American autobiography, drawing comparisons not only to earlier slave narratives but also to such texts as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:39:00 EST

Modern Environmental History of Virginia

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:13:24 EST

Virginia's modern history has been shaped by and has in turn shaped its nonhuman natural environment. In one way, nature has been a historical actor changing Virginia: the state's climate, geology, waterways, fisheries, wildlife population, flora and fauna, and soil content have provided the conditions for economic, cultural, and recreational possibilities across the state. In another way, Virginians have acted to change land-use patterns, increase waste flows into rivers and other habitats, and intensify demands for energy, putting increased pressure on the environment during the twentieth century. By century's end, new transportation and energy-producing technologies, more scientific knowledge about interrelated ecosystems, and an accompanying shift in values about environmental features led Virginians to perceive their environments in ways differing significantly from their nineteenth-century predecessors. Moreover, the state's modern history serves as a representative example of the complex intermingling between culture and nature in America's environmental history.
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:13:24 EST