Globally and locally, whether pregnant women have the right to choose who attends them during pregnancy and birth is a lively and often contentious topic.…
D'Anne GrahamJune 8, 2022
Author's Note: The spellings of names evolved over time. In order to be consistent, names were spelled as they appeared in government records.1 On Tuesday,…
Cara GriggsMay 2, 2022
On 28 December 1895, the Lumière Brothers, Auguste and Louis, gave the first public viewing of a projected motion picture at the Salon Indien du…
Errol SomayApril 13, 2022
Along with a list of many new newspapers, a nearly complete run of the Southern Workman, a monthly published from 1872-1939 by the Hampton Normal…
Kelley EwingMarch 25, 2022
In the late 1840s, a flood of Irish refugees fleeing the Great Famine filled America’s cities. While most of these immigrants went to the Northeast,…
Bill BynumMarch 16, 2022
We are living in an age of peak advice, a crowded media landscape in which bloggers, columnists, podcasters, and online strangers field inquiries about everything…
Rebecca SchneiderMarch 7, 2022
Today is National Squirrel Appreciation Day. While the clever little rodents are ubiquitous in urban and suburban settings today, that was not always so. According…
Vince BrooksJanuary 21, 2022
The newspaper page count has officially surpassed two million on Virginia Chronicle! An array of new titles have been added to the Library’s growing digital…
Kelley EwingDecember 1, 2021
This month’s blog is a continuation of the story I posted last month of an enslaved man, Richard, who helped his nephew Tazewell seize his…
Lydia NeurothNovember 24, 2021
In late October 1910, thanks to the efforts of some of Richmond’s most prominent Black leaders, the “Colored State Fair” was held at the Virginia…
Kelley EwingOctober 1, 2021
A public argument breaks out between several men on the topic of opiates. One, a physician, calls for greater restrictions on prescriptions to curb their…
Library of VirginiaSeptember 24, 2021
A little more than 20 years ago, the Library of Virginia performed most newspaper inventory, cataloging, and even preservation microfilming in-house. We did use online…
Kelley EwingAugust 4, 2021
IIn 2020, Governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order proclaiming Juneteenth as a Virginia state holiday. Later that year, the General Assembly unanimously voted in…
Library of VirginiaJune 14, 2021
CONTENT WARNING: Materials in the Library of Virginia’s collections contain historical terms, phrases, and images that are offensive to modern readers. These include demeaning and…
Emma ItoMay 5, 2021
