Browse Items (1533 total)

Electricity meant everything from refrigeration to electric stoves and artificial lighting, and rural electrification radically altered the lives of rural women.

Zelma was the wife of William Shelton. They appear together in the second photo.…

Bushrod Michie was born into slavery and, after the war, lived near Poindexter. He was appointed to carry the mail to the area from Trevilians Depot around the turn of the century (1900).

Bushrod's son, Harry, became a member of the White House…

It appears from the poll registration book transcriptions that Mrs. Maude Maddox of Poindexter was the very first woman to register to vote in Louisa County. She actually registered in June of 1920 a bit before the 19th Amendment was ratified. …

Home demonstration clubs sprang up all across Virginia led by Home Demonstration Agents employed by the state. These groups became vital sources of female companionship, education about food preservation and productions, and how to create more…

Mamie Johnson talks about how her mother had to go out and find work to support her 6 children. There wasn't much work in the area that paid a living wage for her family.

Alma Mason talks about how after placing an order for food at a local drug store, her sister wasn't allowed to sit on a stool. When the man told Alma's sister she had to get up, Alma decided they would leave without getting the food they had ordered

Alma Mason talks about how black schools in Louisa didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity even after the white schools did . An education to the core, her love for her children comes through in her description of her long career in segregated…

Steve Fleming talks about how the Jim Crow laws governing public interactions were not always held to in private. Whites in the lower part of the county often socialized with African American men and women at so called Nip Joints. Everyone had a…

Josephine Fleming talks about being employed as domestic help in Richmond. She remarks on one of the most visible signs of the racial boundaries as she describes how she wasn't allowed to enter or leave through her employers front door, only the…

Josephine Fleming discusses how they learned about African American issues in the nation from the Afro newspaper. They learned about events involving Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Emmett Till that sparked the Civil Rights movement. Although…

Josephine Fleming talks about how being a maid was one of the very few jobs open to black women. She describes riding the bus into Richmond with the other maids and some of the conversations they often had on the bus returning home at the end of the…

James Braxton talks about his grandfather who was half indian and half white

Until 1877, married women in Virginia could not own property, so the size of their inheritance certainly made them consider marriage carefully.

Matriarch of the sisters was Clara Garland, born about 1800 and a 65 year old women at the end of the…

Angus Duncan comes back to visit his nanny, Ellen Hooker, who was born into slavery. Duncan keeps a life-long bond with this woman who helped to raise him. Race relations are many layered and often complex.

The Louisa Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was chartered in 1919 but its members had been at work for years to help honor those, living and dead, who served the Confederacy during the Civil War.

The UDC was instrumental in…

LeRoy S. Hughes is one of the few, proud Montford Point Marines. He’s also a Congressional Gold Medal recipient.

The 87-year-old Louisa native became one of the country’s first black Marines after President Roosevelt established a presidential…

When the comedic, yet poignant, movie “The Help” hit theaters and DVD, women of all ages and walks of life were driven to watch with a kind of frenzied urgency.

The film portrays young black women in the segregated south and the movie’s…