Virginia Vignettes

An incident that dramatized the tensions generated by the transition from a rural to a progressive order in the early twentieth century occurred at Hillsville on 14 March 1912: the great Carroll County shootout. Floyd Allen, head of a clannish mountain family, had been charged with aiding his nephews escape from the sheriff’s deputies after [...]

In 1909 a few Virginia women organized the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia to educate Old Dominion citizens on the issue of woman suffrage. They were following the path blazed by two unsuccessful late nineteenth-century efforts to obtain the vote for women in Virginia. Rejecting radicalism for a more moderate approach, the suffragists capitalized on [...]

Despite Senator Harry Byrd’s opposition, the New Deal was very much in evidence in the Old Dominion. Its programs aided almost every segment of Virginia society, easing them through the calamity of depression. Because the commonwealth provided practically no money for relief, the federal programs deserve the credit for feeding and clothing Virginia’s needy. The [...]

Although Virginia’s balanced economy absorbed some of the shock of the crisis, the state was not “depression proof.” It was a time for rigid economizing on the farms. Many farmers stopped growing tobacco because it did not pay the fertilizer and marketing costs. Practically no agricultural machinery was purchased, and deterioration in buildings and equipment [...]