Virginia Vignettes

Not at all. Buck Fever is not a disease; rather, it was the pen name of Sherwood Anderson. The novelist, celebrated for Winesburg, Ohio (1919), moved to Marion in 1926, where he bought a small farm called Ripshin. Soon after, he also bought the Smyth County News and the Marion Democrat. As a newspaperman, Anderson [...]

Mary Johnston, born in Buchanan in 1870 and later a resident of Richmond, was a novelist, historian, playwright, suffragist and anti-lynching activist. Her 1900 novel To Have and To Hold broke existing publishing records by selling 60,000 copies in advance and more than 135,000 copies during its first week of publication. A romantic tale [...]

Besides being a University of Virginia graduate, Richmond lawyer, historian and genealogist, he was the 14th of U.S. president John Tyler’s 16 children. Tyler’s most important achievement, however, was the resuscitation of the College of William and Mary following the Civil War. The school had been dormant nearly seven years due to war damage and [...]

Lucy Randolph Mason. Born in Alexandria in 1882, Mason was also related to George Mason and John Marshall. After a conventional education in Richmond, Mason became an expert in industrial matters and a firm public advocate of collective bargaining and labor rights. It was this that drew her to the attention of John L. Lewis, [...]