The topic of Thomas Jefferson, slavery and Hemingses has been the subject of several scholarly works and popular histories in recent years. Here we look at six titles representing several points of view on the subject over the course of thirty years. The considerable sustained interest in the topic has enabled all to remain in...
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In this Virginia History Blog, we explore the developments leading antebellum Virginia to hold the largest free black population, with artisans free and slave, with slave hires for industrial work and construction on canals and railroads. Virginia 1820-1860 was a slave state with an emerging market economy, industrialization and substantial out-migration of whites and blacks....
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We begin our look at the cultivation of tobacco with slaves in Late Colonial Virginia by focusing on the transition from the white indentured cash crop labor force to the hereditary African-descent cultivation of tobacco. “Tobacco and Slaves” studies the formation of the slave-plantation society in the Chesapeake, “Motives of Honor, Pleasure & Profit” explains...
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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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