Early Virginia Religious Petitions presents images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature between 1774 and 1802 from more than eighty counties and cities. Drawn from the Library of Virginia's Legislative Petitions collection, the petitions concern such topics as the historic debate over the separation of church and state championed by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the rights of dissenters such as Quakers and Baptists, the sale and division of property in the established church, and the dissolution of unpopular vestries. The collection provides searchable access to the petitions' places of origin and a brief summary of each petition's contents, as well as summaries of an additional seventy-four petitions that are no longer extant. The collection complements the Library of Congress exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic and is a collaborative venture between the Library of Congress and The Library of Virginia.

1973 - 1985 = Red; 1985 - 1990 = Yellow; 1990 - 1996 = Blue

1973 - 1985 = Red; 1985 - 1990 = Yellow; 1990 - 1996 = Blue

1973 - 1985 = Red; 1985 - 1990 = Yellow; 1990 - 1996 = Blue

1973 - 1985 = Red; 1985 - 1990 = Orange; 1990 - 1996 = Yellow

This animation follows Hurricane Isabel (2003) from its birthplace in the Ethiopian Highlands of East Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the United States. Atlantic hurricanes are often formed as winds over the Gulf of Aden intersect with the Ethiopian Highlands. This animation zooms into the Ethiopian Highlands and shows several storms being formed. Then, the animation dissolves in a reticle to focus in specifically on the formation of Hurricane Isabel. The reticle follows the storm across Africa and into the Atlantic. The path and intensity of Hurricane Isabel is depicted by a colored path. Blue represents the genesis of the storm. Green is a Tropical Depression where winds are less than 39 miles per hour. Yellow is a Tropical Storm where winds are between 39 and 73 miles per hour. Red is a category 1 hurricane where winds are between 74 and 95 miles per hour. Light Red is a category 2 hurricane with winds between 96 and 110 miles per hour. Magenta is a category 3 hurricane with winds between 111 and 130 miles per hour. Light magenta is a category 4 hurricane with winds between 131 and 154 miles per hour. White represents a category 5 hurricane where winds are greater than 155 miles per hour. Note how Isabel gains size and speed over the warm waters of the Atlantic.

These interactive exercises are designed to give users a taste of how Jamestown Rediscovery archaeologists do their work, these exercises illustrate the many methods archaeologists employ to identify and give context to their discoveries.

visits 65 historic places along 75 miles of Route 15 in Virginia's Piedmont. Stops include homes of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe; sites of some of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War; and other places that evoke the soldiers, statesmen, farmers, and slaves who fought, toiled, and governed there.

A Look Back at Braddock District is a local history, the story of a rural region in the heart of Fairfax County, Virginia, transformed over time into a sprawling suburb of Washington, DC. The memories of more than 50 Northern Virginia residents are captured in oral histories. Photographs, documents, maps and artifacts amplify these personal experiences and document growth and change in the area. The site offers lesson plans and activity ideas as well as other resources in a database. Explore tags listed in the resources section of the website for more search ideas.

This site recounts two Civil War battles fought in Manassas, Virginia. The first battle marked the first clash of the Northern and Southern armies. As the battle approached, enthusiastic young volunteers were confident the other side would run at the first shot. At day's end, nearly 900 men lay lifeless on the fields The second battle at Manassas took place a year later, in 08/1862. It covered three days, left 3,300 dead, and brought the Confederacy to the height of its power.

In this section of our site, we have endeavored to provide teachers and students with useful primary and secondary materials to help foster understanding of early America through the life of George Washington. These resources can work on several levels. First, the twelve slides themselves provide a general chronology of the life of George Washington as well as secondary information on the larger historical context. Ideally, this background material reiterates your own class text readings and discussion. From here we hope you'll link to the accompanying primary document and questions. Manuscripts like Washington's school book exercises, an address to the Senate, his will and others give students the chance to examine the life and times of a leading figure in American history firsthand and in greater depth. Finally, throughout the lessons, we've tried to communicate just what it is that "historians" do by referring to the editing process along the way and giving students a chance to try their own hand at a transcription.

Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia incorporates 718 excerpts from original sound recordings, 1,256 photographs, and 10 manuscripts from the American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-99) documenting traditional uses of the mountains in Southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley. Functioning as a de facto commons, the mountains have supported a way of life that for many generations has entailed hunting, gathering, and subsistence gardening, as well as coal mining and timbering. The online collection includes extensive interviews on native forest species and the seasonal round of traditional harvesting (including spring greens; summer berries and fish; and fall nuts, roots such as ginseng, fruits, and game) and documents community cultural events such as storytelling, baptisms in the river, cemetery customs, and the spring "ramp" feasts using the wild leek native to the region. Interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, environmental, and cultural contexts of community life, while a series of maps and a diagram depicting the seasonal round of community activities provide special access to collection materials.

Explores the extraordinary legacy of Thomas Jefferson as a founding father, farmer, slaveholder, scholar, diplomat, and the third president of the U.S. Learn about his country estate and family, his efforts to reform politics and law in Virginia, his influence on the creation of our federal government, his commitment to exploring and claiming western lands, his vast library, and more. See 150 items, including documents he relied on when drafting the Declaration of Independence.

The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes. The collection is organized into ten series or groupings, ranging in date from 1606 to 1827. Correspondence, memoranda, notes, and drafts of documents make up two-thirds of the Papers and document Jefferson's activities as a delegate to the second Continental Congress; his drafting of the Declaration of Independence, June-July 1776; his position as governor of Virginia, 1779-81; his return to Congress as a representative, 1783-84; and his appointment as minister plenipotentiary in Europe and then minister to the Court of Louis XVI, succeeding Benjamin Franklin, 1784-89. Well documented are his two administrations as president from 1801 through 1809, when he engineered the purchase of the Louisiana territory and maintained American neutrality in the conflict between France and Great Britain that led to the War of 1812. Correspondence, drawings, maps, and notes document the building of Washington, D.C. The broad range of Jefferson's intellectual and political interests is represented by his legal and literary commonplace books, miscellaneous bound volumes of notes and extracts, and manuscript volumes relating to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Virginia history, some of which were part of the personal library he sold to Congress in 1815. In its online presentation, the Thomas Jefferson Papers comprises approximately 83,000 images. This project is funded by Reuters America, Inc., and The Reuters Foundation.

tells the stories of three cities established after the Comstock Lode discovery in 1859 brought a reverse migration from California. The stories, told by this travel itinerary of 57 places, feature the mining and agricultural city now known for gaming, the remarkable collection of 19th-century buildings created with wealth generated by the Comstock Lode, and the state capital.

The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. Here you may explore thousands of original documents that allow you to see what life was like during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta and Franklin.

In this transcript of an interview for Eyes on the Prize, Vanessa Venable describes the impact of school closings in Prince Edward County, Virginia from 1959-1964.

This project provides teachers and students with free, online historical sources and instructional materials for teaching the history of the Great Depression in Virginia, using public schools as a case-study of how decision makers, the public, and educators responded to the crisis of the Depression.

The five educational modules available on this website address the following themes:

1. The Impact of the Depression on Virginia Public Schools
2. Who Should Bear the Burden? Public Opinion and School Policy in the Depression
3. Virginia Schools in Black and White: Enforcing Racial Lines in 1930s
4. Who Should Teach? Prohibitions on Married Women Teachers during the Depression
5. Teaching Civics in an Era of Crisis: Virginia's Curriculum during the Great Depression

Each module includes an introductory section, a set of primary source documents, and a conclusion with suggested assignments and list of additional resources.
These sections are designed for use by students at a variety of reading levels. Each module includes a teachers' guide and model lesson plans for immediate classroom applications in both a traditional and computer-based classroom and a table of SOL correlations by subject and grade.