We return to our cycle of book reviews by Virginia history eras with a blog for Early Colonial Virginia, 1600-1712. The list of thirteen titles are made up from those found in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 2012-2014. There are three in “First Years”, three in “Growth of Empire”, four in “Established Colony”...
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In this Virginia History Blog, we look at two titles relating to citizenship and constitution making, a legal history, and two biographies of early antislavery Virginians. “The Citizen Revolution” shows the change from “subjects” to “citizens. “Ratification” describes the debates set before the public in the state Federal Conventions. “Aggressive Nationalism” shows economic policy of...
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In this recap of the Civil War and Reconstruction Virginia, we begin with two titles addressing the role of slaves in the Civil War, first from a Union perspective in “The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation”, then from the rebel point of view in “Confederate Slave Impressment”. Two social histories chronicling the immediate...
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In our blog for Civil Rights in Virginia part three, we examine the particulars of local and grassroots organization in desegregating Virginia schools in the 1950s and 60s. “Grassroots to the Supreme Court” studies the activists of communities located in Virginia and five other states. The local strategies of the NAACP to implement the Brown...
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Civil Rights in Virginia part two features the courts and the Virginians contributing to the civil rights litigation. We begin with an overview, “Making Civil Rights Law” describing the centrality of the NAACPs Legal Defense Fund. “From Jim Crow to Civil Rights” traces Supreme Court Cases from 1900 to 1954 on racial matters that set...
We begin our reviews of titles related to Civil Rights in Virginia 1945-1970 with an overview of political conditions in Virginia following World War II. The classic “Southern Politics” studies Virginia along with ten other Southern states, and “Harry Byrd of Virginia” analyses Virginia’s central political figure of the time. “Parting the Waters” analyzes Martin...
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Our titles on the Great Depression and New Deal Virginia part two, begin with biographies of two black leaders, “Perils and Prospects” about professor and Baptist pastor Gordon Blaine Hancock, and “Song in a Weary Throat” about professor and Episcopal priest Pauli Murray. The milieu that they worked in for racial advancement is described in...
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Part two of our Jim Crow Virginia 1900-1945 begins with “Blue Laws and Black Codes” that focuses on Virginia law as a link between social and racial conflict and change. “Making Whiteness” discusses the culture of segregation imposed after racial progress in Reconstruction. “Separate and Unequal” discusses the connection between public school campaigns and racism...
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We begin our look at Jim Crow New South Virginia 1900-1945 with “Struggle for Mastery” investigating the disenfranchisement of the African American. “Managing White Supremacy” shows the role of Anglo Saxon Clubs and the redefinition of one-drop racism. “Harry Byrd” explains the forty-year dominance of the Democratic Organization under one man, while “Norfolk” surveys the...
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We begin our blog on Gilded Age Virginia 1880-1900 with “Promise of the New South” for the non-elite amidst rapid industrialization, and “Paradox of Southern Progressivism” to explain the rise of urban upper middle class reformers, beginning with prohibition efforts in the late 1800s. “Appalachia” focuses on the predominantly white yet still bi-racial region including...
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