Virginia Vignettes

The secession of several Southern states and the coming of the Civil War set in motion the separation of Virginia’s westernmost part. It is no less true that western Virginia had always differed in terrain, cultural origins, and economic interests – notably in the decisively lesser sway of plantation slavery there.
Virginians faced an internal [...]

Indentured servants comprised some three-quarters or more of those making the overseas migration to Virginia in the early 1600s. Upon arrival, servants would be sold to a master for whom they would work off the debt of “transportation,” as the crossing was termed. The immigrants came from a range of social classes and backgrounds; [...]

In 1998 Congress declared Virginia the “birthplace of country music”-largely because of recordings made in Bristol, astride the Virginia-Tennessee border, in 1927. The foundations of Virginia’s music were laid over centuries of migration and interaction of peoples of African, European, and American Indian origin; but Bristol in 1927 represents a watershed.
Although playback machines and [...]