Brent Tarter – The UncommonWealth

Unfinished Business from the Bicentennial of Independence Left to the 250th Anniversary

I went to work in the Virginia State Library (now the Library of Virginia) on July 1, 1974, in the capacity of an assistant to…

Brent TarterJuly 5, 2024

Education & Programming

“Why should not women vote?” – Virginia Men Who Supported Woman Suffrage

Public opinion polling did not exist in the 1910s when members of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and the Virginia chapter of the National…

Brent TarterApril 21, 2021

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections

“On the list of those who will vote for Woman Suffrage”: Virginia Women Lobby the General Assembly

Visitors to the Library of Virginia's exhibition, We Demand: Women's Suffrage in Virginia, have been drawn to a large display of index cards filled with…

Brent TarterSeptember 30, 2020

Manuscripts & Special Collections

On the Road for Woman Suffrage

After founding the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia in November 1909, eager suffragists had managed to organize a few local leagues, but in 1912 the…

Brent TarterMay 13, 2020

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers

“Virginia Ready for Women to Vote”: The General Assembly Authorizes Women to Vote in 1920

Ed. Note: The health and safety of our visitors, employees, volunteers, and community are top priorities at the Library of Virginia. To help contain the…

Brent TarterMarch 25, 2020

Education & Programming Manuscripts & Special Collections

Virginia’s General Assembly and the Nineteenth Amendment

In June 1919, Congress sent the proposed Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women's right to vote, to the states for ratification. By the end of the year,…

Brent TarterFebruary 12, 2020

Education & Programming

Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of the General Assembly of Virginia

The first meeting of the General Assembly of Virginia took place at the church building in Jamestown on 30 July 1619. The session lasted for…

Brent TarterJuly 30, 2019

The Remarkable Hodges Family of Princess Anne County and Norfolk

During the night of 23 April 1829, six African American men made a daring escape from the Norfolk County jail. One of them was William…

Brent TarterMarch 6, 2019

Archives Conservation

First Freedom: Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom

The official enrolled parchment of 16 January 1786, An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, is one of the most important archival records preserved in the…

Brent TarterApril 13, 2016

Archives Education & Programming

"hundreds of the descendants of Indians have obtained their freedom:" Freedom Suits in 18th & 19th Century Virginia

A small slip of paper on display in the Library of Virginia’s latest exhibition You Have No Right: Law and Justice in Virginia, running 24 September 2012-18…

Brent TarterSeptember 26, 2012

Dear Governor

Editor’s Note: Guest contributor Brent Tarter offers the following post, pointing out some interesting finds made by the creators of the Library of Virginia’s Union or Secession exhibition.…

Brent TarterMarch 30, 2011