Virginia Vignettes

It began as the Belgian Pavilion and was built for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Designed by the Art Nouveau architect Henri Van de Velde, the structure and its distinctive, 161-foot tower were intended to be the centrepiece of a new university back in Belgium. But when the Nazis invaded, the pavilion became [...]

The famed Methodist bishop and Prohibitionist James Cannon Jr. was at one time one of the most powerful Democrats in Virginia. Then, in 1924, he opposed the Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith because of Smith’s wet, immigrant, Catholic supporters who were from, in Cannon’s words, “the sidewalks of New York.” Some charged the bishop with [...]

James Cannon Jr. was a bishop of the southern Methodist Church, a leader of Prohibitionists in Virginia and the nation, and a political activist of such skill and combativeness that he became one of the most famous, and deeply controversial, American figures of the early twentieth century. Best known as a relentless advocate of Prohibition, [...]

They were mad because of things he wrote as editor of Richmond’s Southern Literary Messenger. Poe began work at the journal in 1835, increasing its circulation, publishing his own stories and poems, and developing important contacts with the northern literary establishment. Still, Poe became best known for his caustic literary criticism, such as a December [...]