Survey histories of Virginia are important to beginning your discovery of Virginia History. Reading Virginia history books with bibliographies enables the amateur historian to drill down in a field of interest by paying attention to the writer’s sources. These can become a to-buy list for building a personal library. See Twelve Steps to a Personal Library on Virginia.
The two best general surveys are Old Dominion, New Commonwealth and Cradle of America. Two surveys of Virginia’s history focusing on women are Changing History: Virginia Women Through Four Centuries, and Virginia Women: A Share of Honor. A survey of Virginia’s eastern plain Native Americans is available in Pocahontas’s People.
Old Dominion, New Commonwealth
In Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007, Ronald L. Heinemann, along with John G. Kolp, Anthony S. Parent, Jr., and William G. Shade together wrote in their respective specialties to create another sound Virginia history timed to coincide with the Old Dominion’s quadricentennial celebration at 400 years.
Focusing on politics and power, Heinemann and his three contributors focus on the political narrative and trace the development of Virginia’s self-ruling hierarchy that fostered a model for North American development until about 1820.
It then fell into a self-defeating strategy to defend its elites until mid-20th century developments allowed recovery as a “progressively conservative society”. Thus over time, the narrative arc narrows from imperial to national to regional to parochial in scope. This book is recommended for both instructors of Virginia history and their students.
Ronald L. Heinemann is Professor Emeritus of History at Hampden-Sydney College. John G. Kolp, now retired, was Professor of History at the United States Naval Academy. Anthony S. Parent Jr. is Associate Professor of History at Wake Forest University. William G. Shade is Professor Emeritus of History at Lehigh University. Buy “Old Dominion, New Commonwealth” here at Amazon.com.
Cradle of America
Peter Wallenstein’s Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History, published in 2007 and updated in a revised 2014 edition is a narrative that is consciously a three-pronged narrative of political, social and educational change among Virginia’s center about Richmond, its periphery and its African-Americans.
While the Colonial era is quickly accounted for, Virginia’s central role in nation building through the presidential Virginia Dynasty and as a “Mother of States” is much more developed. The Civil War era encompasses two chapters with up to date scholarship. Chapter 18, “Alternative Pasts”, addresses how Virginians have used the state’s history for a variety of purposes. Sidebars of vignettes and biographical sketches complement the well illustrated narrative. Indexes include lists of Virginia governors, U.S. Senators, presidential election returns and census reports.
Peter Wallenstein is a history professor at Virginia Tech. Buy “Cradle of America” here at Amzon.com.
Changing History: Virginia Women
“Changing History: Virginia Women Through Four Centuries” (2013) is written by three collaborators, each in their field of expertise. Cynthia A. Kierner wrote on the colonial and early national eras, Jennifer R. Loux contributed on the 1850s through Reconstruction, and Megan Taylor Shockley essayed the late nineteenth through twentieth centuries.
This historical narrative of Virginia women looks at the lives of all Virginia women emphasizing the intersection of race, class and gender. Though emphasizing women’s empowerment and developing a progressive account of the Virginian experience, historical inequities are documented for both women of color and those of low income status. Buy “Changing History” here on Amazon.com.
Virginia Women: A Share of Honor
Suzanne Lebsock wrote Virginia Women 1600-1945: “A share of honour” (1987) three years after the landmark exhibit of a similar title at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Drawing from social and ethno history, Lebsock’s account embraces a triracial society of Native American, Caucasian and African-American, especially distinguishing the white and black experience.
Women’s organizations throughout Virginia’s history have been significant both to the participants and to the communities they served. Buy Virginia Women 1600-1945: “A share of honour” here on Amazon.com
Pocahontas’s People
Pocahontas’s People:The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four Centuries (1991, 1996) by Helen C. Rountree is an ethnohistorian’s survey of the Algonquins of Virginia’s coastal plain. Rountree can be so inclusive because she defines the intertribal relationships among the common language group as having a “paramount chiefdom”.
More than half of the book chronicles the years from European contact to 1700. The narrative embraces the transitions caused by declines in population, territory and military power, from independent nations to settlement among the Virginian population and life on state reservations.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, even retaining ethnic identity was challenged. Rountree uses a descriptive continuum between core groups and the fringes influenced by “outsiders”. The story is carried into contemporary Indian life and Virginian public affairs.
The book also features maps of the changing Indian settlement over Virginia’s centuries. Learn more about “Pocahontas’s People” to buy it for your personal library at Amazon.com here. Rountree’s companion volume to this is “The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture” available at Amazon.com.
For more surveys of Virginia History, see the The Virginia Historian Book Club here.