Posts – Page 59 – The UncommonWealth

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections

The Temperance Movement and The Road to Prohibition

From the earliest days of European settlement, Americans drank prodigious amounts of alcohol. Almost every aspect of early American economic and social life involved alcohol.…

Dana PugaMay 18, 2017

Photo of Order Books in the Prince Edward Co. courthouse, ca. 1916.

Archives

The Courthouse Adventures of Morgan P. Robinson

In 1915, Richmond native Morgan P. Robinson became the chief of the Archives Department at the Virginia State Library (now the Library of Virginia); three…

Eddie WoodwardMay 10, 2017

Education & Programming Newspapers

Woe Unto Him: Anti-Liquor on Virginia Chronicle & Say Goodbye to Booze tonight at the LVA

In conjunction with the Library of Virginia’s current exhibition, Teetotalers & Moonshiners: Prohibition in Virginia, the Virginia Newspaper Project has made its sole issue of…

Kelley EwingMay 5, 2017

Archives

Time in a Box: the Kaine Administration “Time Capsule”

Every box of records that arrives at the Library of Virginia is full of possibilities. We never know what we are going to find in…

Roger ChristmanMay 3, 2017

Governor E. Lee Trinkle Executive Papers, 1923.

Archives

Pardon Me

Within the records of Governor E. Lee Trinkle (1922-1926) are several boxes relating to extraditions and pardons of prisoners. I came across one letter from Leroy…

Renee SavitsApril 26, 2017

The Lincoln Legion, Governor Henry C. Stuart Executive Papers, 1916.

Archives

Drying Out Dixieland: The Confederacy and Prohibition

What do prohibition and the American Civil War have in common? More than you may think. The debate over prohibition in Virginia, which culminated in…

Claire RadcliffeApril 19, 2017

Newspapers

Yes, The Titanic

The Virginia Newspaper Project cannot resist the compelling story that is the Titanic. On April 16, 1912, the Richmond Times Dispatch issued its Tuesday morning paper…

Errol SomayApril 17, 2017

Education & Programming Newspapers

Prelude to Prohibition: The State Referendum Vote September 22, 1914: The Recorder, Post & Enterprise

It was Wet vs. Dry and City vs. Country and Dry Country won. It wasn’t even close. The advocates for Prohibition themselves might have been…

Henry MorseApril 11, 2017

Photograph of Clarence A. Bryce, Jr. (1889-1918), Bryce Questionnaire.

Archives

Virginians in the Great War: Clarence A. Bryce, Jr. (1889-1918)

This is the first entry in a series of blog posts spotlighting stories and records of Virginia’s involvement in World War I. United States Marine…

Roger ChristmanApril 11, 2017

Archives

Over There and Over Here: Virginia, World War I, and the Records of the War History Commission

Editor’s note: This post was adapted from a talk given by Roger Christman, state records archivist. A hundred years ago, on 6 April 1917, the…

Claire RadcliffeApril 5, 2017

Archives

Ibby Jane Smith: U.S. Pensioner

Ibby Jane Smith was born in January 1864 in Northampton County, Virginia, the daughter of Leah Smith, also called Leah Jacob, and Seth Smith, also…

Louise JonesMarch 29, 2017

Newspapers The Stacks

Recent Gifts to the Library of Virginia

It provides great satisfaction to the Virginia Newspaper Project staff when rare, historical newspapers surface thanks to thoughtful Library patrons–recently some twentieth century newspapers were…

Kelley EwingMarch 28, 2017

Newspapers

A Much Obliged and Humble Servant: Clementina Rind’s Virginia Gazette

It was out of necessity that Clementina Rind became Virginia’s first woman newspaper publisher. After the death of her husband, William, in 1773, she had…

Kelley EwingMarch 15, 2017

Archives

A Few of Our Favorite Things: Even More Letterhead in the Archive

Editor's note: As promised in a previous post, here’s another look at some of the plethora of letterheads and stationery found in our archives. The…

Vince BrooksMarch 15, 2017

Archives

"To the land of their fathers": Emancipation and the Virginia Colonization Board

The American Colonization Society was founded in 1817 to promote the voluntary return of free African Americans in the United States to Africa. In 1822,…

Paige NealMarch 8, 2017